Topic: The Octave G String

[Johnm]

Hi all,
One of the most striking and distinctive sounds in Country Blues guitar can be achieved by substituting a very light gauge string for the third string, and then tuning the string an octave higher than it would normally be tuned (in standard tuning at concert pitch, this would put the pitch of the octave G string the same as the first string fretted at its third fret).  To achieve the best tone on such a string, you want to go as heavy as you possibly can and still get up to pitch--a .010 should make it up to the high G, and a .008 definitely will.
The guitarists who made the most extensive use of this tuning in their playing were the Pruitt Twins, Miles and Milas, who are best known for their accompaniments of the great Kansas City singer, Lottie Kimbrough.  Two cuts featuring the tuning can be found on the old Yazoo anthology "Going Away Blues", which I believe may still be in the Yazoo catalog; they are "Going Away Blues" and "Rolling Log Blues".  It is very difficult to tell if one or two guitars are playing on these cuts.  The texture is a bit thick for one guitar, but there is hardly enough for a second guitarist to do to justify two guitars, particularly on "Rolling Log".  I believe there are two guitars because of the thickness of the texture in the treble, though. 

In any event, on both of those cuts, the lead guitarist is playing in E position with an octave G string.  The sound is magical, and can not be achieved by any other means.  The tuning works particularly well in E standard because it has the effect of inverting all the intervals between the third and first string, so that instead of having a sixth between the strings as you do on a conventionally tuned guitar, you have a third.  This revoicing of the intervals between the strings makes it possible to play the most tired Blues cliches and have them sound fresh and new.  For that matter, simply doing a thumb brush in the E position and hammering at the first fret of the third string sounds like a million bucks in this tuning.

On two Lottie Kimbrough cuts on more recent Yazoo re-issues, "Wayward Girl Blues", on "Before The Blues, Vol. 1" and "Don't Speak To Me", from "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of", one of the Pruitts backs Lottie in an even more ingenious fashion, while still using the octave G string tuning.  On both these songs the guitar is played out of C, standard tuning,  with the high G string.  Part of the genius of these accompaniments is that the guitarist makes no attempt to play melody, but instead contents himself with grooving (on "Wayward Girl" with almost a Calypso type of rhythm) and bringing out the chord progression by accentuating the movement of inner voices.  When you combine this sort of textural approach with an idiosyncratic right hand technique employing a syncopated backwards bass alternation, moving treble toward bass, you end up with a really beautiful and unusual accompaniment (and one that, incidentally, I think would confuse the crap out of any transcription program on the market).

Papa Charlie Jackson used the octave G string for his "Texas Blues", which was played in E, standard tuning and a particularly fine piece using the octave G string is "Guitar Pete's Blues", by the Indianapolis bluesman Pete Franklin, which can be found on his Prestige/Bluesville CD "Guitar Pete's Blues-The Blues of Pete Franklin", available on the Juke.  "Guitar Pete's Blues", similarly played in E, standard tuning, has an epic sort of quality--it is 7:48 long and worth every bit of it.  Listening to it makes me understand the high regard in which those who had the chance to hear this under-recorded bluesman held his music.

I used the octave G string for three songs on my second Blue Goose album:  Blind Lemon's "Where Shall I  Be", "Spitting On The Sidewalk", and a re-working of Robert Wilkins's "Jailhouse Blues" entitled "Trouble In The Air".  The first two of these songs were played in E position, standard tuning, and "Trouble In The Air" was played in Vastapol with the octave G string.  The octave G works really well in Vastapol.

If you have never experimented with this tuning, I encourage you to try it out, particularly if you have more than one guitar and could leave the octave string on there for a while and experiment with it over time.  It's a great sound.
all best,
Johnm

[MTJ3]

In an unpublished portion of Ted Watts's invaluable interview of Scrapper Blackwell, Scrapper talks about "tuning a guitar backwards...in cross E upside downwards...moving the G, putting the G where the E is and putting the E where the G is."  I have always taken this to refer to what you describe as the octave G string tuning in an alternate tuning and think that it may have been, very loosely speaking, something of an Indianapolis practice or tradition.

