C6 tuning

Texas tuning: sixth chord.

C6 tuning is one of the most common tunings for steel guitar, both on single and multiple neck instruments. On a twin-neck, the most common set-up is C6 tuning on the near neck and E9 tuning on the far neck.

On a six-string neck, for example, on lap steel guitar, C6 tuning is most usually C-E-G-A-C-E, bass to treble and going away from the player. Some other six-string C6 tunings are:

• A-C-E-G-C-E.
• G-C-G-A-C-E.
• E-C-G-A-C-E.
• E-G-A-C-E-G.
• C-A-C-G-C-E

On an eight-string neck, for example, on table steel guitar, popular C6 tunings are:

• High C6 tuning A-C-E-G-A-C-E-G.
• Low C6 tuning either:
  • G-A-C-E-G-A-C-E.
  • F-A-C-E-G-A-C-E.

On a ten-string neck, typical of pedal steel guitars, a popular C6 tuning is C-F-A-C-E-G-A-C-E-G, adding two bass strings to the high eight-string tuning, or one string on either side of the F-bass low tuning. This is sometimes called the Texas tuning. Another frequent variant is the re-entrant C-F-A-C-E-G-A-C-E-D. Kayton Roberts, a famous steel guitar player, uses a modified C6 on his steel guitar's inside neck: A(low)-A-C#-E-G-A-C-E. On the outside neck he has F-C-Eb-G-F-A-C(though sometimes D)-F.

External links

• Steel guitar tunings indexes many tunings.