Comping chords with C13 tuning (Jules Ah See tuning) – Rhythm Changes

Posted on April 13, 2019 by Mike Neer

One of the distinct beauties and advantages of the Jules Ah See C13 tuning, which I use almost exclusively, is the availability of options for playing chord changes in a jazz guitar style. To clarify a bit further, comping chords in Jazz very often involves chord voicings which are abbreviated by leaving out several unnecessary chord tones, but using just enough to imply the intended harmony. In this approach we begin to understand the similarities between many of the chords we’re playing and often substitute one for another, enabling us to stay in position and avoid having to jump up and down the neck for each chord change.

The low C string (string 8) was brilliantly added to the tuning and really establishes a great uniqueness in its ability to deal with bass notes, which are most often avoided on steel guitar–but then again, so is chord comping, so we’re really exploring fresh territory here. In musical situations including a bass player, we would be wise to avoid using too many bass notes and walking bass patterns. But getting these changes under your bar will prove very useful in other situations, such as duos.

What I have notated and tabbed below is essentially the chord changes to the composition I Got Rhythm by George and Ira Gershwin (frequently called ‘Rhythm Changes’ by Jazz musicians). This, along with the Blues are two of the essential song formats for Jazz and knowledge and mastery of them is crucial. In the example I have provided, you will see that there are many chord changes that fall outside of the song’s usual substituted harmony, which is essentially (A) I vi ii V7, I vi ii V7, I I7 IV #IVdim V7 I, (B) III7 VI7 II7 V7, and then repeat (A) section. In my example, the first A section is straightforward, the second A section touches on a few substitutions from Coltrane changes, and the third A section uses a substitution often employed by Thelonious Monk: a descending cycle of chromatic dominant 7th chords beginning on the bVI (Gb).

Give this a go if you can. The rhythm is based on Red Garland’s comping rhythm, which was taught to me by Mike Stern and is one of the most valuable things I’ve ever learned from anyone. The tuning is (from high to low): E, C, A, G, E, C, Bb, C

Most of these chords are very easy to play in this tuning. An important task is getting good accuracy with the right hand, which comes with lots of practice, but it does come, I promise. Another important element is slanting. In this example you’ll see many unusual slants, such as the min9 chords in measures 6 and 8, but they can be played and played in tune. I do notice that it is a little easier to play many of these slant voicings in tune on my steels with tighter string spacing, but I can still manage on my other guitars with wider spacing. The fact that these chords do not ring out is also an important key to the sound. The sound should just be nice, clear stabs that are in tune. See the video below for an example.

Playing complex (jazzy) lines on lap steel and how to approach them

Posted on January 21, 2019 by Mike Neer

If you have an interest in playing jazzy lines in almost any context, then it is important to realize that there is going to be a lot of bar movement and the need for coordination with the picking hand. Many of the lines that you hear in jazz utilize chromatic notes and scales such as the melodic minor, harmonic minor, augmented and diminished (octatonic) scales. Approaching these types of lines and scales on a lap steel is extremely challenging. I have written two books which were meant as guides to opening up new approaches to playing these types of scales and lines, Bebop Lap Steel Guitar, which uses bebop heads to introduce new strategies for approaching these lines in C6 tuning as well as some simple but informative scale patterns, and Steelin’ Scales and Modes, which introduces a simple system of looking at scales in four note groups called tetrachords. Both books were written from my perspective and are largely the way I look at playing steel guitar in this context. I believe these books to be worthy of your attention.

