Shot tuned his to E major: E G# B E G# B E

The most natural tuning for any acoustical guitar is E. On a Spanish guitar, an E cord gives the instrument's full tonal quality.

If you are playing a dobro with Bluegrass, E will work fine, except for the open G stuff that sounds like a b*anjo anyway.

Oddly enough, Kenny Haddock, a fine dobro player, when on the Country Gentleman's sessions, played some licks similar to Shot's, but in a G tuning.(Starday "If That's the Way You Feel", I Know That's I've Lost You", "Willie Roy", to name a few). Kenny is still an avid Shot fan.

Shot played some Bluegrass sessions as well, in E. One with the Osborne Bros (MGM, 4 tracks) and another session with Roy Clark and several sessions (over 20 tracks)with the Louven Bros.in their final days. Check it out and see how well E can work with Bluegrass.

But for those who wish to sound like everybody else, it may not be worth the effort. Playing in E is a little different than playing in G.

If Bluegrass is not your bag, you'll find that an E tuning will give you a great number of possibilities.

What kind of 7-string do you have?

I had an 8-stringer that didn't make it with the C6 tuning tone-wise, so I went to the G6 listed above. Much better, IMHO, for the "dobro" sound.

If you want the C6 sound, go with (low to high) A C E G A C E

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

It also raises the question as to the preasure caused to the neck and resonator that a first string would bring, even an .011 or .012, tuned up to G.

BTW, Pete Kirby (Oswald) does (did) use that A tuning.

If you want to play fiddle tunes and ountry and bluegrass tunes _and_ want to take advantage of the deep sound of that ShoBro, try:

D F# A D F# A D

It's a whole step lower than Shot's E tuning