This method of playing greatly restricts the number of chords available, so lap steel music often features melodies, a restricted set of harmonies (such as in blues), or another single part. This article was written by a professional writer, copy edited and fact checked through a multi-point auditing system, in efforts to ensure our readers only receive the best information. The lap steel guitar is typically placed on the player's lap, or on a stool in front of the seated player. It is widely reported that the lap steel guitar was invented by a Hawaiian youth named Joseph Kekuku in 1889. An extended C6/Fmaj7 is used by western swing pedal steel guitarists on their ten-string pedal steels. The performer changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings as opposed to a traditional guitar where the performer's fingertips press the strings against frets. Some lap steel guitars can be converted between lap and fretted playing, or are modified versions of conventional guitars—the only difference is usually string height. While it is important to learn how to play chords and scales on the lap steel guitar, it is almost as important to first know which tuning you are going to use, and how to get your instrument into that tuning. On the other hand, a minority of blues players and many rock players use a conventional flatpick. The electric lap steel guitar typically incorporates the entire neck into the solid body of the guitar, again providing extra strength to allow a greater variety of string gauges and tunings. The Wichita, Kansas-based musician had an electric Hawaiian A-25 (frypan, lap-steel) and a standard electric Spanish from George Beauchamp of Los Angeles, California. Strum all six open strings to sound the C6 tuning. Using the guitar tuner tune the sixth string to the note G. Tune the fifth string to the note B. This allows the player greater control when picking notes on non-adjacent strings. Dobro players also generally use a set of strings with different gauges than those used on standard electric or acoustic guitars to help them to project more sound and to achieve their higher tunings. [5] The instrument became a major fad in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Unlike a conventional guitar, the strings are not pressed to a fret when sounding a note; rather, the player holds a metal slide called steel (or tone bar) in the left hand, which is moved along the strings to change the instrument's pitch while the right hand plucks or picks the strings. Instruments designed exclusively as lap steel guitars typically have modified necks that make fretted playing impossible. As noted under the C6 tuning, an A6 tuning is also used. A6 is a commonly used alternate for C6 and was used by greats such as Billy Hew Len, Leon McAuliffe, and Herb Remington. Designed to fit in your guitar case, Slide Rules includes over 70 of the most popular and useful tunings for acoustic and electric lap steel guitar, bottleneck slide guitar, resophonic guitar, Weissenborn® and Hindustani slide … The instrument became especially popular in Hawaii, as musicians played in tent-rep shows.[6]. The E7 tuning is used by many players, especially those who begin learning with the Mel Bay Steel Guitar Method instructional books. See the links below for a list of additional tunings. (All tunings are shown low-to-high; that is, thickest string to thinnest, or sixth string to first string). Henry Kaleialoha Allen in his book[7] uses a modified C6 tuning, with a B♭ in the bass: B♭–E–G–A–C–E. Rather, it is usually tuned to an open chord, often an extended chord like a 6th, 7th, or 9th. He taught himself to play using this method with the back of a knife blade. Tuning in the wrong direction could result in a broken string. There are different tunings for the lap steel guitar, but three of the most popular are the High G, High A and the C6 tuning. Blues and rock players tend to favor one of two tuning families: open G/open A, or open D/open E. Open G is tuned D–G–D–G–B–D; open A raises each of those notes a whole tone (2 frets) to E–A–E–A–C♯–E. Some blues players, especially those who use a round-neck resonator guitar played upright, conventional-guitar-style, with a bottleneck or hollow metal slide on one left-hand finger, forgo the fingerpicks and thumbpicks, and use their bare fingers and thumb instead. Learning the various different methods to tune for slide guitar will give you more options to let you suit the tunings to your playing style. This tuning produces an open G chord, hence the name. If you have an extra guitar only for slide, you can also try out the open tunings. A capo on the second fret will change an open D tuning