There are definitely a lot of players who have no interest in this sort of thing and don’t believe the instrument was made to be played this way. To them I say, do your thing, man, I’ll do mine. Or maybe there are naysayers who have attempted to play jazz on lap steel but find that the music suffers from the challenge of playing fast lines. This is somewhat true–it is extremely challenging to do and there is a steep learning curve. While the lap steel may seem novel in a setting with jazz musicians, you are still expected to be able to hang on some level, and that means having your chops and your ideas together. Nothing is going to make that happen except for some serious, dedicated practice. I spend a lot of time these days simply playing heads and lines along with a metronome. I start off slowly, trying to look at little blocks of the line and figuring out the most sensible place to play each part of the line. I may change the way a play a little four or five note sequence several times before I arrive at the most efficient and effective way to play it. A lot of it has to do with what follows or comes before–the whole line has to be able to flow together, and the fingers and bar need to find their positions smoothly. Any inability to do that smoothly results in either dodgy pitch, fumbling fingers, and a loss of rhythmic continuity.

I have recently been undertaking some of the most challenging music I’ve ever played, and that is the music of Lennie Tristano and the musicians who are strongly associated with him (Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz, Sal Mosca, Jimmy Halperin, Connie Crothers, Ted Brown). The music is not really new for me, but actually delving into playing this challenging music on lap steel is. Lennie and company often wrote new melodies or lines over the chord changes and forms of standards. This was something Lennie did with his students and some of those tunes have become very popular among musicians. Perhaps the most challenging piece I’ve arranged for steel guitar as of this time is the tune “Wow” written by Lennie over his reharmonized changes for the tune You Can Depend On Me. The melody is progressive, not quite bebop, but not exactly not bop, and the lines are long. However, the bridge is where the title Wow came from. It is all doubled up into sixteenth notes and in harmony among the tenor and alto, and the line flows effortlessly over the bar line. My first reaction about playing this tune was that it was impossible, but I wanted to give it a crack anyway. I worked hard at getting through the A and B section of the tunes, and could just about play them in tempo with the recording, which I think is somewhere around 160-170 bpm. Then came the bridge–wow, indeed. I struggle to play the bridge beyond 100-110 bpm, though the first few bars of it come a little easier for me.

I’d like to share with you my tab for the tune Wow and if you are so inclined, you might be able to see how I approach playing some of this tricky stuff. The one goal is to always make it sound good, and not to sound like I am struggling to play it. That may come in time, or maybe not. But I do believe that with the tab you see here, I have put forth my best possible effort to make it playable and I will continue to practice it daily with a metronome until I am comfortable enough to play the arrangement of it that I hear in my head.

Have a look. I’ve excluded the chord changes on the chart and I am have only included the upper harmony part on the bridge. Also, I did not include any right hand picking designations, as this is something I am still working on, and well, you should figure it out for yourself. There are also a number of slides that I intentionally left out of the tab, but I use a fair share of them.

First, here is the tune:

A simple string pulling exercise that will change your life!

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Mike Neer

If you play C6 tuning with an E first string, you know how difficult it can be to play harmony in 3rds on strings 1 and 2 (E and C). This is especially true if you play a longer scale neck, like I do.

The reverse slants required to achieve a minor third interval can be daunting, cumbersome, not easily pitched, and have a distinct whine or ‘meow’, which is in essence almost like a sitar effect where a longer than necessary part of the bar is making contact with a string.

In the short video, you can hear the effectiveness of subtle string pulling to make a more seamless transition than with reverse slants on the adjacent strings 1 and 2 (E and C). This is a trick I use to get a pedal steel-esque sound sometimes when I need to. A volume pedal comes in really handy, too.

This type of exercise needs to be learned in every key using every scale. That seems like a big demand, but it really isn’t if you dedicate a few minutes per day to doing it. It becomes second nature in time.

I don’t want to get too deep into explaining the process, but do your best to make every pull sound in tune and learn to feel the difference in string tension as you move further up the neck.

This tab for the top 2 strings in C6 tuning for an F Major scale, which is what I used in the video. The ‘p’ next to a number indicates a 1/2 step pull.

