[Toxer]

i've been looking for information about that but i faild to find out the differences between lap steel and regular slide technics. i can only think of lap steel players' using open strings more than a slide player. have i missed something?

the other thing i've failed to find is songs played in lap steel technic. no answers like "anything can be played in lap steel" are appreciated) i meen those that reflect the technic's strong points...hope you've got the idea

[allthumbs]

any tuning that works on a six string lap steel works on a slide guitar. The advantage of a lap steel is that you can angle the slide to catch more chords and use a heavy lapsteel slide for more tone and sustain.

[Johnny Guitar]

I agree with allthumbs about the big main advantage for a six string lap steel guitar being easier (and quicker) to make the slide face an angle (for example 45 degrees to the strings) so you can make different chords. I think it might be slightly easier to get a nice slow wide vibrato as well. Don't forget though, you can always hold the slide over the top of the neck to get this same advantage on a regular guitar; Adrian Belew plays slide this way.

However, if you are *listening* to a particular lap steel guitarist you might want to check to see what kind of guitar he uses. I know a lot of lap steel guitar players (maybe most) use an eight string guitar with a sixth somewhere in the tunning which will automatically give you more possible chords. I also think there are ten string lap steel guitars which have even stranger tunning systems.

[Toxer]

let's maki ti clear - i saw regular guitars (dobro for ex.) that are laid on your laps, only finger-board with 6+ strings also laid on laps, and a table with strings. and two names - lap steel and pedal steel. which is which?

[Johnny Guitar]

Originally Posted by Toxer

i saw regular guitars (dobro for ex.) that are laid on your laps, only finger-board with 6+ strings also laid on laps, and a table with strings. and two names - lap steel and pedal steel. which is which?

A guitar which is played when laid on your lap is a "lap steel"; it may be a Dobro or any other guitar, it may have a square neck or round neck, acoustic or electric, it may have six, eight (maybe even ten?) strings -- it is a lap steel guitar.

Caveat to the above: Junior Brown is an amazing lap steel player but plays an odd double neck guitar which is esentially a Telecaster and a Fender type lap steel. He plays it standing up (not on his lap).

A pedal steel guitar will be on a stand (four legs typically). It has pedals and knee levers which change the tuning of particular strings in different ways. A pedal steel is supposed to be very dificult to learn to play.

[LightninBoy]

Johnny,
I have a Junior Brown CD, I think its called " Semi-crazy".
Kind of a spaced out truckin kinda thing.
I dig his playing, he's full on.
I've seen him play his double guitar, its on a stand, upright, and he stands behind it and goes off!
Junior rocks!

[Frankenstrat2]

Originally Posted by Johnny Guitar

A guitar which is played when laid on your lap is a "lap steel"; it may be a Dobro or any other guitar, it may have a square neck or round neck, acoustic or electric, it may have six, eight (maybe even ten?) strings -- it is a lap steel guitar.

Caveat to the above: Junior Brown is an amazing lap steel player but plays an odd double neck guitar which is esentially a Telecaster and a Fender type lap steel. He plays it standing up (not on his lap).

A pedal steel guitar will be on a stand (four legs typically). It has pedals and knee levers which change the tuning of particular strings in different ways. A pedal steel is supposed to be very dificult to learn to play.

I think I raised this question here months ago.
I came to the conclusion that lap steel mainly refers to solid body electric 'planks' with pickups. The original 'Hawaiian steel guitars. They can be 6, 8, or 10 string even double necks, but no pedals. Pedal steels are a much more recent invention.
A dobro is NOT a lap steel.
Dobro is often a resonator guitar, and is played lap style. They are almost always 6 string. They can be square or round neck. The square neck is a giveaway that it was never intended to be played upright.
Dobro and lap steel share the fact that they are not really fretted instruments. They are played only with a steel bar. The nut at the bridge is much higher than a guitar set up for bottleneck.
Bottleneck guitars, slide resonators and electric bottleneck slide guitars usually are played upright and usually have frets. I have seen fretless electric guitars set up for bottleneck slide. The action can be high, but not so high that you cannot fret the strings to the fingerboard.

If anyone disagrees, I'm open to being corrected.

[Johnny Guitar]

Originally Posted by Frankenstrat2

I came to the conclusion that lap steel mainly refers to solid body electric 'planks' with pickups. The original 'Hawaiian steel guitars. They can be 6, 8, or 10 string even double necks, but no pedals. Pedal steels are a much more recent invention.
A dobro is NOT a lap steel.
Dobro is often a resonator guitar, and is played lap style.

