Terminology - Tone Bar

[Alan Brookes]

Where did the term "tone bar" originate?

People outside of our fraternity refer to it as a "slide", and that's the term that the early Hawaiian guitarists used.

Yes, the bar does affect the tone, but it's not the bar that determines the tone but rather the wrist action. But the major setting of tone is in the construction of the instrument itself, especially if it's an acoustic instrument. In an electric instruments, tone is effected by the woods, the pickup, the amplifier, and external electrical devices.

So, why do we call it a "tone bar"?

[Ray Montee]

"STEEL" guitar is the way I learned it..

Hawaiian Acrylic or Hawaiian brass or copper or plastic guitar just don't cut it with me.

[Doug Beaumier]

I've never used the term "tone bar" and I don't know where it comes from. The steel guitar world has several made up words that the rest of the world doesn't understand... like <strike>copedant</strike>.

[Ian Rae]

I've always taken "tone" in this context to mean "note" or "pitch" rather than "timbre". But as Doug says, pedal steel vocabulary is not going to repay careful study any time soon.

[Jerry Overstreet]

I was taught that the steel guitar got it's name from the "steel", which is the bar, that is used to play it.

[Ian Rae]

Now that much does make sense.

[Doug Beaumier]

I notice that the Oahu catalogs from the late 1930's show "round bars" and "flat bars". They don't call them tone bars. I think the term "tone bar" came into use in the pedal steel era. Possibly to describe the superior tone of a larger, heavier (10-string) bar, as opposed to the smaller lap steel bars?

[Stuart Legg]

Originally due to the advent of steel strings the words steel guitar were used to set it apart from the usual catgut string guitars which were simply called guitars.
It mattered little if you held it upright, on your lap or under your arm nor what you placed on the strings fingers, wooden sticks, glass bottles or a coconut it was still a steel guitar.

[Erv Niehaus]

When I was a young whippersnapper, there were two kinds of guitars: the Hawaiian guitar and the Spanish guitar.
The former, you laid on your lap and the later, you tucked under your arm.
There was no mention of steel guitar.

[Alan Brookes]

I think Stuart is right. Most of the public nowadays think a "steel guitar" is a guitar with steel strings, as opposed to one with nylon strings.

I've talked to people about steel guitars, thinking that they understand, when suddenly they'll pull out a Jumbo 6-string and say, "Here's mine."

Sears Roebuck used to refer to archtop f-hole guitars as "Spanish Guitars". I wonder how many people bought one to learn Flamenco on.

[Erv Niehaus]

A steel guitar is played with a "steel", bar that is.

[Stuart Legg]

watch a player change a string on an old Sho-Bud and you'll really learn some new names for this kind of guitar!

[Dustin Rigsby]

watch a player change a string on an old Sho-Bud and you'll really learn some new names for this kind of guitar!

I'd tell them that they should have bought an MSA, I don't have that problem

[Tim Weaver]

Originally due to the advent of steel strings the words steel guitar were used to set it apart from the usual catgut string guitars which were simply called guitars.
It mattered little if you held it upright, on your lap or under your arm nor what you placed on the strings fingers, wooden sticks, glass bottles or a coconut it was still a steel guitar.

That's an example of one of my favorite obscure ideas; retronym.

"a new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish it from the meaning that has emerged through progress or technological development"
"For example, the term "acoustic guitar" was coined at the advent of electric guitars"

It's funny to me that wikipedia has "acoustic" guitar as an example when the electric guitar came out. Stuart, looks like they're a few years behind your example!

[Doug Beaumier]

Where did the term "tone bar" originate?

I don't know where it originated, but think I know when it originated. It started in the pedal steel era, I believe. There was no such term in the 1930s, 40s, or 50s based on the old catalogs and ads I've seen. Either way, I never used the term because it's confusing to musicians and everyone else. A bar is a bar.

[Erv Niehaus]

I'll drink to that!

[Doug Beaumier]

[Mike Neer]

I've tried some bars that had no tone whatsoever.

[Scott Duckworth]

When is a steel guitar bar not a steel bar? When it's made out of brass, porcelain, etc...

Would that mean a steel guitar would then be called a brass guitar, or even a porcelain guitar...

Oh my brain hurts... I may have to go to the porcelain seat.

[Erv Niehaus]

Scott,
Try out the reverb when you're in there.

[Barry Blackwood]

Either way, I never used the term because it's confusing to musicians and everyone else. A bar is a bar.

I always just called it a bar - picks and bar. Alan, why is this so difficult?

[Charlie McDonald]

Alan is looking for the origin of meaning.

[Barry Blackwood]

Alan is looking for the origin of meaning.

He may find it here..
https://global.oup.com/academic/product ... us&lang=en&
but more than likely he will find it here from an article at premiereguitar.com

"It originated, pre-pedals, in the Hawaiian Islands. The 6-string guitar was introduced there by visiting European sailors in the latter part of the 19th century. The Hawaiians developed a playing style based on straight major chord tuning called “slack-key” because the strings were slackened relative to standard tuning.

Legend has it the guitar was first laid flat by a young Joseph Kekuku on the island of Oahu in 1874. As a boy, his shop teacher helped him fashion a cylindrical steel bar and metal fingerpicks. Kekuku developed a method of playing this new instrument—called “steel guitar” after the bar used to play it. He then taught it to his classmates, who carried the style to other islands. The method soon became popular all over Hawaii."
A rose by any other name, Alan, but I think you knew all this already...

[Joachim Kettner]

Thanks Barry! I never knew what "slack key" meant.

[Charlie McDonald]

Ditto. The Origins of Meaning looks interesting.