The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi. A potentially silly question:-
I am toying with the idea of tuning one of my non pedal lapsteels to guitar standard tuning. There's some great country and western music for guitar that I would like to have a crack at.

Would it enable me to play guitar tabs, before I go buying more strings ?

There would be a lot of guitar chord forms that you couldn't duplicate on a steel, unless you had about 8 levers and 10 pedals. Guitar and steel are different instruments. Any attempt to try using the standard guitar tuning on a non-pedal steel will be rather limiting and disappointing, IMHO.

Didn't George play standard tuning slide on Something?

colin mcintosh wrote:Didn't George play standard tuning slide on Something?

No, that's not slide guitar.

It's slide in My Sweet Lord, Give Me Love and many others, but not in Something.

Most 'slide' guitar is single or double notes, not chords. Slide guitar can be played with standard tuning but most use an open E or open D or G.
A lap steel can play chords and single notes. Different instrument.

Bill Hatcher did it. It sounded great!


Post Posted 5 May 2021 9:31am Reply with quote
tinkered with a shania tune....not shania, but alas....

used just a 6 string lap steel i made years ago. its tuned like an underarm guitar... E A D G B E.

bounced it up a little, but it would also be fine just as a slow ballad. found a few things. kept it close to the melody and the form of the song. elec bass and a drum loop.

music is fun....say that 100 times.

https://soundcloud.com/bill-hatcher/sti ... one-shania

I can't confirm it at the moment. But from memory, David Gilmour tuned at least the top 3 strings to regular spanish tuning G B E.

Yeah, nonpedal steel is usually tuned to some type of open chord. But every rule has exceptions. So of course, it can be tuned Spanish guitar standard lo-hi E A D G B E. Doug Beaumier does this specifically to play a Ventures-style Walk Don't Run here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY31JUeSo6U - and as usual, he kicks butt! See the thread where he discusses this - https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=3062154

On a steel without pedals or slide guitar, changing tunings to suit the song is not unusual at all. Sometimes important or even necessary to achieve the musical goal.

PS - I seem to recal Bill Hatcher doing the same on a blues. OK, here's the thread - it was a 6-string pedal steel, but using just 3 pulls tuned E A D G B E doing a Freddy King style blues. Sounded cool. https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=176943

The standard guitar tuning offers a lot of potential. Anything you have heard in the blues rock world that was played on slide guitar using that tuning can be played on the lap steel. The guitar variations like drop D, E etc. can be tweaked on the lap guitar and off you go.

Another thing that really has a lot of potential for this tuning is the addition of palm levers. G string up 1/2 step….there is your major chord, the 7th is the next string….

Another lever pulling up one step with the ability to stop at a 1/2 step would give a lot of possibilities on the B string.

For a player familiar with guitar tuning, you have instantly the ability to play single note melody. If you try that with any other tuning, a newbie would be looking at the the instrument like a cow looking at a new gate.

I’m working on a guitar right now with standard guitar tuning….three palm raises and one knee lower. I will be finished with it before Halley’s Comet comes back along with all the other stuff I am tinkering with.

Back down to the original inquiry, yes I do think of EADGBE as a very viable tuning that is worth using, especially for a guitar player to get his feet er… hands wet getting into lap steel. With just a few turns of the machine heads you can get all the usual guitar tunings for rock/blues without even changing strings. Do it!

I’m working on a guitar right now with standard guitar tuning….three palm raises and one knee lower. I will be finished with it before Halley’s Comet comes back along with all the other stuff I am tinkering with.

You are a mess Bill, but in a good way!

Donny Hinson wrote:

colin mcintosh wrote:Didn't George play standard tuning slide on Something?

No, that's not slide guitar.

I just think it's a lovely credit to George's fluid and sweet playing that one might mistake his playing there for slide!

On the original topic, I once had (my very first) Morrell lap steel tuned EADGBE I think. I bought it because it was extremely cheap, and I had seen Steve Howe play one (mostly single note lines). Had literally no idea I probably should have retuned it to a proper lap steel tuning.

That said I did once hear a recording on here, or elsewhere, where some clever person did some amazing things with an EADGBE tuned lap steel! But you'd have to really get to know the tuning as a steel tuning (understanding intervals across the strings on same fret), not expect to play it like a fretted guitar.