The British Steelies Society

Like Henry, I recently decided to have a go at resonator guitar and bought a Gretsch Boxcar, nice enough to start and sensible price. I got thinking about tuning: GBDGBD is the standard, and sounds good, but you can't get decent minor chords and anything not plain vanilla requires bar slants. I had a think and wonder if anyone has tried GBDF#BD? I'd particularly appreciate views from the long-term specialists!

I think the more usual way to get a more minor tuning is to raise 4th string a tone for G6 tuning. Personally I stick with GBD and pick the best single note that I think fits over minor chords.

Nice idea Will.. I might try that out

I'd kind of been thinking I'd go a 6 tuning but have just gone with the standard dobro for the mo. Couldn't work out string gauges or whether to go A6 ,B6, G6.. etc

I was recommended to see if I could get a 7 string and have a 6 tuning and add a low relative minor root but 7 stringers are few and far between.

I've been trying to get along with harmonised 6th scales and not really doing much in the way of full chords..

I think the favourite alternate tuning is EBDGBD. Check out Greg Booth on youtube for a great user of this tuning. You can also get some minors by using open strings; Em with bar at the second fret, Bm at the fourth fret and Dm7 at the tenth fret. You can also get partial minor 7's,1-3-5 is, of course, also 3-5-7 of a minor7. After that it's two note partial chords. Please bear in mind, this is a dobro, not a steel guitar, and most playing is made up of single note runs, rolls and note pairs. You tend to imply a chord rather than sit on individual chords as you would on steel guitar. I moved to steel guitar from dobro a few months back and I'm still struggling with the different mindset you need.

I never "got on" with the standard G high bass (lo to hi - GBDGBD) because of that huge gap between the pitches of the 3rd and 4th strings. So I use BDEGBD - which is a G6th. I still have some typical licks on the top 3 strings and gain a number of advantages by use of open and barred stings together. And if you can get a half tone string bend on the second string, that opens up a load more stuff. Getting hold of a 7string guitar gave me back the bottom G, but that's another story.

I use A6 on my Dobro -same as on my lap steels - which is exactly the same intervals as Tony's G6 but everything a tone higher.

I've found it to be pretty versatile.

Thanks to Jazzphil for the thoughts there, I do understand what you say about 1-3-5 of one chord is 3-5-7b of another - but you still don't get that 3-semitone gap from the 1 to the 3 that to my ear signals minor. The stuff I see on YouTube openly concedes that you can only imply a minor, but it's a distant and ambiguous suggestion of the sound I want to hear.

I think I like Tony's idea of G6, maybe I'll give that a go. I do of course understand that one doesn't play a dobro in a chordal sense, but uses rolls, slides etc. But I still want to be able to play 2 notes together with a 3-semitone interval between them sometimes, without moving the bar. I could always cheat and stick with the PSG and one of those fancy pedals.....

Will C wrote:. I could always cheat and stick with the PSG and one of those fancy pedals.....

That's an idea Will, but you can't stick it under your arm and take it to the pub to meet a few mates for some music!

Just for completeness, you got me thinking when you said 3 semitone gap. B - D is, of course, a 3 semitone gap so there are a couple more minors available using string 4 and 5 barred and open strings Cm at fret 1, Em again at fret 5 and Gm at fret 8.

Yep, I know about that approach, but it is a bit restrictive in that you cannot transpose with that method unless you retune. I guess it's a matter of deciding which compromise you accept - there will always be one at least.