Talking Steel Guitar with Joel Paterson, Part 1

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Mike Neer

Joel Paterson is a helluva musician. He is widely recognized as a guitarist in the Rockabilly, Jazz, and Blues styles from his associations with Chicago groups like Devil In A Woodpile, Jimmy Sutton’s Four Charms, Kelly Hogan’s Wooden Leg, and his own Modern Sounds trio, as well as touring and recording with artists like Dave ‘Honey Boy’ Edwards, Wanda Jackson, and Carl ‘Sonny’ Leyland. But Joel also plays steel guitar. And he plays it really well. How did a young guitarist from Madison, WI migrate to Chicago, become one of the Windy City’s most respected guitarists, and then take on an instrument like the steel guitar? Joel shed some light on how he was able to learn how to play steel guitar despite his guitarist proclivities and he offered up some great advice on how to do the same. For what it’s worth, it’s some damn good advice….

Mike: Joel, I really like your Steel Is Real CD a lot–it really showcases your playing in a wide variety of styles and I guess that’s a testament to who you are as a musician…

Joel: Well, thanks. Part of that is because there’s not really a Country scene here in Chicago anymore —I think there used to be back in the day. I used to take pedal steel lessons from this guy named Ken Champion, who’s a great teacher, and he said back in the day you could work almost every night playing in the Country bars in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but that’s totally died out. When I started playing steel, I’d been a guitar player for years and I had my own bands, so when I started playing steel I wasn’t really influenced by a scene or a certain style. I just kind of used it to do everything I liked.

We tried to come up with some different things on that record so people would like it—not just steel guitar players. There are a lot of great steel guitar records that I love, like Curly Chalker’s “Big Hits On Big Steel”—I think it’s the greatest record ever, but you play that for the average person and they can’t stand it. We tried to make something that somebody who doesn’t know anything about steel could just put it on and enjoy it.

M: Well, the record you mentioned, as well as some of the other great steel records we could cite were recorded 40-50 years ago….

J: That’s a sound I love, but I guess a lot of people don’t….

M: When someone asks, “What are the greatest steel guitar records, you’re always going to go back to Jimmy Day, Lloyd Green….

J: Golden Steel Guitar Hits, that’s one of my favorites—yeah, Big Steel Guitar and Hit Sounds— the one with the Little Darlin’ instrumentals. I guess there hasn’t really been that much because there’s never really been a budget for steel guitar music and, especially these days, there’s zero budget. So, in that way, when I did my steel guitar record, it’s homemade, so you can call all the shots and do whatever you want.

M: What was it that made you want to play steel guitar in the first place?

J: Well, it’s kind of funny—like I said, I’ve been playing guitar since I was about 14 or so back in the ‘80s and I started off just obsessed with ‘20s and ‘30s Country Blues, Ragtime finger picking guitar and later on ‘50s Chicago Blues and that stuff, and that’s all I played. Then I slowly developed this interest in jazz through Charlie Christian, guys like that. It took me years to be a passable Jazz guitarist. It was just one of things where I’d wandered into a music store in Wisconsin and they had one of those cheap Sho-Bud/Fender beginner models from the ‘70s. I didn’t know anything about it—I just bought it for $500 from this guy and it was like, “Cool, I have a pedal steel!” I had no idea how it works and I wasn’t even into Country. I was a professional guitar player at this point, but I was totally lost on this thing.

Luckily, somebody told me about Ken Champion and I took lessons right away and I’m glad I did. I pretty much went right for lessons because I had no idea how to even set the thing up.

M: That was a pretty smart move—you probably could have done yourself more harm than good, which is what happened to someone like me….

J: That’s what I’d recommend for any steel player really. I was lucky that it was Ken Champion, who isn’t a guy who says, “Just play this…” and teaches you a bunch of hot licks that you can’t digest. He’s a very methodical teacher who started from square one and he wrote out great exercises.

So, I immediately got into Country and the first thing I liked was those Buck Owens records and Tom Brumley was probably my first steel hero. He was a little more accessible than trying to learn Buddy Emmons right away.

