E13 Lap Steel Guitar Method

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 25 Jul 2022 5:02 am

For those E13 lap steel players out there I will post tips, tricks, theory and progressions etc. on my blog. This blog is entirely dedicated to the E13 tuning but all notation is transposable to any tuning with a little study.

Enjoy

https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress.com

Check out the Mickey Baker progressions. pretty cool among other things

Tim Toberer · Post by **Tim Toberer** » 25 Jul 2022 8:01 am

Stefan, you should post some videos of you playing through these exercises. I think it would be helpful to hear how they sound. You are doing so much of the work for people on this tuning! I am surely going to have to try it out again at some point.

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 25 Jul 2022 2:06 pm

I take your point Tim so I've added some audio and will add more of me playing.

Videos - not really high on my priority at the moment but I'll post audio snippets of the examples. When I have some more time to setup my camera, mixer etc I'll post videos

Added one of the Mickey baker will go through the others and add some more tomorrow.

https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress. ... el-guitar/

Walter Webb · Post by **Walter Webb** » 4 Aug 2022 11:51 am

Where can I find some tunes, all tabbed out, to simply start learning this tuning? I appreciate little bits of technical stuff, but would like to find some complete tunes...

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 8 Aug 2022 12:50 am

Walter Webb wrote:Where can I find some tunes, all tabbed out, to simply start learning this tuning? I appreciate little bits of technical stuff, but would like to find some complete tunes...

The exercises I posted should have you already at a point of being able to tackle

All the Things you are and Autumn leaves plus many others. Start with those two with the chord examples.

And keep it simple. There are 3 chord qualities Major, Minor, Dominant

Play the chords first as a rhythm player then play the chord melodies.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 8 Aug 2022 4:42 am

I think people want to hear you playing All the Things you are and Autumn leaves using the tuning Stefan. Exercises don't demonstrate how melody lines lie on a tuning and how smoothly you can move from chord to chord and melody line to melody line. Hearing an actual tune and hearing how it sounds is what really helps people understand the value of a tuning. Why not post a simple Iphone video of you playing All Things You are so people can watch you play it.

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 8 Aug 2022 8:00 am

Please stay out of my threads. Thanks. I will stay out of yours. I would appreciate if you could delete your last post. Otherwise i will delete the thread - Bill Mcloskey

Bill I didn't realise you forgot the unfriendly direct message you sent me.

Anyway glad to see you are interested in finding out more as well.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 8 Aug 2022 8:31 am

I think we are all just interested in hearing you play something. Can you do a quick demo of autumn leaves and let us hear you play it on your tuning? (btw, my PRIVATE message to you was about your habit of hijacking threads.).

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 9 Aug 2022 3:13 am

Here is a quick demo of some common steel voicings used for All the Things You Are.
Just threw this together quickly as Bill and others seemed interested. But I will post a more in depth video of how you can approach it with alternate voicings.

So more to come...

https://youtu.be/WafZoU5MpWA

Enjoy!

Tim Toberer · Post by **Tim Toberer** » 9 Aug 2022 5:16 am

That was amazing Stefan! It seems all your hard work is really paying off. For me, videos are more useful than TAB alone. I find all the split slants very tricky to hit in tune. It shows that with practice it can be done. I think a properly set up guitar must be essential, and the one I was using wasn't up to the task. Very cool! I think these videos might help get people interested. Most people have never heard these songs played on lap steel in this manner. I will be following your progress very closely. Thanks for sharing!!

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 9 Aug 2022 5:39 am

Great to finally hear you play something. Thanks for posting.

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 9 Aug 2022 5:39 am

Tim Toberer wrote:That was amazing Stefan! It seems all your hard work is really paying off. For me, videos are more useful than TAB alone. I find all the split slants very tricky to hit in tune. It shows that with practice it can be done. I think a properly set up guitar must be essential, and the one I was using wasn't up to the task. Very cool! I think these videos might help get people interested. Most people have never heard these songs played on lap steel in this manner. I will be following your progress very closely. Thanks for sharing!!

