A7th Pedal Steel Guitar Tuning

       I retuned my Nashville C6th on my D-10 pedal steel to an A7th tuning years ago, because I wanted more of a Hawaiian flavor on my steel. I now have an A7th with the strings open. The G note completes the dominant 7th chord. By just lowering the C's with my 7th pedal, I have a C6th tuning (F# notes). With the 7th pedal down (i.e., G's lowered to F#'s), you have an A6th open. If you are considering doing the same to your guitar, that is, turning it into an A7th instead of C6th, it is simple to do and shouldn't take much time if you have a user-friendly undercarriage. I recommend removing all the pull-rods and starting from scratch to avoid a lot of confusion. It will go a lot faster this way.

Sweet Leilani on a Fender 1000 Pedal Steel by Basil Henriques
[Basil Henriques, 1963 Fender 1000 Twin 8 steel guitar (photo to right). Pat Henriques, Rhythm Guitar (Hofner Golden). Clive Morton, Acoustic Bass. Recorded 1967 and available on "Live at The Castaways" Volume 1. Volume 2]

There is more information below on what the different pedals and knee levers do. I like the A7th tuning a lot. I learned the A7th from Basil Henriques. I pretty much use the same basic 5 pedal setup that Basil does (shown below).

Here is my A7th tuning below (as used to record the Sweet Leilani video above). I'm playing through an old Peavey Nashville 400 amp with a 15" speaker, using a Boss DD-3 delay set to 9,9 and 3 o'clock, 800 ms.

The following setup of mine is almost identical to Basil's. I don't have an extra knee on my old ShoBud for raising the 3rd string a half tone as Basil does, but it's a fantastic change that you should have if you can. It gives you an awesome diminished chord when used along with pedal 4 (which is the C6th pedal).

The 1st and 2nd pedals go together to give you an E13th. Pedals 1 and 2 individually are beautiful expression pedals, adding some dreamy sounds to your music. Pedal 2 by itself gives you a nice dominant 7th chord on string 3,4 and 6.

The 4th and 5th pedals both give you 6th chords. The 4th pedal with no frets (open tuning) gives a C6th chord, but the 5th pedal with no frets gives an A6th chord. So playing strings 1-7 on fret zero with the 4th pedal pressed down, gives me the EXACT same notes played on fret 3 across strings 2-8 with the 5th pedal down. This lets you do some nice musical arrangements. So I call pedal 5 the A6th pedal, because that's what it does. And of course, I call pedal 4 the C6th pedal, because that's what it does.

Pressing both pedals down gives you a nice diminished chord all the way across the neck.

After brief introduction, here is the A7th tuning. I am playing a D-10 ShoBud with my outer neck tuned to the standard E9th Nashville setup. My inner neck used to be a Texas standard C6th, but I decided to retune it to Basil Henriques A7th because I really like Hawaiian music. Here's Basil's set-up...

Sweet Leilani on a Fender 1000 Pedal Steel by Basil Henriques
[Basil Henriques, 1963 Fender 1000 Twin 8 steel guitar. Pat Henriques, Rhythm Guitar (Hofner Golden). Clive Morton, Acoustic Bass. Recorded 1967 and available on "Live at The Castaways" Volume 1. Volume 2]

Basil Henriques' A7th Tuning (as used on all Waikiki Islander recordings)

String Number

String Gauge

Open Note

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

 P8

LKL

1

.013P

E

 

 

F#

 

 

F#

 

2

.015P

C#

 

 

Eb

C

 

  

 

3

.017P

A

 

B

 

 

 

  

Bb

4

.022P

G

G#

 

 

 

F#

  

 

5

.026W

E

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

6

.034W

C#

 

 

 

C

 

  

 

7

.036W

A

 

B

 

 

 

  

Bb

8

.042W

G

G#

 

 

 

F#

  

 

9

.058W

E

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

10

.080W

A

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Basil's tuning gives A7,A6,E6,C6,AM7,CM7,E6/9M7,C7,A9,D9,A13,A13b5,Edim, D9aug & many more.

Eight-String Guitar Tunings and Chords Found in Basil's Tuning:

I recently went through some old correspondence from Basil and found this awesome chart showing his copedent...

