The Steel Guitar Forum

hi john,
i was the bass player for The Mai Tais from incept in 05 to December of last year. band drama then ensued and the drummer and myself left the band. they are continuing as The Mai Tais with a new bassist and drummer. oh well. onward...

and i can see your point about it not being a far leap into steel territory! the guitarist was much more of a surf music fanatic than i am, but it's pretty cool music.

Hey Rich. My name is Jeremy Long. I'm in the Long Beach area and pretty new to the steel guitar. If you ever want to exchange thoughts/encouragements hit me up. I'll try and use this private message thing on the forum. Anyway, I teach guitar and piano in the area and I'm super into music theory. If you want some thoery lessons, I'll hook you up, but I'm still currently figuring out the steel so I can only tell you what I know so far. I play in various country bands at local joints like the cellar and the pike bar and grill. Nice to know there are others in the area that are interested in steel. Check out Chris Allen Burke and Cliff Kane (paperplanes) and John Mclung in the LB area. Others in LA are Rick Shae, Gary Brandon(western continentals), Doug Livingston, Rick Schmit (California Rangers)

Much luck to ya,
Jeremy

Just 2cents worth from another newbie:

- I agree with the nut extender idea. I did it to my resonator, and it's given me the confidence to continue
- I've been playing slide guitar a lot for the past two years, so I've started playing lap steel with the tunings I was familiar with - open D, Open E and open G (DGDGBD low to high). Recently tried open Csus (CGCGCD). Great fun, and I think this is a good way to start. At least you already will know where the notes and chords are.
- I experimented with a C6 tuning, and it was fun, but by using tunings I was already familiar with I could focus on technique first. I'll go back to it when I'm more comfortable with the technique.
- I don't use any picks. There are many who do, but quite a few who don't. I had a discussion about this issue when I was starting out on slide with a player named Doug MaCleod. He said - "do what's comfortable". I like to feel the strings, and I think picks take that away. Try it both ways, but don't get hung up on one method because someone says it's the "correct" way to play.
- check out YouTube. There are a lot of videos of various styles of lap steel playing (also search for Weissenborn and Dobro in addition to Lap Steel). Watch those and you'll see a variety of right and left hand techniques that will help you. Oh, and there's a lot of really good music too, in a multitude of styles.


Have Fun.