The Steel Guitar Forum

I play mostly E9 pedal steel. Just recently acquired a 6 string lap steel. My question is...what tuning would help me make the transition to the lap steel? From my somewhat limited research, I see there are many 6 string tunings to choose from. I want to try one which will allow me to go back and forth from the lap steel to the E9 pedal. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated from you guys who have already done this in the past.

You might like A6. It's somewhat like your PSG tuning with pedals A & B down. For example, D and Bm on fret 5. C and Am on fret 3, etc.

Open E tuning comes to mind, but I think it depends on what you're trying to do on lap steel instead of pedal steel.

If you're looking for the chordal possibilities a sixth note provides, then A6 would be an excellent choice. If you're just looking to play lap steel with the same general note arrangement as pedal steel, I'd go with open E.

There's also a couple of versions of 6-string E9 too. Mike Neer and Rick Aiello use those on occasion. I think Mike and Rick only differ on the bottom 2 strings.

IIRC, high-to-low...E-B-G#-F#-E-D Rick

high-to-low...E-B-G#-F#-D-B Mike

Both tuned from a standard C6 string set.

Thanks all. Now I have a place to start.