The Steel Guitar Forum

How do you answer the question when people ask: "What is that instrument you are playing?"

Sometimes I call it a Hawaiian Guitar (Especially if I have just finished playing a Hawaiian song)

Or I will call it a Lap steel or Steel Guitar, If I am playing a Western swing or jazz number...

Do you ever get tired of answering the question and make up something like "lap harp", "bar guitar" or "electric cheese slicer"

Dom

I was playing a six string lap steel in a little music store in eastern Kentucky when I was asked that question. My answer? "It's a solid body dobro". Made sense to me, the Les Paul and Tele/Strats are solid body guitars, why wouldn't there be a solid body dobro? It helped that it was in A major tuning and I could play Oswald's "Wabash Cannonball".

Jude

Funny you should ask, Dom. I'm a designer by trade and I've done lot's of guitar mod's, repair and resto in the past so when the unknowing see me with an electric lap steel for the first time they think it's some sort of new homemade invention.

Just as interesting is when people see me with my converted dreadnaught in my lap and say that they didn't know you could play a guitar that way. I've even heard that from longtime musicians who are just besides themselves when they see me playing lap-style.

I generally call it lap steel or lap guitar and lately just "guitar." I avoid the term steel guitar because too many people associate that with pedal steel guitar. And when I hear Dobro I think resonator so I avoid that as well.

For the folks that are not up to parr in standard musical knowledge I tell them it is a slide guitar! When I think of dobro I think bluegrass. I have an OMI dobro that I call "my dobro" and I call my national "my tricone" My $.02

Jim

I never get tired of telling people about the instrument. I refer to it as a Hawaiian steel guitar. It was invented in Hawaii and we use a steel to play the notes. A, "Dobro," is a brand name of hawaiian steel guitar...... I tell them the whole story and how the Dobro brand name came to be associated with a particular type of acoustic hawaiian steel guitar and a particular style of play, etc. Last summer I gave a Morrell guitar to a guy at the Strawberry Music Festival who insisted that he absolutely had to learn to play one and had alot of free time but little money. I advised him to come to the forum for advice. Yoooo Hooooo are you here, dude?

I guess we must forgive the masses for rarely knowing anything about THE STEEL GUITAR if this thread so far is any example of the info passed along to the curious.

To each his own, but I prefer to see our instrument get a fair shake whenever possible, and if the uninformed are kept that way, everybody loses.

The basics are pretty few and simple when it comes to THE STEEL GUITAR, but there will probably always be a debate over that as well.

Yeah, I just tell them it's a Steel Guitar.

If they say "But it's made of wood" I just show them the bar & say "This is the steel"

It's pretty easy to explain really.

What gets me is the number of guitarists who don't know what Steel Guitar means... especially over here in the UK where American Country Music is less prevalent.
Most people have heard it without knowing what it is.
Many think that "Steel" refers to the material the guitar's made from, having seen that Dire Straits album cover...
Some say "What kind of Dobro is that"
( If for instance they've seen a Bluegrass band )
I reply, "Dobro is a particular brand of resonator guitar."
Some say "What kind of slide guitar is that"
I reply, "Slide Guitar means it's played the "normal" way up."

I don't see any point in telling anyone anything wrong just to supposedly make it easier to understand...

On the other hand sometimes I'm tempted to say "It's a hogophonium" ( H.O.G. = horizontally oriented guitar )

I call it the sit-down guitar

I like Dom's answer. I have a few 6 slicers, and a double-7 slicer

I can understand if people don't know about lap steel, but I am amazed at people who don't have a clue about a pedal steel guitar. I tried explaining both to somebody recently and for a lap steel she says "oh like an autoharp" maybe I explained bad.

Will Houston wrote:I can understand if people don't know about lap steel, but I am amazed at people who don't have a clue about a pedal steel guitar. I tried explaining both to somebody recently and for a lap steel she says "oh like an autoharp" maybe I explained bad.

Will, I have 2 lap steels, an oahu student, a Dobro, and a Tricone, all Hawaiian style and I am very close to being clueless about pedal steel LOL

So am I Jim, but at least we know what PSG is.

Yep, I dont think I will ever play one but PSG is my favorite sounding instrument!!! Every time I hear or see one played I lets me know how much work/fun I have before me

If it's electric......Steel Guitar



If it's a resonator......Acoustic Steel Guitar


I like to keep it simple.......

Yeah, I just call it Steel Guitar too. I figure the pedal guys should make the distinction, if they feel it necessary.

--Jamie

But Howard, what about the Weissenbornes Don't get yourself into trouble, now.

Because of the proliference of Hawaiian Music here in the UK in the 40's and 50's, I say Hawaiian Guitar, to older folks and Steel Guitar to the younger ones.

What I call an instrument just depends on the context.

