Lap Steel

Interview with lap steel master Lloyd Maines

Filed Under Lap Steel News | Leave a Comment

(Guitar International) Music runs in the rich musical heritage and family of Maines, whose father and uncles formed the Original Maines Brothers Band. Lloyd grew up listening to his father’s band jamming in his grandmother’s kitchen, influencing him to form the 2nd generation Maines Brothers Band with his brothers. Over the years, Lloyd taught himself to play acoustic and electric guitar, Dobro, papoose, mandolin, lap steel, banjo, and more.

Read more

Lap Steel Tunings

Filed Under Lap Steel Tunings | Comments Off

Open G Lap Steel Tuning

The most common tuning for acoustic steel guitar (Dobro) is open G:

  1. D
  2. B
  3. G
  4. D
  5. B
  6. G

This tuning is great because you have three sets of strings one octave apart for each note in a major chord. This allows you to play the same thing an octave higher or lower by just moving down (or up) three strings. Super easy! If you want to do hammer-on styled playing this tuning works great as well.

Open A Lap Steel Tuning

Simply take the open G pattern above and move it up one whole step and you have open A:

  1. E
  2. C#
  3. A
  4. E
  5. C#
  6. A

Low Bass A (or Hawaiian A) Lap Steel Tuning

You may hear this tuning called either low bass A or Hawaiian A:

  1. E
  2. C#
  3. A
  4. E
  5. A
  6. E

Low Bass G Lap Steel Tuning

Same as low bass A listed above but tuned down one whole step:

  1. D
  2. B
  3. G
  4. D
  5. G
  6. D

Open E Lap Steel Tuning

Many lap steel players start out using open E:

  1. E
  2. B
  3. G#
  4. E
  5. B
  6. E

Open D Lap Steel Tuning

This is the same as open E listed above, however tuned down one whole step. This is a tuning used often by Ben Harper.

  1. D
  2. A
  3. F#
  4. D
  5. A
  6. D

C6/Am7 Lap Steel Tuning

The C6/Am7 Tuning is a very popular tuning. It’s tuned as follows:

  1. E
  2. C
  3. A
  4. G
  5. E
  6. C

Brad’s page of steel describes this tuning: The advantage to this tuning is you have almost every type of chord interval under the bar without having to slant the bar. C E G is an C major chord, A C E G is an A minor 7th chord, C E G A is a C sixth chord, etc. You can plays sixths up and down the neck without slanting the bar as much as you would in the open E tuning due to the fact that you have two sets of strings situated a sixth apart (the second and fifth strings are a major sixth, the first and fourth strings are a minor fifth).

The disadvantage is that everything you play sounds Hawaiian until you get your act together (or until you join a Hawaiian band). Once you learn how to play the right combination of strings (and more importantly, how to stay away from certain strings), you can play many different styles. Because the bottom strings are tuned much higher than normal, many people use a combination of fifth and/or fourth strings (in other words, lighter gauge strings) in the bottom three strings. This is the tuning that DeWitt “Scotty” Scott uses in his Basic C6th Nonpedal Lap Steel Method.

Some people play this tuning with the bottom string tuned to C# rather than C. This makes it a A7 tuning and gives you additional chordal possibilities. I think this tuning works better with eight strings.

More Lap Steel Tunings coming soon!

Lap Steel Players

Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off

This list will continue to evolve as the pages for each artist are created.

  • Speedy West
  • David Lindley
  • Alvino Rey
  • Dan Dugmore
  • Roy Smeck
  • Bob Brozman
  • Eddie Alkire
  • Herb Remington
  • Jerry Byrd
  • Junior Brown
  • Noel Boggs
  • Johnny Farina
  • Leon McAuliffe
  • Joe Goldmark
  • Vance Terry
  • Joaquin Murphey
  • Sol Hoopii
  • Pete Drake
  • Bob Dunn
  • Don Helms
  • Freddie Roulette
  • Ben Harper
  • John Ely
  • “Little” Roy Wiggins
  • Sonny Rhodes
  • B.J. Cole
  • Buddy Emmons
  • Ken Emerson

Lap Steel Origins

Filed Under Lap Steel Guitars | Comments Off

Hawaii is where lap steel guitars got their start.

Who actually invented the lap steel guitar is a mystery. Some say a school aged Hawaiian biy named Joseph Kekuku accidentally stumbled across the sound when he took a railroad spike  and slid the metal along the strinds of his guitar.

Other people who are credited with the invention are Gabriel Davion, an Indian sailor, around 1885, and James Hoa, a Hawaiian of Portuguese ancestry.

the sound of the Hawaiian guitar was gradually integrated into blues and country music. As it evolved it began to be accepted into rock, pop, African and Indian music.

As western music began to get used to the sound, even rockabilly bands and experimental groups, like Magnet, began incorporating the sound into their music, even becoming pillars of their sound.

Lap Steel Guitar: Definition

Filed Under Lap Steel Guitars | Comments Off

A lap steel guitar is laid across your lap, instead of being held like a typical guitar. The strings of a lap steel are considerably higher off the fretboard so you can lightly press a steel bar on it, which gives the sweet slide sound lap steel guitars are known for. Instead of the regular guitar tuning of standard guitars, lap steel guitars are usually tuned to an “open tuning”.

Picture Credit: Damieon Foster of Side Iron