Hawaiian Steel Guitar Tuning

From the 2018 maui hawaiian steel guitar festival saturday morning workshop alan goes over a history of tunings for the hawaiian steel guitar.

Hawaiian steel guitar tuning.

The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar which is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position on the performer s lap or otherwise supported. When you tune your steel guitar strings to 440 on an electronic tuner you re getting notes that sound very good with your band. Keyboards and guitars are generally tuned to 440 equal temperament. The steel guitar tuning dilemma.

The c6th tuning and related tunings like a6th are the most popular. The a major low bass was the first steel guitar tuning ever developed by joseph kekuku in the 1890s. 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. It adds to the mystique and charm of the instrument and occasionally causes players to tear their hair out.

As in the pedal steel guitar world their is no perfect answer. Nowhere in music are instruments and setups as personalized as in the steel guitar world. They re tuned the guitars to sound a chord now. The major chord tunings are simple to conceptualize and are well suited to early hawaiian music early country music slide styles and blues.

They were not designed with complex harmony in mind. The performer changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings as opposed to a traditional guitar where the performer s fingertips press the strings against frets. Instruction for hawaiian and lap steel guitar including information on tunings arrangements in tablature and covering hawaiian western swing and country playing styles. Tunings for lap steel bottleneck resophonic and indian slide guitar covers tunings for 6 8 and 10 string guitars.

But when you play a simple major chord by yourself and let it ring you notice beats that suggest to the ear.