If I am playing my U14 then it is a "Pedal Steel".

If I am playing my Console Grande it is a "table steel", "steel guitar", or a "non-pedal steel guitar."

I call my Resophonic guitar a "Dobro" because that is the Logo on the head stock says; I will usually mention that most Dobro's only have 8-strings or 6-strings.

I called my little 6-string Supro a "lap steel" (but it has been on loan to someone for more than 10 years).

Coversationally I often just use the generic "steel guitar" to mean slide guitar which is played on a horizontal neck, while "slide guitar" means slide playing over a vertical fingerboard/neck.

I do not own a Weissenborn style instrument but if anyone has one taking up space I will be glad to pay the shipping to my address and I will consider deciding what to call it a nice problem to have.

I only get creative with names and describing the instruments when I am talking to people that already know what type of instrument I am playing. Then I might explain that the Pedal Steel was invented by a orthopedic surgeon to increase job security. Or that the Dobro was invented by some Hawaiian hemp farmers that took quality control very seriously, and that the name is a contraction of "dope row"; this can be embellished by adding that the original Hawaiian guitars utilized Studabaker brand hubcaps because of their superior tonal properties.

But for the most part I happy to answer peoples questions and to explain the difference between various steel guitars.

You think ignorance of the steel guitar is that bad ?
Try telling them you're playing a Cittern or a Hummel or an Epinette des Vosges...
The average member of the public thinks a lute is a wind instrument. They think a dulcimer is a xylophone. Most of them would not recognise a mandoline. Most of them would not notice a 12-string guitar has more strings.

But before you get too surprised, all you folks out there are musicians. Hands up who can tell me what a tromba marina is ? I build and play mediaeval instruments. Not only does the public know nothing about them, most musicians don't either...

People not recognising a steel guitar ? That's lightweight, folks.

When I was 12 and carrying my EH 150 on the bus to lessons, I'd have to say, "It's NOT a violin!" when the other kids snickered. Now I just call it a lapsteel.

This is a fun thread... Here's another take;
I have had people come up to me after a show, and ask is that a__________? You fill in the blanks.

One time a couple came up to the stage and the guy told the girl it was a synthesizer. I just smiled and nodded. I didn't want to make him seem foolish to his date.

Dom

Dom, if I was single I'd want you for my wing man

My fill in the blank answer is "TOY"

I never asked why... maybe just the small body size.

I have seen a lap steel in the classified ads as " old child's guitar, electric, good shape but is hard to play"!!!!! After seeing how we all use different names for everything it is no surprise how the rest of the general population has trouble. We are a bunch of rare birds anyway and I personally like it that way!! Our "steel" guitars are shrouded in mystery that we ourselves subconsciously perpetuate!!! It is great to be part of a flock of rare birds instead getting grouped in with a bunch of turkeys!!!
Jim

Alan Brookes wrote:But before you get too surprised, all you folks out there are musicians. Hands up who can tell me what a tromba marina is ?

People not recognising a steel guitar ? That's lightweight, folks.

Well I describe our tromba marina (my uncles instrument actually) as being a 2 stringed instrument which can be bowed or plucked and has a bridges which are configured to rattle a bit under one of the bridge feet. These instruments have around far longer than Steel guitars. But I sometimes refer to it by a far less flattering name.

Regards
-- Eugene

When I started playing.......
we all learned with a flat bar on a flat top, round hole accoustic guitar. It was called "a steel guitar".
When we graduated to our second year, advanced student classes, still with the flat bar, we got an F-hole, arched top accoustic guitar body with a string around our neck to keep it on our laps......it was called "a steel guitar".
When I got my beautiful little Gibson six string, electric solid body with sunburst finish and matching amp, it was still a steel guitar.
When I got my triple neck Fender and later my quad BIGSBY (with 6 pedals)........they were still referred to as "STEEL GUITARS".

NEVER had I heard so much debate and controversy and renaming of this beautiful sounding instrument until I got on the Forum that was to one day become saturated with ROCK & ROLLER 6-string chicken pluckers, (that should have been 'pickers') who, like in many other instances, started reinventing 'everything', including the wheel. It was at this point that we came up with so many wild and confusing 'names' of this beautiful instrument.
Those are the guys that replaced "TONE", "Technique" and "STYLE" with VOLUME and stomp boxes. They called THAT, diversity in styles. Incapable of adapting to the correct techniques of HOW to hold and/or slant the bar, they reinvented dozens of ways to hang on to it, glues, mechanical devices and electronic gimmicks to simulate vibrato and sustain.

Like others above. I simply tell folks it's a STEEL GUITAR and show them the bar, and tell them that's where it gets its name. If they can't handle that, they have other problems far more serious than we need to discuss in this fabulous forum.