[Yves]

Hello John

What about Robert Wilkins ? I think he somtimes uses this "high G string"

Yves "the froggy"

[Johnm]

Hi MTJ3 and Yves,
Thanks for the comments.  I think you are probably right in your interpretation of Scrapper's comments, MTJ3, if only because Pete Franklin, another Indianapolis player like Scrapper, recorded in the octave G tuning.  It would be unusual for Pete to be the only player in what appeared to be a pretty tightly knit blues community of players to employ a specialty tuning like the octave G tuning.  Scrapper's own description of the tuning is not much help, though.  He could just as easily be talking about tuning with an octave G string and a first string E gauged heavier and tuned an octave low, to the pitch of the fourth string, second fret.  I have never heard such a tuning employed, and it seems like it would be unworkable except in use for chording, because the double register change on the two strings would make melodic playing next to impossible to render coherently across the strings.
Did you have a particular song of Robert Wilkins's in mind for the octave G tuning, Yves?  I never heard him play any songs with it and I know there are none among his '20s and 30s recordings.  He may have used it on some of his post-rediscovery tunes.  I haven't yet heard all of his recordings from that era.
All best,
Johnm

[Roastfellow]

 So that's how Al Wilson got that sweet little sound  on "Goin Up to the Country."

[Johnm]

Hi Roastfellow,
Welcome to Weenie Campbell!  I don't reckon Alan Wilson used a special tuning on "Goin' Up The Country"--he was just capoed up, playing out of a D position in standard tuning, strumming, and every fourth strum, he would lift his left hand from the strings so that he strummed open strings.  The technique comes right from Henry Thomas.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I have a correction for this thread.  I have been talking recently to frankie about various pieces in the Country Blues canon that have oddities with regard to their tuning that make them tough to figure out.  I mentioned Lottie Beamon's "Wayward Girl Blues", discussed at the beginning of this thread as a song I would put in that category.  Here's why: 
I took the song to be played in High G tuning out of the C position, sounding at E, i.e., capoed at the fourth fret.  The only problem with this scenario is that Lottie's accompanist, either Miles or Milas Pruett, occasionally hits a low E string in the bass, a note, that by all rights would be below the capo placed at the fourth fret.  This would suggest that either,
   * A capo was being used that covered only strings one through five.  That would make the scenario technically feasible, but perhaps anachronistic, since I wasn't sure there were any capos in the era the song was recorded that were able to do partial barres of the neck.
   * No capo was being used, and the whole song, with the exception of the low E note, was being played with an index finger barre and no capo.  The level of activity makes this very implausible--plus it is just too damn hard.
   * Whichever Pruett was playing the part was employing a different position/tuning scenario.
Frankie had the tuning/position figured as E position standard tuning, but with the B string, rather than the G string tuned an octave high.  He pointed out that Willie McTell had used this tuning scenario for some of his Library of Congress recordings and his Atlanta 12-string recordings, most notably "Murderer's Home".  I reckon he is right in the case of "Wayward Girl Blues", his explanation solves pretty much the whole mystery of the sound of the cut, and is brilliant, as far as I'm concerned.
The greatest activity in the song occurs in a five-string span in which the I chord is voiced V-I-3-V-I, with the higher V being the octave voice.  Out of the C shape, this would suggest the following fingering:  3-3-2-0-1, starting at the sixth string, and with the octave string the third.  The problem:  The low root which is occasionally struck is not accessible.  Out of the E shape, the same voices are available as so, starting at the fifth string: 2-2-1-0-0, with the octave string the second string.  Conclusion:  The problem of the low root is removed in E position, for the open sixth string provides precisely the voice needed for that low root.  As far as I'm concerned, this solution is as elegant as a great math proof, and kudos to frankie for figuring it out.
A couple of questions remain: 
   * What gauge string do you use to tune a full octave above the normal B string pitch?  An .007, an .006?  It's got to be a damn light string, but the guitarist playing it on the record is not babying it, but sounding it strongly.
   * The Lottie Beamon number, "Don't Speak To Me" would also fall into this tuning, since the sound of the cut is virtually identical, though a simpler arrangement.
It occurs to me that it would be very unwieldy to be shifting constantly between a high G and a high B tuning.  This suggests to me the possibility that the Pruett twins may have characteristically played with one of them in high G tuning and the other in high B tuning.  It would make for a very rich duo sound with unisons on the sixth, fifth, fourth and first strings, and octave courses on the third and second strings, passing between the two guitars.  Such a set-up would also allow each twin to specialize in one of the high tunings, becoming acquainted with its sounds and possibilities.  It's unlikely at this point that we will ever know if this is, in fact, what the twins did, but it sure makes a lot of sense.
I can't wait to get home and try this out.  Hats off to frankie for figuring it out!
All best,
Johnm   
 