BEYOND THE REEF
(written and sung by Jack Pitman, 1949)

Years ago in 2000 I eliminated Basil's 3rd pedal (which raises strings 1 and 2 a whole tone). However, after watching Basil in action on his Fender 400 explain and play the song, "Beyond the Reef" as Jack Pitman wrote it in 1949, my eyes were opened to how Basil uses the 3rd pedal and I started using it again. The 3rd pedal is absolutely essential to Basil's style and tuning (it is used with pedals 1 and 2 or with just pedal 2). What a cool sound! 

In fact, I've tabbed out the entire song as best that I could as Basil played it on YouTube. Here are the tabs to BEYOND THE REEF using an 8-string A7th pedal steel guitar. Beautiful musicianship! I really appreciate Basil doing this and hope he considers doing "Sweet Leilani" as recorded in his timeless earlier album with the Waikiki Islanders at the Castaways.

'BEYOND THE REEF' On A7th Pedal Steel (tabs to the song)

Here's Basil Playing Beyond The Reef (Basil explains the chords to 'Beyond The Reef')

Basil playing 'Beyond the Reef' with a nice rhythm track

Download Basil's original rhythm track used above

At 3:42 in Basil's video Basil raises strings 1 and 2 a whole tone with his right foot on pedal 3; while holding down pedals 1 and 2 with his left foot. I'm really thankful that Basil decided to share his tuning setup with others so we can learn to play such a great instrument better. He certainly deserves all the credit for this unique steel guitar set-up, as no one else in the world has ever used this until Basil Henriques discovered it. Frankly, I'm amazed that it hasn't caught on like wild fire. It just goes to show how people's minds get stuck into a certain mindset and are afraid to venture into something outside the box. I think it's a wonderful tuning and setup.

Here I play along with Basil's rhythm track on a Fender 400 to 'Beyond The Reef'

Download Slower Rhythm Track (this is what I recorded with)

Here's another tabbed out song from Basil's YouTube channel that is played on the A7th pedal steel...

MY TAHNI (Farewell My Tani)

My 1st three pedals are for the E9th neck on my ShoBud guitar, so it is different for me to play than Basil's 1963 Fender 1000 that he recorded on with the Waikiki Islanders (which starts at pedal 1 instead of 4 like on my ShoBud guitar); albeit I've left the pedal numbers the same to avoid confusion for you. My pedal numbers correspond to Basil's, but keep in mind that pedal 1 is really pedal 4 on my D-10 guitar, and pedal 2 on my A7th is actually pedal 5 on my D-10, and so forth. At first I started to number the pedals from 4, but it was too confusing since Basil's pedals start with number 1. So I have decided to keep my pedals and Basil's numbered the same.

Here's my A7th, which used to be my C6th neck. Please note that you don't need a special guitar. Any C6th pedal steel guitar can be converted to the A7th tuning in a couple hours at most by simply moving the pull-rods around to accommodate the new changes. The way I did it was to remove all my C6th pull-rods and start from scratch to avoid confusion, and it worked well for me. Here is the basic essential setup...

String #

Gauge

Note

1

2

3

4

5

1

.013P

E

 

 

F#

 

 

2

.015P

C#

 

 

D#

C

 

3

.017P

A

 

B

 

 

 

4

.022P

G

G#

 

 

 

F#

5

.026W

E

 

 

 

 

 

6

.034W

C#

 

 

 

C

 

7

.036W

A

 

B

 

 

 

8

.042W

G

G#

 

 

 

F#

9

.058W

E

 

 

 

 

 

10

.080W

A

 

 

 

 

 

David Stewart's ShoBud A7th Tuning

Tunings and Chords Found in Stew's Tuning:

Here's some tabs of nice things to play. See below for song tabs.

