Where We're Going, We Don't Need Copedents!

In Back to the Future, the Professor tells Marty "Where we're going, we don't need ... roads." This was his way of saying that the old paradigm had not just shifted, but was simply no longer relevant. Whatever axioms Marty's world view was based on ... in the new order, they didn't even apply.

That's a bit like what OnePSG brings to the world of the traditional pedal steel guitar. The E9 and C6 tunings evolved the way they did because of the music the instrument was featured in (country on one hand, swing on the other) and the technology available in the early years.

Having only two raises and two lowers per string was a limit that kept the two tunings, once they had taken hold and then as they were developing, from being brought together. Later came three raises and two lowers, and then even more. This better technology allowed the development of the E9/BG "Universal."

But, oddly, the term "Universal" is applied to a neck that brings together two tunings as if those two tunings are all that exist. In a sense, that was the case. After decades, E9 and C6 still dominate the PSG world. One could say that it all makes sense; E9 is diatonic while C6 is more based on thirds and works for chords and extended chords.

However, there is a lot more music than simply diatonic and jazz. But even if that's all there was, there are still lots more possibilities for tuning a PSG. Many exist, but are not "standard."

What if Reece Anderson's Bb6 Universal and Herb Remintgton's A6 and Bobby Lee's F Diatonic copedents were on an equal footing with the standard E9 and C6? What if you wanted to try a tuning that was Phrygian with an added #11? What if you wanted to work on a completely micro-tonal copedent as the basis for some music?

We'd say go for it.

Though we can imagine someone wanting to simply use the OnePSG to experiment with variations on the standard E9 copedent, we also can imagine completely leaving behind the very concept of standard copedents (of the two main copedents, anyway). One one hand, for some, it's sacrilege to even think it. On the other, the Professor took Marty places he'd never been.