Open minor tunings for Lap Steel

[Rich Arnold]

Just to point out that GBDGBD = a Bm#5 chord . . .

LOL! That stuff drives me nuts! "Who's on 1st?"

Here's a dobro tune. Tuned to G minor. Johnny Bellar.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15pFKZPcbvk

[Paul Seager]

I've been playing open G on a National Tricone for about a year now, largely because I attend monthly bluegrass meetups.
Recently I've explored accompanying myself on vocal tunes with the National and minor tunings become more relevant.

Starting from open G, I am using the following minor variations:

• - Drop string 2 to Bb. Gives you a split of G Maj and G min.
  - Drop both G's to F#. Gives a B min.
  - Drop string 6 to E. This gives a E min7. Just to intercept posts that this is technically a G6, it doesn't feel like G6. It works more like a split tuning of E min7 and G.

What I've learnt from this process is, one adapts a tuning to fit the music and not find music to fit a tuning. Quite often I start working on a song with one of the above variations and then realise that I need to change it, adapt, because the song needs it. Progress is slow but thoroughly enjoyable. I currently have 8 songs, all covers,  in a "sketch" format and I'm almost resistant to the idea of finalizing them - I'm learning so much from the exercise!

[John Chadwick]

I have a Homespun video lesson called Slide Guitar for Blues: Lap Style that has a fairly in-depth section on playing in open D Minor tuning. This would be Open D with the F# tuned down to F. Although there are obvious limitations to tuning this way, the lesson certainly makes a great case for the expressiveness of the tuning for use in minor-key blues, and shows how some interesting ways to make major chords by using the bar on the lower strings and letting the higher strings ring open. Very haunting stuff, and yes, as someone said above, it brings Skip James to mind.