 
E_________________________________________________________________
C#___8_______________8___7_______________7___6_______________6____
A____8___8_______8___8___7___7_______7___7___6___6_______6___6____
G________8___8___8___________7___7___7___________6___6___6________
E____8_______8_______8___7_______7_______7___6_______6_______6____
C#_______8_______8___________7_______7___________6_______6________
A____________8___________________7___________________6____________
G_________________________________________________________________
E_________________________________________________________________
A____P5~~~~~~~~~~~~~~____P4,5~~~~~~~~~~~~~___P1,2~~~~~~~~~~~~~____
 
 
E_________________________________________________________________
C#____~4___3___4___~6___4_________________________________________
A_______________________4_________5~~~8____6______________________
G_____~4___3___4___~6___4_________5~~~8____6______________________
E_______________________4_________5~~~8___________________________
C#______________________4_________5~~~8___________________________
A_____~4___3___4___~6___4_________5~~~8___________________________
G_________________________________________________________________
E_________________________________________________________________
A____ P5__P5___P5_______P5,RKL____P4,5____P4,5____________________
 
 
E____________6______6_______|_____________________________________
C#___________6______6_______|_____________________________________
A___________________________|_____________________________________
G____5___6___6______6_______|_____________________________________
E____5___6__________________|_____________________________________
C#__________________________|_____________________________________
A____5___6__________________|_____________________________________
G____P2~~~___P2,3___________|_____________________________________
 
 
E__________11___10____6_let_______6_______6______________6___6____
C#____________________6_off_______6_______6______________6___6____
A_____8_________________pedal_____________________________________
G_____8____11___10____6_three_____6_______6_____5____6___6___6____
E_______________________after___________________5____6____________
C#____8_________________picking___________________________________
A_______________________________________________5____6____________
G_____P5___P1_________P1,2,3_____P1,2____P1,2___P2___P2__P3_______
 
 
E_____11___10____6________6_______________________________________
C#_______________6________6_______________________________________
A_________________________________________________________________
G_____11___10____6________6_______________________________________
E_________________________________________________________________
C#________________________________________________________________
A_________________________________________________________________
G_____P1_________P1,2,3___________________________________________
 
 
Now is the Hour  |  My Tani |  Beyond The Reef

On my A7th, I lower string 5 from an E to a D# with a knee lever, which is equivalent to pedal 6 on a standard Texas C6th pedal steel setup. I use this change along with the 4th pedal, which is my C6th pedal. Lowering the 5th string from E to Eb is a must have for me on the A7th.

So pedal 4 gives me a C6th all the way across the neck. If I press pedal 5 along with pedal 4, that is equivalent to pressing pedal 5 on the Texas C6th setup; and my RKL is equivalent to the 6th pedal on the Texas C6th setup. Here's some tabs to show what I mean. Frets 4,7,10 and 13 here are diminished chords. If you don't have a knee lever change to raise string 3 a half tone, then you can obtain a diminished chord this way instead, although raising string 3 is much more practical and handy in working up arrangements... 

E_____________________________________0___________________________
C#___5______4~~~7~~~10~~~13__________5~___________________________
A____5______4~~~7~~~10~~~13_________5~~___________________________
G____5______4~~~7~~~10~~~13________5~~~___________________________
E____5______4~~~7~~~10~~~13_______5~~~~___________________________
C#___5______4~~~7~~~10~~~13______5~~~~~___________________________
A____5______4~~~7~~~10~~~13_____5~~~~~~___________________________
G____5______4~~~7~~~10~~~13____5~~~~~~~___________________________
E_________________________________________________________________
A____P4_____P4,5,RKL~~~~~~~____P4_________________________________

Above, pedals 4,5 and the RKL all used together are identical to pressing pedals 5,6 together on a standard Texas C6th setup. If you're coming over from playing C6th on pedal steel to A7th, this should help you feel a bit at home. The A7th is a different mindset from the pedal steel C6th, but extremely rewarding as you've got all the non-pedal tunings right here in front of you to work with now. END

Alternative Pedal Or Knee Changes

A wonderful change that I found is to raise strings 1 and 5 from E to F with a knee lever, which gives you a beautiful augmented chord by itself (an augmented chord repeats every 4 frets, sliding up or down the neck). I really like raising the E's to F.

If you have an extra knee or pedal, I highly recommend lowering the 5th string a half tone from E to Eb with a knee (as basil does on his Fender 1000), which gives you a B11th chord when used with the 8th pedal (treble to bass: E, C#, A, F#, D#, C#).

