Reso for Eb tune?

[Chris Brooks]

I am a complete novice when it comes to resophonic guitars--though I have played pedal steel (and 6-string) for many decades. I'm looking for advice in the following situation.

I play sax with a school orchestra. In one of our pieces this semester, "Blue Ridge Reel," the director would like to have a short "acoustic" section, and has asked if I could play reso. That section starts in Eb and modulates to F.

A friend will let me borrow a reso tuned in E; or a reso tuned in G. I thought of borrowing the E-tuned one and detuning the strings a half step to an Eb chord. Any suggestions?

[Brooks Montgomery]

You might take that G tuned dobro and tune it to open D.
DADF#AD (low to high). If you want open strings you could capo 1.

Or tune it to Eb-Bb-Eb-G-Bb-Eb

[Chris Brooks]

Thanks for the helpful suggestion, Brooks!