[Richard]

I keep meaning to say this, now don't get big headed but you are one very clever chap 

[Johnm]

Well, thanks for the good word, Richard, but on this one I think Frank did the heavy lifting.  I just wrote it up.
All best,
Johnm

[Richard]

It's all right I know you are modest

[frankie]

* What gauge string do you use to tune a full octave above the normal B string pitch?  An .007, an .006?  It's got to be a damn light string, but the guitarist playing it on the record is not babying it, but sounding it strongly.

I just tried it with a (very) used banjo string that I had lying around.  Seems like the string would either have to be lighter than a .009, or considerably fresher than the string I had on hand.  It got pretty close to pitch before giving up.  The twins have a strong touch, but having the octave on the B string probably puts it out of "thumb" territory, which would help it last through the recording.

It occurs to me that it would be very unwieldy to be shifting constantly between a high G and a high B tuning.  This suggests to me the possibility that the Pruett twins may have characteristically played with one of them in high G tuning and the other in high B tuning.

It crossed my mind that stringing and tuning like this might be, in some ways, an early take on a 'studio trick' - kinda like multi-tracking at a later point in the history of recording.  Maybe this was just something they did while recording, just to get a different sound.  If that was the case, the string really only had to last through a given take, then they grab another guitar or re-string and try another song.

[blueshome]

Reading John's post on the Pruett's playing differently tuned guitars together is also plausible in that there are numbers credited to Miles, I think, on 12-string - could this be duetting.

Another thought about the stringing/tuning - maybe they regularly played a 12 and just took strings off to get the effects.

[Cambio]

I agree blueshome, there are songs credited to the Pruitt Twins, that I swear are a 12 string.  I'm familiar with some of the cuts that they did together, and it's clear that there are two guitars, but on Ma Rainey's Farewell Blues, it sounds like a 12 string to me.  I believe the record says "banjo and guitar accompaniment".  Are my ears decieving me?  It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

[frankie]

Frankie had the tuning/position figured as E position standard tuning, but with the B string, rather than the G string tuned an octave high.

Just a minor correction to this - after a bunch of listening, I realized that MP couldn't have been playing out of E because of the double-hammer from the II note to the III note while playing the I chord, and the bass notes he uses for alternation over the V chord during the "yodel interlude".  At one point, Ari and I came up with a pretty nutty variation on open E that would have allowed for all the various chord combinations in the song, but remained a pretty unlikely solution (I felt like I needed my aura readjusted by pork rinds or something).  For a while I couldn't think of any other way to do the song, then it occurred to me that every problem I had with playing the song in E would be solved if I were playing the tune in std. tuning, key of F - with the 2nd string up an octave (naturally!).  So...  I'm pretty sure that's the correct identification for this tune...

[banjochris]

Seeing this thread pop up from the "Rolling Log" discussion reminded me that Merle Travis recorded a tune called "Black Diamond Blues" on his "The Merle Travis Guitar" album with the octave G string. Don't know if anyone ever asked him where he got the idea to do it from.
Chris