Another reason I’d recommend lessons right away is that, as a guitar player he told me how to mute the strings, how to angle the finger picks and how to hold the bar and this stuff that’s very unnatural for a guitar player. At first, you’re fighting every instinct. Almost everything you do right on the guitar is wrong on the steel.

M: You said you came from a Country Blues background, so you had your finger picking together….

J: Back in the day, all I wanted to be was Blind Blake and Blind Boy Fuller. I joined a Rockabilly and they were like, “Oh, you’re a great Rockabilly player,” I guess because it sounded like Scotty Moore and Chet Atkins. I already knew how to finger pick and knew how to do alternate thumb picking—I guess that is a benefit for playing steel that you move your 3 fingers with some independence.

Listen: Walkin’ Ten Strings – Joel Paterson

M: That was one thing that I can hear you manage to bring over from the guitar—you’ve got the Travis-picking goin’ on.

J: Yeah, I heard Buddy Emmons do that on Rose City Chimes and was like, “What is that?” You have to have C6 and you kind of have to have a pedal steel with Emmons set up to do that stuff. I’m not so good at sitting there and transcribing his stuff—it would have taken me all day—so I just kind of fumbled around and took the stuff that I do on guitar and found it on the steel. It’s cool to Travis pick on C6.

M: One of things that was really difficult for me was that I was constantly trying to connect the dots between the the two instruments (guitar and steel) to get it to make some sense—I didn’t have a teacher and there was no one to turn to, because I didn’t know anyone who played steel. It took me a while before I realized that I needed to look at things in a different way. I was always trying to conjure up some special tuning that would make it easier, and I went through a ton of them, but ultimately I just felt that was a waste of time.

J: Well, I wouldn’t say that anything is a waste of time, but I know what you mean. It’s frustrating even when you do have a teacher because you want to jump ahead. I was already playing gigs and I made my living as a musician and I wanted to be able to gig with this thing right away. And technically, you’ve got to get a handle on your equipment—it’s not like you can just go down to the pedal steel store and get the perfect pedal steel.

I pretty much knew I was into Western Swing, so I knew I needed C6, so I pretty much went looking for a doubleneck—I went through a few. I’ve got a 1970 black Emmons now and I’m pretty much set for life. Aside from the technique there’s all this technical stuff. I’m not one of these tinkerers who can get under the hood and mess with the pedals. I was lucky to have a genius repair guy here in town named Dave Peterson set up my steels so I could jump right in. The other thing was pretty much right away I tried to force myself to play gigs, even though I was almost a beginner.

M: There’s nothing like being on the hot seat….

J: Steel is the kind of instrument you practice at home and come up with little arrangements at home and it all goes out the window on a gig.

M: I’ve watched a few of your YouTube videos and I’m really impressed with the way you’ve been able to compartmentalize both instruments and achieve that kind of level on both. You use a great amount of dynamics and expression in your playing.

J: Oh, thank you.

M: Did you start playing lap steel a little later on?

J: No, pretty much right away. I bought my single neck about the same time I got a lap steel. I started learning C6 on the lap steel before I got a hold of a doubleneck pedal, because I knew I wanted to play that. I think it helped, too, to learn the C6 map and some of the little chords. C6 is not like E9—when you play single note solos, you don’t have to use the pedals and you can play a lot of stuff.

M: What were you doing to learn C6?

J: Well, a lot of it was me learning to play by ear and fumbling around trying to learn licks I already knew on guitar like the back of my hand. I wanted to learn some single note, swingy stuff on C6, so I started fooling around with that. I listened to a lot of Jerry Byrd and Jimmy Day. Jerry Byrd, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” that’s a good place to start. That Jimmy Day record, Golden Steel Guitar Hits—I love that record for C6. You can play a lot of that stuff on lap, aside from some of the chord solos. A lot of the single note stuff and melodies are kind of old-fashioned Western Swing.

