The Steel Guitar Forum

What is the most common/popular tuning for 6 and 8 string lap steels? How about most popular amp?

ps.-Thanks you guys tha helped on my last question.

6 string:

E
C
A
G
E
C

8 string:

E
C
A
G
E
C
A
F

Now,

Having said that, there are many tunings out there and a number of subtle changes to very popular tunings. But if I had to say THE most popular, I would have to go with the above.

Here are two widespread variations to the above plus one quite popular tuning.

E
C
A
G
E
C#

G
E
C
A
G
E
C
Bb

E
C#
A
F#
E
C#
A
F#

As far as amps go, the early Fender Twin Reverb has to be among the most popular. Jerry Bryd still uses it to this day.

Some today have found that a number of smaller Fender amps sound quite good; such as the Princeton reverb.

Tube amps with their warm midrange are hard to beat for Hawaiian type players. And other players also.

carl
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by C Dixon on 19 June 2002 at 06:12 AM.]</p></FONT>

Also try clicking "tunings" at the top of this page.

In addition to the C6/Am7 tuning, the most popular tunings would be open G (bass to treble G B D G B D) and open E/D (either E B E G# B E or D A D F# A D).

I would venture to guess that more people play lap style guitar in open G tuning than any other tuning, but for electric lap steel I would agree that C6/Am7 tuning is the most common.

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

Brad is correct, if one leans towards "Dobro" type playing. However, for most other playing C6 has it hands down as far as my observations over the years.

I know of nobody I ever heard that plays Hawaiian music tuning to any form of G. Maybe so though.

carl

carl

Ken Emerson of Kauai plays low bass G mostly and some G6. Bob Brozman also uses low bass G for most of his Hawaiian work.

Regards,
Bill

Here We go again refering to the brand name rather than the object. The word "Dobro" is not a style but a "quote" BRAND name ,
Sorry aboutthat

jonesgtrmn3

It may be a brand name and you are correct in that, but in another thread, we said, the name "Dobro" has sooooo entrenched itself into the musical world that to MOST players, the word "Dobro" conotates a distinct style of playing.

Again, quoting from another thread it is like the word "coke" which can mean any type of soft drink. "Let's go and get a coke", when often neither ends up with one.

This happens frequently in life. The word "Frigidaire" for years and years, meant to millions of people, any kind of refrigerator. My grandmother's Crosley ice box was always called her "frigidaire" And if'n ya called it by any other name, she had not a clue whut ya meeunt!

A feller one time was a listin to Chit Akins and exclaimed, "Boy he sho nuf tore dat Gibson UP!!"

And so it goes.....

God bles you,

carl

Thanks Carl for the response, I`m with you all the way. I just wish I weren`t. These old Hawaiin Steel Guitars, come in many brands Guernsey, Beard, Sheerhorn; I looked at buying a Sheerhorn, checked on Dobro, and Beard, Couldnt find an RQ Jones. Then I found a rare and little known Luthier named Benoit, who went the extra mile to make his guitars some of the best ever made. After trying one out one nite, I went home with a Gnawing in my mid section. It took a while but I scraped up the dough and am I Proud. I just hate to hear it called a Dobro, It`s a Benoit. Everyone ought to have a look at his website benoitguitars.com

Carl is undoubtedly correct that C6 is the dominant non-pedal tuning, largely due to the influence of Jerry Byrd. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, I came across Alvino Rey's 1935 book when I first began playing -- a book which is still a classic, IMHO. Alvino listed a number of tunings being used in the mid-30s and indicated that players, for the most part, chose an open tuning that involved keys that were rarely used in playing, i.e., E and A-based tunings. I took the cue and my earliest tunings -- which I still prefer -- were A6/7 and E7. Since so many songs are written in C, I prefer to have the C chord at a bar, rather than open, position, i.e., 3rd fret for A6 and 8th fret for E7. Old preferences die hard. On my D-10 pedal steel I have C6th, simply because most all of the diagrams are based on it. But I really prefer A6 even for it.

I think that C6th is the most dominant lap tuning among real steel players, but I also think that MOST lap steels are played by rock guitarists as a second instrument. Those players, as far as I can tell, usually play open E.

Steve Kimock, a rock guitar icon, plays open E most of the time. I think the other neck on his double 6 is tuned to open G. Like Steve, most rock guitarists come to lap steel from bottleneck, where those two tunings are very popular.

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic) Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 25 June 2002 at 09:25 PM.]</p></FONT>

Fred-I still have that Alvino Rey's singing guitar book. Got it in 1936, when I started on hawaiian steel guitar.Here is the tuning I used on my standup D8 birdseye Vega. top to bottom.

<font face="monospace" size="3"><pre>

Bottom neck top neck

E E
C# D
B B
G# G#
E F#
C# D
B B
G# G#

</pre></font>
On the top neck I tuned the 2nd string D down to C# when I wanted the E13 sound. I got a 3note diminshed, E9 without the root, and a Bminor6th.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Al Marcus on 27 June 2002 at 08:33 PM.]</p></FONT>