The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey all, Josh here again.

In my quest to further expand the possibilities of the standard C6 tuning repertoire, [CEGACE], I wondered how the lead guitar solo to The Eagles classic Hotel California would play out on the electric lap steel guitar.

Well, I was pleased with how well it fit and further confirmed my belief that pretty much anything is possible in C6.

I videotaped the results, which are found on my site here.

Or you can click this link to find the vid

http://www.steelguitarmojo.com/hotelc6l ... itar.shtml

Hope you enjoy.

Sounds great Josh. I've always enjoyed tryin to learn songs on C6th other than Hawaiian or Country. Roy Thomson does some Neil Young tunes among others that also shows how versatile the C6th tuning really is. Keep up the good work Bro!

Hey Andy thanks for the comment, glad you and others like doing this kinda stuff too.

That Hotel California ride is one of my all-time favorite guitar solos. You did a great job with it. But it's kind of hard to pull it off like that without any backup. I'd love to hear you do that with a band behind you.

What amp and effect are you using to get that great high gain rock tone?

David,

I totally hear you about the backup band, they definitely woulda helped!

Maybe when we rehearse next i'll throw this into the mix and tape that...but we're usually doing the serious Hawaiian repertoire so it may not go over to well

About the efx, Andy had asked me about it earlier: I'm actually not using an amp!
I haven't performed through an amp in years but I do own a early 70s Silverface w/ Master Volume.

For the Hotel C6 demo, I am using a Line6 POD X3 on the "Purple" preset for the gain and the clean stuff was played using "Blackface"

Final output is through a Yamaha PA system that's always set up in my studio.

Thanks so much for your comments, I really do appreciate them.

Very cool Josh...you did a great job of nailing the phrasing.

Actually, I got out my acoustic guitar and played the chords against your steel. Our band has done that song for a long time. You did a great job of translating it to lap steel.

Clyde and Steve, you guys are way too cool, thanks for the comments.

And yeah, I forgot to mention that I kept the piece in the original key (B minor), which is other goal i have when doing these types of exercises.

Josh - excellent demo, thanks. I've been vacillating between C6 and E or D major for a while. Between listening to you and Steve Cunningham, I'm not sure what to do I'm going to stick with E/D for a while, then maybe get a second lappy to try C6.

Your last point is a good one - you can play in any key in any tuning. People seem to get the impression that open tunings are only good in the key of the tuning.