M: He was really slick. Some of the stuff he pulled out of the air, some of his chordal work—he was really greasy, a really funky cat.

J: I’m glad that record got me, that’s one of my 2 favorite records. It’s just a bible of licks. Steel And Strings(Jimmy Day) is a great record for learning E9 melodies. I’ve kind of mellowed out over the years–I just want to play nice melodies, nice chord stuff, single note stuff here and there–definitely more like Jimmy Day than Buddy Emmons. I’m never going to be a bebopper on the steel, though I love that stuff….

M: I get really inspired listening to Curly Chalker and he how brought the whole piano block chord thing to his steel playing. It just makes me want to hunt all those chords down on the lap steel.

J: The trick with the lap steel is having a good band–you can play 2 and 3 note version of chords, sort of hint at chords. You don’t need to contort yourself to play some gigantic chords.

You can tell that Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day had a background in playing non-pedal Western Swing, Jerry Byrd stuff. I think that directly influenced how they set up the C6 neck.

M: Did you have anyone who introduced you to music like Western Swing in depth?

J: No, not really. I learned a lot of stuff on the Steel Guitar Forum. I kind of take it for granted. I used to go on there a lot and that was a great education, hearing people talk about certain guys and thinking, “Oh, I gotta check that guy out.” I tried to piece together a collection–I mean, I was stuck in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, I still kind of am. It all kept coming back to the same people: Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day, Lloyd Green, Jerry Byrd.

M: The forum has been pretty invaluable for me. It was the first time I was able to get any kind of information.

What kind of lap steel do you play?

J: The only one I could never bear to sell is a 1936 Gibson EH-150, 7 string. I’ve had a few Fenders but I never could get comfortable with them. I got really attached to the 7 string tuning for C6 and also the wide spacing. I use C6 with a high G (G E C A G E C). I wanted to learn that Jimmy Day record Golden Steel Hits and all those Western Swing melodies–it’s nice to have that high G on there.

What I like about the 7 string tuning is you have the high G and then you have the root on the bottom. It’s a nice symmetrical thing. I could never figure out what to do with C6 on a 6 string….

M: I think at that point is where tunings like C6/A7 come in handy.

J: Is that with an E on top?

M: Yes, and then there’s always just C6….

J: If I had a 6 string with a high G on top, then my 6th string would be a third (E)–it’s nice to have a root on the bottom. I like having 7 strings better than 8. I didn’t feel like I needed that extra string on there.

M: On your Steel Is Real recording there’s a lot of dynamics and a lot of it has to do with your right hand, but you’ve got a really in-your-face sound on the recording. What kind of amp did you use?

J: Well, that was a Twin Reverb on that for that pedal steel and Princeton Reverb for the lap steel. We recorded that record all in the same room together, in a little circle, with tons of bleed. That’s why it sounds like an old recording. I didn’t want to sound like we were in different rooms playing with headphones on. The steel, bass and drums were all recorded live and I went back later and added some guitar to compliment it. We tried to keep the volume down, my amp was 2 1/2, maybe 3 and the bass was played acoustically.

M: Are you particular about speakers?

J: Not really, I just need something that I can lift and won’t blow. My problem for years was trying to find an amp that works for steel and guitar, because sometimes I’m switching back and forth every other song. It’s a good thing to do–it kind of gets you out of your comfort zone so you’ll have to adjust on the fly.

M: Once in a while you get lucky enough and find a magic amp that sounds good at any volume. I had a Twin Reverb like that with JBL K120s.

J: It can be like a wild goose chase.

Go to Part 2

Lap Steelin'

Mike Neer's repository of steel guitar geekery

Tag: lap steel

Comping chords with C13 tuning (Jules Ah See tuning) – Rhythm Changes

Playing complex (jazzy) lines on lap steel and how to approach them

A simple string pulling exercise that will change your life!

Talking Steel Guitar with Joel Paterson, Part 1