The British Steelies Society

Hi guys,
Could anyone recommend a good resource or book for learning C6 pedal western swing please? I know there are online subscription courses e.g. Paul Franklin that would cover this, but I am very very short of spare time so would prefer to make a one-off purchase and go at my own rate!
I have a photocopy of the Buddy Emmons Basic C6 course and the Doug Jernigan Nashville C6 course (bought from the forum - didn't realise they were knock-off copies until they arrived. That's another story for another day...) but these contain only a few pages of useful information and then hundreds of pages of tablature which is not particularly appealing to me.
I am particularly interested in chord construction / inversion if that makes a difference.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Sid

Thanks John, I am definitely overdue a visit to Davis Towers I'll be in touch very soon...

Hi Sid, I’ve been getting to grips with the C6th neck on-and-off over the last couple of years, and have looked at quite a few courses.

The best intro to Western Swing is Jeff Newman’s “C6th Workshop”, which then progresses to “C6th and Swinging”.

Herb Steiner has a free introduction to chords and pedals which is a good reference. http://herbsteiner.com/C6_essay.pdf

If you treat pedal 6 as your 4 chord from any open position (and 2 up from there as 5 chord) you start to have something similar to the E9/A&B pedals approach. Pedal 5 two below is Dom7. 5&6 pedals together (1 below) is a useful diminished. 90% of swing playing will be right there when combined with the non-pedal style such as: https://youtu.be/rARCcW3I0K4 (A6th but the principle is the same).

Richard Nelson has a fully comprehensive jazz theory course out which is fantastic. It may be overkill for simple swing playing but I’d highly recommend it anyway: https://www.learnc6jazz.com/

Have fun!

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan,
The 5 and 6 pedals between them seem to open up quite a few possibilities - I've found pedal 7 gives a 5 chord as well, which provides another option. I'll have a good look at the links you sent, and will see if I can get hold of the Jeff Newman material. I think for now I'll put jazz on hold though. I'm not averse to the idea of playing jazz, but it's just not something I'm likely to need to do, whereas the band I'm playing with would benefit from a bit more C6 western swing from me
Thanks again,
Sid

I’m in the same boat, I need just enough C6th to get by on a handful of quite easy tunes in the set. Once you get the feel it’s actually a lot harder to hit bum notes in C6th so that’s a plus!

Jonathan