The Steel Guitar Forum

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. It's a whole new world for me to explore.

I come from a background of "art" music - or "noise" if you prefer - and I'm a rock musician, basically, but my tastes are very wide and I'm pretty familiar with the blues and folk side of things. Funny how everybody seems to get to like country music as they get older, if they had any taste to begin with. There's a kind of spiritual, angelic sound to the steel guitar which has really started to capture my ears lately.

The reason I'm explaining where I'm coming from is that I'd appreciate some guidance here. In this field, I am a beginner.

So, what can you tell a beginner that likes the sounds he's hearing but has very limited knowledge of the world of lap steel? I have a lot of the Hank Williams material, and not much more to go on - so tell me who you think I should listen to and anything else you think I ought to know.

welcome to lap steel. I too came from an upbringing of rock and noise. I discovered lap steel and rediscovered the music that was around when I was a kid.
listen to all the mid 20th century country and country swing you can. mix in blues and you should have plenty to keep you busy.
there are too many names. and so many tunings.

try out open G , D, C6.
there are many tab offers if you do a search on this site. or just ask and many will show them to you.

many times I simply put the bar to steel and listen. I hear notes and look for the next ones. soon I am in another genre learning another song.

I came from a 6-string background and was similarly overwhelmed at first. I was tempted to tune my lap steel to an "open" tuning or to normal guitar tuning, but resisted the urge because I saw the cool features of C6. I can get major and minor triads, dominant 7th (no 3rd) and minor 7th chords all without slanting the bar. Add slants and things get even more fun and interesting.

The trick initially for C6 is not to "strum". Because of the tuning, there are normally one or two strings which are not in the chord you are trying to play... If you strum across the strings, everything will sound somewhat "Hawaiian". (Not that there is anything wrong with that)

Depending on how you are used to visualizing a fretboard, scales, chords, etc, this may or may not be helpful to you, but 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

There is a mind-blowing amount of information to go along with that chart, but you don't have to absorb all that right away... or ever. Just use it as a "map" of positions of various notes in the C scale and "slide" the whole thing up and down mentally for different keys.


Good luck and enjoy the ride and learning experience.

Kurt

Keep your eyes out for this fantastic beginner's resource:

I'll second the DeWitt Scott book recommendation... Excellent book!

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 can see I'll have to spend some time refreshing my patchy knowledge of musical theory - but that's a good thing anyway.

I'm open to Hawaiian music, but I really don't know much about it at all, other than "it sounds good." Any recommendations there?

Thanks for the replies so far, I appreciate it.

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.

Dave Jetson wrote:I have a lot of the Hank Williams material, and not much more to go on - so tell me who you think I should listen to and anything else you think I ought to know.

I haven't yet caught the Hawaiian music bug (I'm sure it'll happen soon enough), but the classic western swing of the 30s & 40s really gets me going. An excellent starting point for this music is the box set entitled Doughboys, Playboys & Cowboys. Decent liner notes, so you can match soloists' names with their signature styles. Lots of excellent Bob Wills and Spade Cooley compilations out there as well.

This forum's filled with the names of players to watch for from the era: Joaquin Murphey, Noel Boggs, Bobby Koefer, Herb Remington....

Dave, you've come to the right place.

The answer of whom to listen to is easy. Everybody. But, you can start with these eternal greats, Jerry Byrd, Joaquin Murphy, Speedy West, Davis Kelii, Dick McIntire, plus Bobby Ingano, whom as of this morning was still alive and smiling. The others aren't.
For the most part, I much prefer their 'live' material over the studio, and you'll have to do some serious digging for a lot of it, but it's all worthy.

While the book by Scotty is OK, I understand it doesn't include the first major instruction of any steel lesson; how to properly hold the bar!
I strongly suggest you first invest in the book, and video, by Jerry Byrd. You get THE best foundation possible from which to build upon and then it's up to you as to how far you can take it. Nobody lays it out like JB.

Since you are already listening to Hank Williams, you may want to take a look at the E6 tuning that I use - G# E C# B G# E B E (high to low). This incorporates the standard E major tuning, and gives you the upper part of the Don Helms E13 from which you can easily get most of what he played on the latter recordings by Hank.
It compliments the great C6 very well, which it is similar to.

There's plenty more to find out, so keep asking questions, and you'll get all kinds of answers from forum members that you can pick thru.

Hey, post some of your arty noise if you can. I like Dinosauer Jr. and Sonic Youth, etc.
You should check out SGFer Chas Smith's stuff.

You are now entering a whole new world of fun. Enjoy!

And Michael, if you havn't caught the Hawaiian bug yet, you havn't been listening to enuf of the good stuff. 100 years of great music to check out and it deffinitly doesn't all sound the same, like some claim.

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 my self-assembled partscaster.

"Sliding in" is a pastiche of bottleneck standards.

"Dark night, cold ground" is my loose adaptation of the Blind Willie Johnson classic.

"Sandstorm" is me combining middle eastern influences with bottleneck guitar.

They're all in open D.

"Om" is the one played on a regular guitar, dropped D tuning. It's an attempt to combine various styles into one piece.

They're pretty bad recordings, but I've improved my computer recording abilities since then. I'm actually working on an album at the moment in collaboration with some spoken-word performers, and that's more arty than the tracks I have on MySpace, but none of it is finished yet. I should be able to work some lap steel into that project somewhere.

The well-known musical "friends" I have on MySpace give an indication of what I'm into, but I can find something to like in any honest and sincere music.

Anyone wants to befriend me, go ahead.

Thanks for the further replies, and I've had some emails, too. I'll definitely be working through what's been recommended and having fun discovering great new things. Thanks all, much appreciated.

Dave, here's a list of folks to check out. I've recommended a few CDs below but you can start with YouTube and the web and see whose stuff you dig most ....

Acoustic:

Harry Manx - Dog My Cat, In Good We Trust, Mantras For Madmen
Kelly Joe Phelps - Roll Away the Stone
Don Rook - The Hernrys
Kevin Breit - In Good We Trust
Cindy Cashdollar - Slide Show
Debashish Bhattacharya
Bob Brozman - many, many CDs & YouTube clips
Vishwa Mohan Bhattt & Ry Cooder (A Meeting by a River)
Mike Auldridge - Dobro, Treasures Untold, The Resophonics
Orville Johnson - Slide & Joy, Freehand
Barney Isaacs - Hawaiian Touch
Dave Tronzo (bottleneck)
Mike Neer (with the Moonlighters)
Phil Leadbetter - Philabuster

Electric

Joaquin Murphey with Spade Cooley or Andy Parker
Leon McAuliffe, Noel Boggs w/ Bob Wills (Tiffiny Transcriptions)
Jr. Brown
Santo & Johnny
Billy Robinson - YouTube live clips
Bobbe Seymour - YouTube clips
Steinar Gregertsen, Southern Moon Northern Lights
Jerry Byrd - On the Shores of Waikiki; Hi-Fi Guitar
Sol Ho'op'ii & Dick McIntire - check out the Cumquat Records catalog
Billy Hew Len
Sacred Steelers ... Cambell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent
David Lindley, El-Rayo-X, live CDs
Jeremy Wakefiled, Steel Guitar Caviar,Flaming Guitars of Biller & Wakefield, Deke Dickerson's DVDs
Herb Remington
Lee Jeffreiss w/ Big Sandy & his Fly-Rite Boys
Greg Leisz

That ought to get you started