to an open E, and an open G will be changed to an open A. In open D, your strings are D A D F# A D, making a D major chord. The Lap steel guitar is typically not tuned in standard guitar tuning (E–A–D–G–B–E, low to high). That means using heavier strings (no “super slinky”…) and a high action (distance of the strings to the fretboard). If you want to play much slide guitar, prepare a guitar just for this job. Many western swing lap steel players, and some old-time country lap steel players, use a C6 tuning. Strum all six strings to sound the high A tuning. Note the similarity of this second tuning to the open E tuning above: the only difference is the fifth string, which is lowered from the tonic E to the 7th note in the key of E, which is D. There are many other tunings used by players. All three are relatively easy to achieve and can be applied quickly to your instrument. (All tunings are shown low-to-high; that is, thickest string to thinnest, or sixth string to first string). Andy Volk has written an excellent guide to steel guitar tunings. Although an actual bottleneck is rarely used to play it these days, this term is still applied to describe playing slide guitar on a regular six-string instead of a lap-style instrument, and it’s the most prevalent method of slide guitar playing. Brewer publicized his new instruments in an article in the Wichita Beacon of October 2, 1932 and through performances that month. If you have only one and play sometimes slide or want to switch between slide and nor… Various other people have also been credited with the innovation. The Lap steel guitar is typically not tuned in standard guitar tuning (E–A–D–G–B–E, low to high). Tune the second string to the note C-sharp which is the same as the fifth string but one octave higher. Strum all open six open strings to sound the high G tuning. Tune the second string to the note B, the same note as the fifth string but one octave higher. Slide Rules: Tunings for Lap Steel, Bottleneck, Resophonic, and Indian Slide Guitar covers tunings for 6, 8, and 10-string guitars. The open D slide guitar tuning gives your playing a bass boost with the low D string, and the resulting tone is swampy and deep. There are three types of lap steel guitars: A lap steel guitar's strings are raised at both the nut and bridge ends of the fingerboard, typically to about half an inch. The steel guitar, when played in Hawaiian, country, bluegrass, or western swing styles, is almost always plucked using a plastic thumbpick affixed to the right hand's thumb, and metal or plastic "fingerpicks" fitted to the fingers of the right hand. In Vietnam, these guitars are sometimes used in Nhạc tài tử, where they're referred to as the "Hạ Uy Di" (from "Hawaii"). Pedal steel guitarists switching over to lap steel often bring over a modified version of the ten-string E9 tuning that is the standard for country pedal steel; pedal steels, and a few non-pedal "console steels" actually have multiple necks, each in a different tuning, and very often on a pedal steel the 2 main necks will be in E9 and C6 tunings. The high G tuning is used mostly by country and bluegrass players. Tune the first string to the note D. This is the same note as the fourth string but one octave higher. All three are relatively easy to achieve and can be applied quickly to your instrument. Tune the third string to the note A, the same note as the sixth string though one octave higher. Tune the fifth string to the note C-sharp. The bar placed against the strings is called a "steel" or "tone bar". There is no "standard" C6 tuning; one popular one is C–E–G–A–C–E. The round neck, metal-bodied resonator guitar is used almost exclusively by blues, rock, or blues-rock musicians. These are examples of tunings possible on a lap steel that could cause serious damage if attempted on a round-neck resonator or standard guitar. The earliest documented performance with an electrically amplified guitar was in 1932, by Gage Brewer. Dunn owned a music store that bore his name in the Houston area. Slide guitar can be played in standard or open tunings, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. This tuning, C–F–A–C–E–G–A–C–E–G, is difficult to achieve on the six-string steel but a subset thereof is achieved as previously mentioned. This tuning is a good one for learning Don Helms' lap steel melodies from old Hank Williams records, although Helms used a lap steel with legs (a "console steel"), with two necks having eight strings each; Helms actually used an E13 tuning, which adds the 7th (D) and the 13th (C♯) to the E tuning, making it B–D–E–G♯–B–C♯–E–G♯, low to high. 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