The Steel Guitar Forum

When I listened to the Moonlighters live recording that Mike Neer posted here recently, I noticed that Mike emulates the sound of a train on his tricone before one of their tunes. It made me smile to hear how "real life sounds" can be hinted at with a steel bar and six strings.

Yesterday as I was fiddling around with some minor chords I discovered some sounds that (at least to my ears ) sort of sounds like sirens (of the type one often hears in World War II documentaries or movies). Here is the short instrumental:


Fred Kinbom - Sirens

(Lazy River hollowneck in open D (major) tuning.)


Has anyone else got examples of "sound emulation" on lap steel?

I love this instrument - there so much that can be done with it!

Cheerio,

Fred

(Thanks Steinar for hosting my mp3!).

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www.myspace.com/fredkinbom

www.youtube.com/oahusteel75
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Fred Kinbom on 09 December 2006 at 03:20 AM.]</p></FONT>

this isn't lap steel (although i'm sure some lap steel players have done it), but Duane Allman used to make bird-like sounds by playing quick slides above the fretboad with a bottleneck slide. Example: the very end (last few seconds) of Layla by Derick and the Dominoes.

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my music: www.myspace.com/mattlangemusic

I do the train whistle thing as an intor to the song 'Freight Train' - works best for me using the top 3 strings on a C6 lap steel, somewhere around frets 5 to 7, with the bar slightly slanted so that intonation is a bit off between the strings (after all, it's not supposed to sound like a real chord) - then I do some wah-wah effects with the tone pot, and also use the volume pedal. With a little practice you can really emulate the difference between an approaching and leaving song; and have a drummer use brushes to make rattling train wheel sounds on his snare drum!

For train whistle sound I use for OBS in the key of E
is a 3 fret fwd slant at frets 7- 6- 5 on
string 2 3 4 . most horns are tuned to minors , this is as
close as I have come
tuning is a E6th 8 string with high G so my
second string is E

Hick
Edit That should have been E6th (not c6th)

<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bob Hickish on 10 December 2006 at 01:36 PM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bob Hickish on 10 December 2006 at 01:39 PM.]</p></FONT>