Raising string 2 a whole tone by itself is an interesting sound. I have a pedal on my Fender 400 that raises string 1 a whole tone by itself. And of course, pedal 3 raises both strings 1 and 2 a whole tone, which is part of Basil's excellent set-up.

Lowering string 5 on a knee from E to Eb works fantastic with pedal 5. Strum across (say the 10th fret) with pedal 5 down, then keep 5 down while engaging the RKL and slide down to fret 9 and then 8. Neat huh! Then press pedals 1 and 2 on fret 8 and strum across. Then press only pedal 2 and slide down to fret 4. Here's the tabs...

 
E______________________________________________3_________________
C#__10_____9~~~8___________8__________________3~_________________
A___10_____9~~~8__________8~___8~~~4_________3~~_________________
G___10_____9~~~8_________8~~___8~~~4________3~~~_________________
E___10_____9~~~8________8~~~___8~~~4_______3~~~~_________________
C#__10_____9~~~8_______8~~~~___8~~~4______3~~~~~_________________
A___10_____9~~~8______8~~~~~___8~~~4_____3~~~~~~_________________
G___10_____9~~~8_____8~~~~~~___8~~~4____3~~~~~~~_________________
E________________________________________________________________
A___P5____P5,RKL_____P1,2______P2_______P4_______________________

Note in the above tabs that I don't pause to find exactly where string 8 begins when I strum across the neck. Rather, I go by feel and just try to strum and avoid hitting the 9th and 10th strings, which doesn't sound real bad if I do, but I'd prefer to leave them out on some chords. Over time you'll learn to grab the strings you want without looking.

I love this pedal steel setup and the possibilities are amazing. I've tried to figure out what I would add if I had more pedals and knees to add, but I'd leave it just as is. Too much can be bad. Simplicity has many benefits.

If I added one change it would be an extra knee like Basil Henriques uses to raise the A notes (strings 3 and 7) from A to A#, which provides a beautiful diminished chord for passing from one chord to another (that is, when used with pedal 4 pressed down).

Newbie and unseasoned players will excel to new plateaus when they learn to incorporate augmented and diminished chords into their playing, learning when to use them and the various ways to obtain them on the guitar neck. They're awesome chords!!! I've heard about argumentative and demented chords too, but I try to stay away from them as much as possible...lol.

So there you have it, a wonderful tuning in A7th. In addition to the 5 basic pedals, you may want to raise strings 3 and 8 from A to Bb with a knee, or lower strings 1 and 6 from E to Eb, or perhaps raise strings 1 and 5 from E to F with an extra knee or pedal. The possibilities are endless. You might want to raise pedal 2 alone, a whole tone, with another pedal. You could easily set-up a single neck pedal steel guitar with 5 pedals and 5 knees to perfect this tuning. END

Hawaiian Paradise | Download (I used this A7th tuning setup on my D-10 ShoBud pedal steel to record this song. I didn't use pedal 3 in this recording to raise strings 1 and 2 a whole tone.

I paid someone to make this backing track for me, which you can have and use completely free). Here's some tabs, Bud Tutmarc (1924-2006) style, using C# minor tuning . . .

My Tabs For Bud Tutmarc's Song, “Hawaiian Paradise” (C# minor tuning)

Here's an entire album that I recorded with the A7th pedal steel tuning in 2001 for my mother before she went to be with the Lord in Heaven later that year...

David Stewart's Hawaiian Album 2001

Tablature Template for A7th

Elderly Instruments Gear & Accessories

Children's .018" Mini Dunlop finger picks available
 (I use the smaller picks for my fingers too. The brass finger picks are my favorite! In his instruction course for "Cottoned Eyed Joe," Jeff Newman says that he doesn't like "Dunlop" brand finger picks, because they get in the way and are difficult to use. I haven't had any problems myself with Dunlop picks, if they are the correct sizes. I wanted to share this information with you. You should try different finger picks and use what works best for you.)

“Haole Hula” Solo - Jerry Byrd - C6th | More Lapsteel Tabs

Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven!