The Steel Guitar Forum

I'm surprised that anyone would admit knowing the answer to that question!

I use lighter fluid exclusively, any brand. It has always worked, old tape or new, dried out masking tape, bumper stickers, Scotch Tape, packing tape, everything. After opening a package I use lighter fluid to clean the knife blade. Only use a drop, or a drop at a time. Sometimes I put the drop on a...

Here is a link to 62 different tunings used in Hawaiian music. Experiment.

http://dancingcat.com/skbook-tableofcontents.php

I think it just depends on the way you learn to play. When I was in high school I learned to play a bass baritone horn, which is played with the right hand. Then I took up French horn, which is played with the left hand. My only problem was that my lips were too fat to play a French horn.

The Ebay pic looks scary. I might leave the room if I saw it in a band. Is that the effect you want?

John and Rudy Dopyera's beautiful collection of stringed musical instruments is now for sale in its entirety. http://www.boingboing.net/images/_articles_dopyera_dopyera_all.jpg Not only aesthetically incredible, these guitars, mandolins, ukuleles, violins, and basses have great historical significan...

PIC CREDIT

Tattoo is from the Dutch "tap to". A tap is a faucet, especially the one used to dispense beer in a pub. To means closed. Bars closed around sundown in those days, and military bands typically did a concert in the evening. So it came to be called the closing time, or tap to.

<SMALL>Every time I play lapsteel somebody calls it a "dobro". Try explaining that difference to a chick or a drunk at a gig.</SMALL>

Easy - A dobro has a hub cap under the strings.

Whoa! Don't use WD40, it dries into a stone like glue. Use something else, maybe sewing machine oil. In the old days we sprayed a lubricant into the pot through any opening we could find. Actually, pots always had a hole in the side which seemed to be just for that purpose. If a pot had no opening, ...

1. Don't get married. 2. Don't buy a car. 3. Get a job, any job as long as it's stable and the paychecks don't bounce. 4. Get a cheap room within walking distance of your job. (Or live in your mother's basement.) 5. Don't buy anything you don't absolutely need. 6. Save your money. 7. Spend your off ...

At the one extreme, some guy pulled a log out of a swamp and built a guitar on it. He called it the Beaver Guitar because both ends had been chewed by beavers. His web site has disappeared, so you can't see it now. At the other extreme is a company that makes a really cute space frame with carbon fi...

The saxophone was the primary instrument for rock & roll, not the guitar. Use of guitars paralelled the development of the electric guitar, and then the genre was called "acid rock".

Pretty good for a show that was only started to compete with Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in.

Are you in Ohio? I went to Ohio several times thirty years ago and couldn't take the 90 degree temps there, though I had no problem at all with 110 degrees here in Arizona. That's because Arizona runs about 10% humidity and Ohio runs about 90%.

If I knew more about music I might appreciate it more, but it just sounds like elevator music to me. I've talked to people who know a lot about music and they assure me that jazz is better than it sounds.

If the strings are perpendicular to the sound box it's a harp, whether plucked, bowed, or hammered. If the strings are parallel to the sound box it's a zither, sitter, sitar, chitar, kitar, or guitar, but only if it's plucked. If it's bowed, it's a violin, and if it's hammered you can make up a name...

Well, there's country, and then there's country, and then there's country. Each of them is thought to be the traditional form, even if the genre is only a couple of years old. When I was a kid, all we could get was "country/western", which meant people in cowboy type clothes with mother-of...

It's the Sesame Street Effect, closely related to the Monty Python Effect. Pixelated pictures, razzmatazz audio, jarring cuts and changes in topic, "and now for something completely different", anything to keep the attention for a moment but no more than a moment. It reaches a point where ...

Damir, that is always a problem in all internet forums. It's because we communicate by print, with no voice inflections and no body language. What would be a sly remark in real life comes across as a blatant insult when it's printed. That's why the advice for forums has always included the line, &qu...

You need a computer, which you obviously have. You need a CD burner. You need some software. The burner will come with software that will probably do most of what you want, but as you gain experience you might decide to get a program with more features. There are lots of programs available. And of c...

Theory is what makes you think some music is better than it sounds.

<SMALL>The "individuality" comment is cute...I take it as a euphemism for "can't make two alike".</SMALL> That's true. Ever try to make a coil? Even with the proper equipment it's somewhat difficult to make two the same. Especially if you use fine wire. Forty gage will break wit...

Computers are not smart, they only think they are.

In DOS, your computer did what you TOLD it to do, not what you WANTED it to do.

In Windows, your computer does what it THINKS you want it to do, not what you TELL it to do!

I bought a dobro last April and I am getting nowhere trying to learn it by myself. I went back to the store, and then to several other stores to inquire about teachers. They all gave me a sad look and said they didn't know any in this area.

Any advice?