They start with an E9th chord on the front neck, with pedals and knee levers that change it all around. For my personal tuning, see The quickest overview of the alternate chords easily available on that neck are: Amin, Am6, Am7,A6, A7, B6, B7, B9, C#min, C# (with and without the 7th), Dmin, D-D6, E (also in 6,7 and 9, as well as the minor chord variants) F# (with 7 and 9 variants-the minor is available, but doesn't sound good) G (only if you need it, sounds sorta funny and feels awkward)

The back neck is tuned to a C6, with a bunch of pedals to get a bunch of other chords as well.

Nope, most of us use just the same three picks that Earl uses (well, not the same three, Earl's still using them)

I just wish I'd see more improvisation from him. All of his performances are played exactly like the record, except for those breaks that he recorded on pedal steel, but his lap steel breaks on those are always exactly alike. Just in case you didn't know the difference, the lap steel has no pedals to change the tuning, so you have to rely on your brains and skills to play it. Mike Auldridge once told me "it'll take some time to learn, but after a while, those pedals and knee levers tend to do your thinking for you." And they do. Much more challenging playing the 8-string Dobro (or perhaps even the regular 6, but I haven't had one of those since '82).

-- Lane Gray And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Gen 2:25 remove the .lead from my address