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Tabs & Lesson
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"Nashville with a Tan" |
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Lesson by: |
Jeff Fiorentino |
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Performed by: |
Jeff Fiorentino |
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Transcribed by: |
Jeff Fiorentino |
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Produced by: |
Jeff Fiorentino, & Kelly Ross |
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| Copyright © 2008 JFRocks All rights reserved | |
Lesson -
The Video is a must for this lesson.
PLEASE open the video lesson and use the text on this page as a
work along with the video.
I've received many questions over the years about the Nashville tunings, and the Nashville numbers system. People tell me that they're confused by the information that's available online for these tunings and concepts. Well as usual I'm glad to help clear some things up for everyone, and also not just give you a run of the mill guitar lesson, but something a little more innovative and creative than that.
Here in this lesson text section
I'm going to talk about these tunings and give you some examples of them.
However for our lesson and on the video we're going to get innovative with
things and move outside the box a bit. You see once you understand how
something works, you can then innovate off of it and take it in new directions,
or try new things with it. Hence my entire website with our Beyond VH and
Vin Heuton VH style lessons. In those I work very hard to teach about the
styles of your favorite artists so that you may innovate off those styles and
take them further.
What's a Nashville tuning: Well first off a Nashville tuning has nothing to do with the Nashville number system. A Nashville tuning is generally a Lap or Pedal Steel tuning. These guitars generally have either 6 or 8 or 10 strings. There are 3 main tunings 1 of which is actually called a "Texas" tuning but ZEPPELIN and many others' have used it so it's worth you knowing about it. (see chart below)
| Tuning | Number of Strings | Pitches - Low to High | Notable use |
| Hi string Nashville | Standard High string Nashville | hi E, hi A, hi D, hi G, B, E | ** Everly Brothers - see note below |
| Hi 3rd string tuning | Standard with G 1 octave higher | E, A, D, hi G, B, E | ** Everly Brothers - see note below |
| E9 Nashville | 10 String Steel | B, D, E, F♯, G♯, B, E, G♯, D♯, F♯ | Pink Floyd's "Hey You" |
| E9 Western Swing | 8 String Steel | E, G♯, B, D, F♯, G♯, B, E | |
| E7 Nashville | 6 String Steel | B, D, E, G♯, B, E | |
| E6 Nahsville | 6 String Steel | E, G♯, B, C♯, E, G♯ | |
| C6 Nash / Texas | 10 String Steel | C, F, A, C, E, G, A, C, E, G | |
| C6 Nash / Texas | 6 String Steel | C, E, G, A, C, E or C, A, C, G, C, E | The 2nd one used by ZEP on "Friends" |
** When doing the Standard 6
string "High string Nashville tuning" or the
"Hi 3rd string Nashville tuning" on a regular acoustic or
electric guitar some customization in string gauges need to be done.
Typically what happens is you buy a set strings for a 12 string guitar.
Take the 6 thinner ones out of the set and install them on the 6th, 5th, 4th,
and 3rd strings and tune them 1 octave higher than normal, so in other words a
higher E, A, D, G, and leave the regular 2nd and 1st string on and tuned as
normal. This was a tuning that can be heard on many "Everly Brothers"
tracks. Tracks like "Wake up little suzie" and "Bye Bye love"
are trademarked in sound by this tuning. It's only one of many Nashville
style tunings but it is one that most players use when using a regular 6 string
guitar. This tuning makes for a fantastic overdub guitar in the studio by
the way...
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For our lesson here we're going to be a little
innovative. I keep using that word, but you know all it means is
"creative" and all it requires is a little thought. Both of which I enjoy
teaching, doing, and encouraging... So you see all these tunings up there
for 10 string steel guitars, and 8 string steel guitars. Well for the most
part you can use those on your regular 6 string, you just need to select 6
pitches to tune to, and off you go. You can actually get several tunings
off of 1 example this way.
