The Steel Guitar Forum

I play Lap Steel.There is a lot of instruction out there for Pedal Steel,not the same amount for non pedal.I want to learn more about pick technique/licks/runs etc. which there is for Pedal Steel. Not understanding the 'workings',(charts) of the pedal/knee levers, how easy/hard is it to convert to non-Pedal? I read music OK. Which Pedal instruction courses come with the written music,so I can read the music straight off?

Check out Jeffran. If it ain't there in bite-sized chunks, it ain't anywhere. He is/(was) the supreme master of instruction IMO. His widow, Fran, still sells all of his videos, tabs, and related materials
PRR

If you are looking for non-pedal instructional material b0b has a nice selection right here.

http://pedalsteelmusic.com/instruction/nonpedal.html

I have the Don Helms one, but these other courses look great.

I think Rick Alexander, Forum brother, has some teaching stuff out; hard to find a better non-pedal steeler than him......watch for his postings....

Virtually all pedal steel instruction is tab that uses the pedals a lot. I don't think that any of it would translate easily to lap steel.

Hi, Mike, the key to transposing any kind of tab to another kind lies in understanding both tunings relative to the common ground of the "number system".

In other words, if your lap steel tuning is C6: C E G A C E, those intervals would be 1 3 5 6 1 3 of the major scale. If your tuning is E: E B E G# B E, then the intervals are 1 5 1 3 5 1. They're different keys, but all you need to think about is the scale tones.
Standard E9 tuning tab is for E tuning (low to high)B D E F# G# B E G# D# F# or 5 b7 1 2 3 5 1 3 7 2 of the E scale. A lot of the playing on E9 goes on on the middle strings, where you can see the 1 3 5 1 3 that lies on the lap steel tunings.
From there, you would look at what the pedals do, for example on E9 the "main" A&B pedals raise the 5 notes to 6, and the 3 notes to 4. As b0b says, Chord work using pedals would probably not transfer easily to non pedal guitars, but some exploration there will certainly lead you to new ideas and licks.
And scale based passages can be transferred. Takes some effort but there's always hidden benefit in that!
Good luck.

Many thanks for your knowledge gentlemen.