Tuning Down With Buck Owens

[Larry Behm]

Did Tom tune down his steel or just learned to play “between” the more common positions ?

[Pete Finney]

He tuned down for a while at least, for sure. Listen to this masterclass in open-string hammer-ons and pull-offs; all in Eb but clearly in what we think of as the "open E" position.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=pedal+ ... 9HQ_sk5bpE

[Craig A Davidson]

Tom and the whole band tuned down because a Fender 1000 tuned in standard broke third strings faster than they could be put on.

[Ethan Shaw]

Craig is right about it being a lot better for a Fender 1000. When I was in the Derailers, Buck told us that he and tons of other old country bands all tuned down (at least live) so that they could still play "cowboy chords", but that his voice wasn't as strained after a long show. We then did the same thing.

[Bob Carlucci]

Country rocks legendary band Poco tuned down 1/2 step on EVERYthing for years...Its a very common procedure bob

[Colin Boutilier]

Country rocks legendary band Poco tuned down 1/2 step on EVERYthing for years...Its a very common procedure bob

And Johnny Cash tuned up a half step on a lot of his earlier recordings!

I haven't done any recording on PSG yet, but the last session I did on my Telecasters used one Tele in standard tuning, one a half step down, one a whole step up, one in Open E, and another in Open Em. Whatever let me get the voicings I wanted with open strings, etc.