Hi all,
I mentioned in the review I posted of Eddie Kirkland's first Trix album, "Front And Center", that he used a tuning of his own invention (I assume) for a couple of songs on the album, "When I First Started Hoboing" and "Lonesome Talking Blues". The tuning combined the bottom of Vestapol and the top of Spanish tuning, like D-A-D-G-B-D. He used the tuning to play in the key of the 6th string, so if you name the tuning by what voices of the scale it employs, it ends up being Root-5-Root-4-6-Root. Another way of thinking of the tuning is that you have Root-5-Root of the I chord on the bottom three strings and Root-3-5
of the IV chord on the top three strings. Thus, the tuning really is a hybrid of Vestapol and Spanish.
If you've listened to a lot of slide playing, the sound Eddie gets when he opens "When I First Started Hoboing" is profoundly baffling, for he starts out emphasizing the top three strings barred at the twelfth fret with his slide. You hear it and go, "Okay, he's in Spanish.", but then it becomes apparent that the twelfth fret of the first string is not the V of the key he's in, as it would be if he were playing in Spanish, but the I of the key he's playing in, as it would be in Vestapol. What he hits on the bottom three strings is in Vestapol all the way.
The sound he arrives at, then, is distinctive and new. In a general sense, slide in Spanish is played more across the neck of the guitar, and slide in Vestapol is played up and down the neck of the guitar, conceding that there are exceptions, like Rev. Edward W. Clayborn, who played slide in Spanish up and down the neck. Eddie Kirkland's tuning, though, puts him in Spanish at the top of his tuning where most of the sliding happens, playing up and down the neck rather than across the neck, because he's got the root of the I chord on the open first string and its octave at the twelfth fret.
In addition to creating new sliding opportunities and sounds, Eddie Kirkland's hybrid "Vestanish" tuning creates some unusual chording opportunities. A while back, we had a thread on Charlie McCoy's playing in Vestapol on his "Last Time Blues"
http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?amp;Itemid=60&topic=5013.msg38333#msg38333, and the interesting voicings he used to play his IV7 and V7 chords in Vestapol. For the IV7 chord, he played 5-5-3 on the top three strings, and for his V7 chord, he moved the position up two frets, to 7-7-5. The voicings are really pretty because they are stacked in order, 3-5-7, on the top three strings.
Eddie Kirkland plays precisely the same voicings for his IV7 and V7 chords in his tuning, but because he's voicing the top of Spanish tuning rather than the top of Vestapol tuning on his top three strings, he ends up with altogether different positions. For the IV7 chord, he ends up fingering 4-3-3 on the top three strings, and for the V7 chord, the same position moved up two frets to 6-5-5. So it is that in Eddie Kirkland's hybrid tuning, if you finger what looks like the top of an F chord in standard tuning and move it up two frets you end up with a IV7 chord--move the same shape two frets higher and you have a V7 chord.
In terms of offering an introduction to Eddie Kirkland's hybrid tuning, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I know that getting in the tuning, fooling around and seeing how things sit in the tuning would yield lots of interesting discoveries. You could also use the tuning to playing in the key of the third string instead of the key of the sixth string. I encourage folks to experiment with it and see what you come up with. In general, I think once you get in the tuning and start playing with it you'll find that you can rely a good bit on intuition, find stuff empirically, and not have to dwell on the high concept skullwork so much. Best of luck with this, and I look forward to hearing what people come up with.
All best,
Johnm
