The Steel Guitar Forum

I just received a vintage 66' Fender Studio Deluxe 6 string steel on December 30 and promptly put it to the test on New Years Eve with the band. They were impressed with the look and sound quality of the vintage guitar. I tuned it to open E so I could at least find the major chords easily after playing my Mullen RP single E9 pedal the last several years. I did have to hunt and peck my way to the minor chords using the slant approach. My left foot also wore the floor out pushing pedals that were not there!!! I am not sure I have ever had more fun playing. I do not find much instruction on open E tuning. Does anyone have any thoughts or resources where I can learn more about that tuning? We played everything from Hank Williams to Allman Bros and the vintage rig held its own. We closed the show with a blazing rendition of the A Brothers "One Way Out" and I absolutely had a blast playing it!!! I am seriously thinking of staying with the 6 string versus my E9 pedal but I need some Open E study references. Thanks

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Maybe try out high bass G or A, still has all those blues positions but it's standard Dobro tuning, tons of Learning material out there, heck, ain't One way out even in A

I play One Way Out in the key of A on a 6-string lap steel tuned G6 (G-B-D-E-G-B) -- same as C6 -- but pitched lower and with heavier gauged strings. Works for me.

Watch Derek Trucks videos on You Tube. He plays in Open E on his SG.

You might have more luck finding learning resources for Open D.

It’s the same tuning as open E, but tuned down a step. You can ignore the difference for any unaccompanied lessons, and tune down to D for play alongs.

I really get a lot out the open G dobro tuning for 6 strings. I use open D too sometimes but spend the most in G. Being a guitar player it easy to orient myself with the middle strings of standard guitar tuning, and I’m able to play off the open strings with hammers and pull offs in a lot more keys.

BTW I have a Fender Deluxe 6 as well and it’s the best sounding steel I own out of all my pedal and non pedal guitars….

Any instruction on bottle neck style in D or E should help. Lee Roy Parnel has a video course on theTrue Fire web site "Slide Guitar Gun Slinger." He covers the basics of open E and open A tuning. There are video excerpts you can watch to determine if the course is what you want. David Hamburger has a book, cannot recall the name at the moment. That's what I used to get started playing bottleneck.

Dave Zirbel wrote:I really get a lot out the open G dobro tuning for 6 strings. I use open D too sometimes but spend the most in G. Being a guitar player it easy to orient myself with the middle strings of standard guitar tuning, and I’m able to play off the open strings with hammers and pull offs in a lot more keys.

Exactly. With GBDGBD, if one is a guitar player, strings 4,3 and 2 are identical to standard tuning or EADGBE.

There seems to be this unwritten thing out there that guitar players and E9 pedal steel players will find it easiest when taking up lap steel to go with Open E, particularly for Rock material like the Allman Brothers. I think it’s “six of one - half a dozen of the other.”

Open E gives one the familiarity of the fret number positions, Open G has those three strings in common with guitar as mentioned by Dave.

And as others have mentioned, there is a lot of learning material for both Open G and Open D. Bruce Bouton has a rock lap steel course put out by the same folks that produce the Paul Franklin Method for pedal steel, and I believe it emphasizes G tuning. I have heard the likes of Bruce and Dan Dugmore use G tuning when playing lap steel on recordings instead of pedal steel.

When Jerry Douglas switches to lap steel from dobro he sticks with G and D tuning. So a lot of dobro learning material can be used for lap steel, you just approach it differently. It might be “less is more” with the extra sustain from the lap steel. Douglas likes to say, “the dobro is like a handsaw, whereas lap steel is more like a chainsaw.”

With good quality dobro capos nowadays like the Charlie’s Slide Pro, you can tune to D and if you’re playing a song in E you capo at the 2nd fret and now you’re in Open E. With G tuning, if you perform One Way Out in the key of A, capo at the 2nd fret and now you’re in A tuning.

Link below to a short teaser video for Bruce Bouton’s lap steel course. He is playing the same Lap King guitar as does Jerry Douglas, and it has the DoubleShot by Hipshot, the guitar is set up with two available tunings. With the lever forward over the body it is in G, with the lever flipped backwards it is in D tuning.

https://youtu.be/61SLYVw9wes

My thanks to all for the various responses and suggestions. That's what makes Forum so good of a tool.