For example let's say I have a 6 string acoustic guitar and I want to work with the "E9 Western Swing style" tuning. Well,,, OK... That tuning is for an 8 string Pedal Steel guitar, and it consists of the pitches; E, G#, B, D, F#, G#, B, E. We only have 6 strings so we need to ask ourselves what pitches make up an E9 chord. Well an E9 chord is made up of a Root, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, dominant 7th. So for "E" that would be an, E, F#, G#, B, and D. Se we technically need all 5 of those notes in our chord for it to be a true open E9 Nashville style tuning... So how do we pick the 6th note, we've got 5 already covered from the chord, but we have 6 strings.... (See Jeff's rule of thumb below)
Jeff's rule of thumb: The secret is actually in the pitch order. It's best to not stretch the strings too much, so my rule of thumb when innovating off of these 8 and 10 string pedal tunings is to look at the root chord of the tuning, in this case "E9" and use the pitch order that makes the most sense for each string. In this case the least amount of tuning flux for each string is "Root, 3rd, Dom 7th, 2nd, 5th, Root.". This makes the tuning that we're going to use; E, G#, D, F#, B, E.
Remember, the original 8 string tuning is, E, G#, B, D, F#, G#, B, E. We simply switch things around and picked the 5 most important notes from that tuning, a.k.a. the 5 pitches that make up the E9 chord, and arranged the notes in a logical order that makes for the least amount of re-tuning. ** (Yellow represents the original E9 Western Swing tuning, & Blue highlight represents our note choices and order). E, G#, B, D, F#, G#, B, E E, G#, D, F#, B, E
It's not rocket science but you
do need to think for a minute to do it. However you can create some very
innovative music off of a tuning concept made popular by Nashville studio guys.
A key thing to remember is that you don't want your strings too tight or too
loose generally, it's not only bad for the neck of your guitar but the strings
tend to go out of tune more easily if they're too far out of whack..
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What we're going to
do with our lesson here is mess with what I call a "Modal style" Nashville like
tuning, this is a favorite of a studio friend of mine. This is one
that's modeled after a couple things and works great on a standard 6 string
acoustic or electric guitar. This tuning is a repeating E5 tuning, but the
3rd string's pitch is 1 octave down, and matches the 2nd string's pitch...
E,
B, E, low B, B, E This
tuning gives an almost 12 string effect, but with the fullness and power of a
big power chord, and it's very easy to use and quite versatile..
| Tuning: E, B, E, low B, B, E This is a fun Nashville inspired tuning to use on a standard 6 string guitar. This is actually an embellished take off on an "open E" tuning, but it gives a nicer effect I think. It's more of the effect you can get with the E7 6 string Nashville tuning. In fact this tuning here can be turned into an easily usable E7 tuning by tuning the 4th string to "D" instead of E. Generally the traditional 6 string E7, and E6 tunings are better suited to Steel guitars. But feel free to tinker with them on your standard guitar too, as I've already talked about earlier in this lesson... Let's look at some basic
chord and scale shapes to use with this tuning.. E5 E6 E sus4 E sus2 E7 E7 v2 E7 v3 E9 E9 v2 E9 v3 E Maj E Maj7 E Maj7 v2
E___0______0______0_____0_____0_____0_____3____0____4____4_____0____0____4____
Em Em v2 Em7 Em7 v2 Em7 v3 etc...
E___0____3____0_____3____0_________________________
Simple /
Common scale shapes you can use with this tuning..
E Pentatonic minor:
E, G, A B, D
E________________________________0_3_5________
E Pentatonic minor:
E, G, A B, D
E____________________________________0_3_5_7__
E____________________________0_3_5_7_10_12__________________________________
Example Song TABs
E5
E____0_____12h_____7h_____5h____5h____
Single guitar sounding opener Em D
E_________________________________________________
Em
E_________________________________________________
Double guitar sounding portion
D
E_________________________________________________
Em
E_________________________________________________
Triple guitar sounding portion D E5
E____________________________________________________
Em
E_________________________________________________
Bridge/turnaround E5 Em7 E5 F# G
E_________0______0_0_0_____________________
E5 Em7 E5 F# E
E_________0______0_0_0_____________________
E5 Em7 E5 F# G A
E_________0______0_0_0______________________
Em7/D E6/C# Em6/C E E5
E___________________________________________
Triple guitar sounding portion ending Em D E5
E____________________________________________________
Em A G F# E
E_______________________________________________5h__
End |
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Copyright © 2008 JFRocks All rights reserved.