pedal steel tunings and temperaments

Bill Alves wrote:
>One I know of is Chas Smith, whose recordings on the Cold Blue label in the
>mid-80s were great. I heard him live around the same time here in LA. I
>haven't heard from him since, though. His stuff reminded me a lot of La
>Monte Young, though if I remember right his pieces were all in 12TET.

I have one of his recordings, and it sounds like a regular Nashville E9th
tuning in JI to me. That's the traditional way the instrument is tuned.
See my article at http://wco.com/~quasar/articles/just_e9.html

Paul H. Erlich wrote:
>Sometimes a chord like GBDEA occurs, not only in
>passing in music but also in tuning the open strings of a slide guitar, and
>the only way for all the consonant intervals to sound good is to use a
>meantone temperament. Strict JI will not work (try it!). JI is but one
tuning
>system (actually, several) and has its defects just like any other.

One of my steel guitar necks is tuned to a C Pentatonic, and of course I was
struct with the same dilemma. I use a meantone temperment on that neck. I
actually only use JI on my Hawaiian (non-pedal) steel guitars.

Jerry Byrd has recorded extensively on his C diatonic Hawaiian guitar
tuning. The 7 string tuning, low to high, is E F G A B C E. Notice how he
omits the D note, making the instrument quite tunable "by ear". He says
that it was the last innovative tuning he developed, and that he started
using it on records in Nashville in 1952. That sweet intonation sold a lot
of hit country records!

The most stunning use of the C Diatonic is his "Steel Guitar Romantic
World", a collection of Japanese pop songs. The accompaning orchestra is
12TET, but Byrd's solos are inspirational and JI of course.

-b0b-

// quasar@wco.com
// http://wco.com/~quasar


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