The Steel Guitar Forum

Makes me even more curious about the Beach-ums. Bob That's actually the English pronunciation. It's originally a French name, but at some point the pronunciation changed in the English branch of the family. I find those aristocratic English name pronunciations quite interesting. Other good ones: Ch...

Thanks for the suggestions, folks, very helpful. I'll have a look at the stuff you've recommended, experiment a bit and see what works for me. I like the idea of using something like a "regular" slide tuning, 'cause I've been playing bottleneck in open D and open G for years and I'm alread...

I've experimented a bit with imitating pedal steel sounds, and I "get" how it's done, I'm just wondering what tuning is best for the technique.

I'll probably have to figure it out myself, but if anyone has a suggestion, I'm all ears.

"Steel guitar" if it's played with a steel. I might call it a lap steel if I want to be specific about what kind of steel guitar it is. But to me, "steel guitar" means "instrument played with a steel" and covers both pedal and non-pedal varieties. The name of this forum...

Maori culture has actually survived pretty well, it did a lot better than Australian Aboriginal culture or the various Native American cultures. I know some Maoris, there are plenty of them in Australia, and in New Zealand they're in no danger of vanishing. They've probably been the best at survivin...

There are some European-made lap steels with nthe brand name Selmer. N ot sure if they were from the Parisian Selmer company or not. The ones I've seen have been of poor quality but perhaps they made higher-end models? Selmer UK separated from the French Selmer company pretty early on. Selmer UK ma...

Playing a string instrument with a bar is known from antiquity, in both ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek scrolls, as is the blues scale. I think people need to know that the blues is at least a million years old, and did not originiate in New Orleans, and slide playing goes right back to prehisto...

Dave, I used the "artist signup" to create my page, was that not right? I assume that the music player goes on the page when you upload music? When I edit my profile it has the band bio and gig date stuff. Sorry, my mistake, I guess I didn't look close enough. You did right. I feel a bit ...

Dean and Dave, Thanks for the info, now I know. I will gladly accept requests from anyone on this forum. I don't currently have a way to record but I'm working on it. At some point I'll upload some stuff so that you guys can hear what I've been up to. One more thing, I've attempted to look for peop...

One thing I'm wondering is what the "friends" thing is about and what is the proper etiquette for adding friends? Just go for it, people will confirm or deny as they see fit. There are a few different categories as I see them: There are friends (and family) who I actually know in real lif...

It's in the sig line below.

No lap steel, all solo guitar.

3 tracks of bottleneck electric resonator and one track of regular electric with no sliding at all.

Recorded about a year ago, right before I got slightly better quality recording gear. Of course.

More production notes on the site.

Good stuff, Loren. I sent a friend request. I've done a fair bit of ambient music over the years, though the material I have on MySpace at the moment is from about a year ago, mostly solo bottleneck resonator material. I did some solo recordings with no effects as a kind of challenge, to show I can ...

That's a good point, Edward. Joseph Kekuku might have "invented" the technique, or he might have adapted an outside technique to Hawaiian music, or he might have just been someone who picked up on it early. Whichever is true, he's the first person who really took it somewhere and popularis...

I'd expect that the rail story is just one of those stories that "sounds right" to people - it's a nice memorable story that seems to make sense. People like a simple answer to a question like "who invented steel guitar?" Like most urban myths, people believe it without checking ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarrah

Has been used for guitars and drums. Nice wood.

Well, for me as a steel guitar beginner, it was when I came to the conclusion that I need to own and play one of those things. Now I own one and I'm working on the playing. It'll take a while, and it's a challenge, but I've started making baby steps and I think taking up lap steel is one of the best...

Well, I like it a lot - I'm keeping this on my computer for further reference, if that's OK. For what it is - a demo - I don't really have anything to criticise. The playing and arrangement could be smoothed out, but personally I like the slightly rough feel. It adds a bit of tension to the piece, y...

Great stuff. Australian woods are really a bit of a secret outside Australia, but I believe they work really well. I've heard nothing but good reports about the quality of Australian tonewoods, everybody seems to be very pleasantly surprised. I'd love to get my hands on an Australian wood guitar, bu...

Would it be good advice to buy a really good Reverb unit as a seperate item?---and then think about effects pedals later. Am i correct in thinking that the Reverb unit would be the No 1 item to get in the effects department? The "really good" reverb units tend to be expensive, especially ...

There's nothing particularly arty of mine online at the moment, but there's some "normal" stuff I recorded about a year ago. http://www.myspace.com/davejetson Four tracks there, all solo electric guitar, 3 played on my electric resonator guitar (an Eastwood Delta 6), the fourth played on m...

I love my Danelectro Spring King. It combines digital reverb with an actual spring and has a great sound. They're reasonably cheap - cheaper than anything comparable - and I suspect that makes people suspicious of them. I read a lot of owner/user reviews of them before I bought, and the negative rev...

Kurt Kikendall wrote: I found this diagram to really give me a jump start:

http://dennysguitars.homestead.com/092901_5.html

In fact, that exact diagram is sitting on my music stand in front of the CruzTone at this very moment

That's great, Kurt, exactly the sort of thing I need.

I have already purchased that book, and it's making its way towards me at this very moment. Looks like I made the right choice. I'm getting used to the idea of slants - though I only learned of their existence in the last week or so. So far I've spent a couple of hours in total playing with C6 and I...

Well, I've played regular guitar for many years, and I've played bottleneck for a while now too, in G and D tunings, and after admiring steel guitars from afar I've bought a cheap one (two 6-string necks) and I'm just starting to teach myself C6 tuning. I'm loving it, but I'm a bit overwhelmed, too....