OK. I'd never heard this but for a quick conformation I went to my McCabes flyer and looked at the workshop taught by a great player/teacher Fred Sokolow and it says "Lap style Dobro/Lap steel guitar".

Even though I took this class a couple of years ago I have no memory that these were considered "different instruments" beyond the obvious electric versus resonator thing. (I wonder what country players say if they play a resonator guitar which is a different brand than Dobro?)

Thanks for clearing that up (though actually you've introduced a great deal of confusion to me) :roll: :?

[Frankenstrat2]

Originally Posted by Johnny Guitar

OK. I'd never heard this but for a quick conformation I went to my McCabes flyer and looked at the workshop taught by a great player/teacher Fred Sokolow and it says "Lap style Dobro/Lap steel guitar".

Even though I took this class a couple of years ago I have no memory that these were considered "different instruments" beyond the obvious electric versus resonator thing. (I wonder what country players say if they play a resonator guitar which is a different brand than Dobro?)

Thanks for clearing that up (though actually you've introduced a great deal of confusion to me) :roll: :?

Well I was confused about it also bacuase there are round neck resonators and square neck ones. Then I realized that the square neck ones have high nuts and are played lap style and not fretted, while the round necks have a lower nut, are played upright, and can be fretted as well as slid upon (slided....er- used for slide)

Lap steels only come one way- lap style, high nut, no frets.
Dobro and lap steel have the same principals but diverge when lap steels started appearing with 8 and 10 strings and later with double necks.
Guys who play reso dont usually refer to themselves as Dobro players, they play resonator guitar. Dobro is a brand name associated with resonators guitars.
I agree, there is alot of confusion.
It took me a while to sort it out, but I believe I am correct.
By the way- Fred was also correct to title his course lap style Dobro/ lap steel. He is indicating that you will not be fretting the guitar, but playing it on your lap with a bar rather than a bottleneck. Anything you can do on a 6 string square neck dobro you can do on a lap steel.
One of the main differences is that it is very difficult to properly amplify a resonator guitar, whther upright or lap style. That is one of the reasons that lap steel, and later pedal steel eclipsed the dobro in country music .

[big]

hi
i have a dobro which i can not play ......i really want to learn to play it 'lap' style .....i love the sound ......what is the easiest way to learn this ...i have watched many play this way and they seem to just 'hit the strings and slide the steel' and make awesome music ......is it as easy as it looks ??......cos i gotta say it looks so easy but when i 'play' it sounds nothing like wot i hear from the people i have seen play this way >>>help please

[DemoEtc]

Well, first thing - which you probably already know - is to have the guitar tuned to an open chord. You could start off with GBDGBD from lowest string to highest.

The other thing is to have a feel for placing the slide/steel on the strings - it's just enough pressure to allow the string to vibrate between the point where the metal touches the string and the bridge, but not so much where you're actually pressing down against the frets. Think of the slide/steel as a 'hovering, moveable fret.'

And when you position the slide or steel, it would be right over the fret as much as possible, instead of behind the fret like when you're fretting the guitar the regular way.

For the chords you play, just keep it simple, using the I-IV-V progression. Like you'd play stuff, pick or fingerpick notes, with all strings open, and then place the slide and slide up quickly to the 5th fret (to get the IV chord), and then up to the 7th fret (for the V chord), and basically get used to the feel and sound of it.

I don't know about your particular guitar, but on most regular guitars, the strings, if you were to look edge-on from the headstock, are arranged in a slight curve to match the curve of the frets/fretboard. And if you look at the slide/steel, it's dead straight (unless you have one of those concave Dunlop slides), and so laying the slide across the strings, you'll realize that the flat doesn't quite cover all the curve of the strings. Some will rattle. Like if you've got the slide to cover the top three strings, the bottom three will be only slightly touched or not touched at all - like a boat angling back and forth as it goes through waves.

The same if you're playing the bottom three strings - the top ones will rattle a bit. It's just something to be aware of.

If you've got a guitar that's setup to be a slider, like a lap steel or pedal steel or reso for instance, you'll notice that the tops of the strings are dead-even so it'll match the slide/steel. That way there's no rattle.

But then again, rattle is part of certain styles of slide playing.

Anyhow, hope this helps. Just fool around with it and you'll get the feel for it.

Best regards...

[big]

hey mate
thanks very much for the reply .......i will do as you suggest just play around with it ...i have just brought a dvd on playing dobro style guitar....and a lot of what you have said is actualy on the dvd so i will do as you say .....just fool around and get used to moving the steel to the correct fret etc....once again thank you for your reply
cheers