You're most welcome Tim. Made some mistakes as I prefer more guitar styled voicings but I tried to use more steel chords but I'll explain the options and choices used in another video.

I also found some old videos practicing other standards when I first created the tuning. I'll post I guess

Brett Bonner · Post by **Brett Bonner** » 9 Aug 2022 5:45 am

Bravo! Very nice use of connecting the chords and finding neighboring voicings.

This is very motivating for me because life circumstances have me moving on from playing in bands to just showing up to jazz jams with a lap steel.

Stefan Robertson wrote:
https://youtu.be/WafZoU5MpWA

Enjoy!

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 9 Aug 2022 5:58 am

Here is another video from back in the day when I first developed my 12 string tuning.

https://youtu.be/WkaN0xUmCPQ

Ahh I miss my volume pedal. Need to get another one. This was a practice attempting alternate voicings that were more steel.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 9 Aug 2022 6:07 am

That one is good too Stephen and it shows off your tuning very well. Not sure why you waited so long to post, but hopefully this will be the a regular thing now. Good job.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 9 Aug 2022 6:41 am

The way you played Talk of the Town is how Joaquin Murphey played towards the end of his career. The changes and melody are all there, just work with the feel, which I know you have plenty of, and it will be dynamite. Maybe a little drum loop with brushes.

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 9 Aug 2022 7:15 am

Mike Neer wrote:The way you played Talk of the Town is how Joaquin Murphey played towards the end of his career. The changes and melody are all there, just work with the feel, which I know you have plenty of, and it will be dynamite. Maybe a little drum loop with brushes.

Thanks so much Mike. Woah great to hear from you.

That was an old video I dug up but will re-look at the song as I know lots more now than I did then. Some voicings I used were classic steel voicings I was practicing so not the finished version yet. Thanks for the kind comments

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 9 Aug 2022 7:17 am

Here is how I begin learning chords to a song. Its a slightly longer video but had a few minutes while I'm waiting for my family Van to get fixed nearby before our vacation to France.

https://youtu.be/FisstQkh7Zk

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 13 Aug 2022 10:50 am

So happy to share some insights. Here is a quick overview of some features I've found helpful along my E13#9/F journey.

https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress. ... el-tuning/

Open to questions & fellow players interested in studying it more.

Walter Webb · Post by **Walter Webb** » 14 Aug 2022 1:45 pm

That's all very cool. But is there even one tune tabbed out for a beginner to try? Like there's a zillion C6 tunes all tabbed out and ready to go...

Stefan Robertson wrote:So happy to share some insights. Here is a quick overview of some features I've found helpful along my E13#9/F journey.

https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress. ... el-tuning/

Open to questions & fellow players interested in studying it more.

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 15 Aug 2022 12:40 am

Walter Webb wrote:That's all very cool. But is there even one tune tabbed out for a beginner to try? Like there's a zillion C6 tunes all tabbed out and ready to go...

What song did you want tabbed out as a beginner?

My intention was to take all E13 players along the journey of tackling pretty much anything from the music theory side. So direct from notation which means everything that is written is merely an outline and you should be able to voice different chords and alternative options.

So if you check out my blog and see the voicings tabbed out and used you should be able to look at most standard tunes and start with the basic chords first.

Then tackle the melody notes and see what options you would like to use. Like a Jazzer.

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 18 Aug 2022 6:21 am

Working on tabbing out some songs for fellow E13 players. Will put Some up for sale if people are really interested.

All tabs will have notation plus tabs as tabs alone kill music knowledge and won't help you in the long run.

No escaping it.

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 21 Aug 2022 6:25 am

Here are 3 Buddy Emmons style endings on E13 Lap Steel. transpose and enjoy!

https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress. ... ings-in-c/

Glenn Burleigh · Post by **Glenn Burleigh** » 21 Aug 2022 10:16 am

Thanks for doing this! I really like the E13 tuning, but the lack of instruction materials definitely slowed me down on learning it. I'm gonna check this stuff out and see what tips I pick up from you.