The Steel Guitar Forum

Hello everyone! My name is Andrew Zehner and I am new to this forum and to playing lap steel. I have been playing guitar for about 20 years now, and while I still have a lot to learn about playing guitar, I was stuck in a rut and needed to try something new. So I picked up the lap steel about a month ago and I love it! I haven’t touched my guitar since! I bought a Morrell Pro Series 6-strong, changed the tuning machines to Grovers, and now I need to change the strings. So does anyone have any recommendations on what tuning I should try? I’ve been playing in E Major, and while I don’t mind it, I wouldn’t mind to try something else before I get too involved in playing. I like to play just about every type of music, but really enjoy playing jazz. I’ve read a lot about C6 tuning and might just try that. Any thoughts?

Probably more teaching materials out there for C6 than just about any other tuning. Can't go too wrong as a starting tuning.

Welcome, Andrew. Lots of great people and good information here.

You might also try A6 tuning, as it is liked by many.

C. E.

As a guitar player, you might really like A6.
I find it easier to get my head round - you have an A major on the top 3 strings (like playing a "cowboy chord" A on your guitar) and the relative minor on strings 2 3 and 4 at the same fret. If you go for the most common C6 tuning, the grip for major chord is on the highest strings is 1 2 and 4.

This means that without even thinking you'll know D is on the 5th fret and G on the 10th (starting from C I'm counting on fingers).

Also, if you get the bug and end up getting a double neck you may well decide to go for an E based tuning on the other and, again, the relationship between A and E is more intuitive (to me at least) than C and E.

The good news is that if you get a set of C6 strings (for E C A G E C) they work fine for A6 (E C# A F# E C#) so you can try both and see what you prefer.

I'd highly recommend you buy Doug Beaumier's books/cds

http://playsteelguitar.com/

He's got two books with 25 songs each on the C6 tuning.
Plus, he's got a book of 16 songs using C6, A6 and B11 tuning.

The first two books are $50 each and the last one is $45

Doug is a frequent contributor to this forum and he's got at least 20 lap steel arrangements on youtube.

Use this phrase "doug beaumier steel guitar" and you can use up your entire weekend listening to his arrangements.

A good place to start trying various string sets would be the SIT brand. They're available in lots of places. A vendor I use is www.juststrings.com

Put "SIT lap steel" in the search box and you'll turn up around a dozen different sets you could try.

They're all in the $5 - $10 dollar range.

Welcome Andrew, you're going to enjoy this Forum of vast knowledge with friends.

I'm a guy from the dark ages, I learned to play Hawaiian guitar in 1948/9 using mostly the A Major, and then some E Major tuning. The A Major is a strumable open tuning, very easy to get simple tunes going. The E Major is also a strumable open tuning. It is very nice for Hawaiian music and again is easy to learn. All that being said and done, learning materials for both these antique tunings are quite scarce.

To play A6 from A Major is a very simple maneuver, you just raise your 4th string 2 frets from an E to an F#.

Good luck in which ever tuning(s) you use. I'm sure you will enjoy it all.

George

Thanks everyone for the advice! A lot of the books that I've seen online seem to be aimed at C6 tuning, so I'll probably go with that one. Might just have to buy another lap steel so that I can have a couple different tuning options!

Hi Andrew and welcome to this forum!
I am also recommending Doug Beaumier's books. They are not tutorials but a series of tunes for you to play against well conceived backing tracks. You also have the music and tab plus Doug playing the pieces to give us the inspiration as to how it should sound. The first couple of books are for 6 string C6. I can't stress enough how much these books have helped me along in my playing. You will of course need other material and maybe a teacher if you can find one but as part of your learning process I found these books to be invaluable and fun. I have recorded a few of Doug's tunes with his backing tracks and posted them on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmdsfw30EDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsvy7aPp2Kw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I7IqecvCw8
Just remember to have fun and enjoy the journey.

Andrew......if you are keen on playing in C6 and need some instruction, I highly recommend Troy Brenningmeyer's online lessons.

https://www.lessonswithtroy.com/C6-Tuni ... l-Lessons/

I'm new as well to lap steel, been only getting into it the past several months or so. Some of it depends on your objectives as a player. C6 is hard to go wrong with though, it's my primary tuning (I am playing mostly older Hawaiian styles). B11th tuning though, while I'm not as capable playing melodically on it (just from a lack of familiarity), if you're wanting to do jazz, it'll give you a lot more chordal options than C6. Diminished chords, 7th/9th/11th chords, major minor triads, and a 6th, without slanting the bar. THAT SAID, I've not heard a lot of people advocating for B11 outside of the Hawaiian context, and there's not as much instructional material for it. But even in the Hawaiian music area, a lot of times I hear B11 used for the more jazz-influenced songs. E13 is another one that may give you lots more chordal complexity.

I would probably string it up for C6 and get kind of used to it (if you are not wanting to sound particularly Hawaiian, you'll have to learn to avoid the 6th)...one nice thing about C6, it's a snap to flip it to B11. Raise second string a 1/2 step, drop 4/5/6th strings 1/2 step, and you're there.

Strings are a matter of taste but on my C6 lap steel I used individually sold D'Addario Chromes for the two lower wrapped strings...the slick feel is very nice and quiet under the bar, and I don't think the treble loss hurts too much, I like the smoother sound. Have the John Pearse sets for my 8-string, though.

A6th, C6th, E13th... Holy Moly what a crazy new world you slipped into Andrew.
Since your already down the rabbit hole, I like A6th best on my main lap steel, but if your going to be using a lot of tab music to learn then C6th would have much more material available.

I also have an 8 string Morrell that sounds quite nice for a cheap lap steel.
Not sure about the 6 string version you have, but I didn't like how close together the strings were on mine.
Switched out the bridge to get the string spacing to 9.5mm (Almost 3/8") The max I could go without leaving the lipstick pickup under the outside strings. Also replaced the nut to a wider harder material and got the spacing there to 60mm which widened the spacing to almost parallel with them at 9mm at the nut. Now I really like playing this as my second lap steel. Also added a pot and cap to now have both tone and volume. Now I really like this guitar and use it for trying out tunings. Most of the time I keep it in E13th, but try out others often.

Welcome to the club

Welcome to this wonderful forum. There's a lot of good information from the world's best players here. It helped me a lot. Have fun playing steel guitar. C6 is a great tuning!