You can plays sixths up and down the neck without slanting the bar as much as you would in the open E tuning due to the fact that you have two sets of strings situated a sixth apart (the second and fifth strings are a major sixth, the first and fourth strings are a minor fifth). C E G is an C major chord, A C E G is an A minor 7th chord, C E G A is a C sixth chord, etc. The advantage to this tuning is you have almost every type of chord interval under the bar without having to slant the bar. The C6/Am7 Tuning has been mentioned several times by different people. This tuning is also great for power chords played through a highly overdriven amp. This type of tuning also lets me play sixths on the top and third string up and down the neck for a Hank Williams/pedal steel effect. By leaving this note in or out of your playing, you can "fake" playing minor chords. The advantage for me in using this tuning is that the tonic (the note representing the base to which all other notes relate) is represented three times, and the third (which indicated whether the chord is major or minor) is only present once. On electric lap steel guitar, I started out by using open E:Īlthough some people prefer the same tuning in open D: ![]() The low bass G tuning is used by Bob Brozman on his National steel guitars. It's a nice tuning to use if you play solo. These tunings allow a nice fingerpicking rhythm to be set up, alternating the root and fifth of the chord using the bottom three strings. This tuning is also frequently seen tuned one whole note lower, as low bass G: If you find a very old book without any indication of which tuning is being used, it's probably this tuning. This is the original tuning used in many early Hawaiian guitar instruction books. There is also a tuning called low bass A or Hawaiian A: Some people use this tuning tuned up a whole step to open A: It's also great for quick hammer-on type playing. It's easy to play the same thing an octave higher or lower by just moving down (or up) three strings. ![]() One advantage to this tuning is that you have three sets of strings one octave apart for each note in a major chord. The most common tuning for acoustic steel guitar (Dobro) is open G: A string gauge chart helps you set-up each tuning with the proper gauge strings. Presented in an easy-to-read, graphic manner, the strings, notes, and musical intervals for each tuning are shown along with comments about the tuning its uses, advantages and the players who've used it. The book features tunings and string gauges for Rock, Blues, Country, Hawaiian, Western Swing, Folk, Celtic, Bluegrass, Jazz, Pop, Cajun, Ambient, Classical, Raga and every genre in between. Designed to fit in your guitar case, Slide Rules includes over 70 of the most popular and useful tunings for acoustic and electric lap steel guitar, bottleneck slide guitar, resophonic guitar, Weissenborn® and Hindustani slide guitar as used by the greatest players of the past and present. Slide Rules: Tunings for Lap Steel, Bottleneck, Resophonic, and Indian Slide Guitar covers tunings for 6, 8, and 10-string guitars. Remove two (or four) strings and you have your lap steel string gauges!Īndy Volk has written an excellent guide to steel guitar tunings. Ernie Ball's web site has a list of their pedal steel guitar string sets, both in E9th and C6th ten-string sets. GHS Strings has a list of string sets they sell for acoustic slide guitar and electric Hawaiian and pedal steel guitar. You'll get a good overview of what is commercially available by visiting this site. Just Strings has a wide variety of lap steel strings available. Bob Quasar has a string gauge chart on his pedal steel web page. Thanks to Herb Steiner and Bob Quasar, I've added some tunings for eight-string guitar at the bottom of the page.Ĭertain tunings require that you use a different set of strings than a normal electric or acoustic guitar would use. Using this system, standard guitar tuning would be represented as:Īdditional strings on your guitar means you can expand the tuning possibilities. It may give you a different sound than you would otherwise get!)Īll tunings are shown from the bass (lowest) string, which I'll call the sixth string, to the treble (highest) string, which I'll call the first string. (Actually, I recommend trying to play lap steel using regular guitar tuning once in a while. You can't make fancy chords (minor, seventh, etc.) without tuning your guitar to a different tuning than the standard guitar tuning. The cool whiny sound that the steel bar makes when slid against a guitar string has one big limitation. ![]() The guitarist is Chris Darrow and this is the cover from his Pacific Arts release "Fretless". The image to the right is by Robert Morrow, and is reproduced here by permission.
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