Is lap steel tuning similar to C6th?

Lap steels, resonators, multi-neck consoles and acoustic steel guitars

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Billy Woo
Posts: 846
Joined: 31 Oct 2000 1:01 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Is lap steel tuning similar to C6th?

Post by Billy Woo »

Does anyone know what the standard tuning is for 6 & 8th lap steel. Is it an open tuning similar to C6th on the pedal steel where you slant the bar to get your minor chords etc?
C Dixon
Posts: 7330
Joined: 4 Aug 1998 11:00 pm
Location: Duluth, GA USA

Post by C Dixon »

The 3 most common 8 string lap steel tunings are:

E
C
A
G
E
C
A
F

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

E
C#
B
G#
F#
E
D
B

6 string steels are:

E
C
A
G
E
C (some tune this to C# as Jerry Byrd often does)

E
C#
A
E
C#
A

If you study closely you will see WHY the pedal steel has what it has.

carl
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Al Marcus
Posts: 9440
Joined: 12 May 1999 12:01 am
Location: Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)

Post by Al Marcus »

Good charts Carl! I guess most of us oldtimers have played them all on non-pedal steel.
I played the E13th and A6 a lot in those days......al
Russ Wever
Posts: 2674
Joined: 16 Dec 1998 1:01 am
Location: Kansas City

Post by Russ Wever »

Billy, unless I misinterpreted your post, you seem to think that a bar slant is required to make a 'minor' chord. A 'minor' chord is played on the 'A', 'C', and 'E' strings of the C6th tuning.
~Russ