Steel Guitars

Steel guitars have primarily been used in Hawaiian music, and are largely associated with that style of music. Hawaiian musicians first brought their variety of music to the mainland United States in 1915, during the Pan-Pacific Expo in San Francisco. American musicians became interested in both the instruments of the Hawaiian guitar players and the unique sound these guitars produced. As electric guitar technology developed over the next few years, lap steel guitars benefited immensely from the ability to amplify the sound created by an instrument, particularly as the lap steel guitar did not have much in the way of acoustical amplification.

Technically speaking, there are three main varieties of steel guitar, but only one of these would be recognized by most viewers as a guitar. Table steel guitars and pedal steel guitars both utilize a flat surface that can be set on a table or stand up with built in legs. Both of these types of steel guitars can have more than one guitar neck, which allows a table or pedal steel guitar player to have the strings of each neck tuned differently. In the case of a pedal steel guitar, the pedals enable the guitar player to quickly alter the tuning of the strings as they play. While both of these instruments are steel guitars, they look more like a strange hybrid guitar and keyboard instrument to an untrained eye.

The lap steel guitar is the variety of steel guitar most likely to be recognized as an actual guitar. Although the body of some lap steel guitars is shaped considerably differently than an electric or an acoustic guitar, they appear to be more like a stringed instrument with which most viewers are familiar. There are actually several varieties of lap steel guitars, some acoustic and others electric, and some of which may resemble a traditional guitar of either variety. The way in which they are played, however, is drastically different from the manner of playing a standard guitar, and this is where they get their name.

Lap steel guitars are generally laid flat across the guitarist's lap, as the name may imply. In addition to this difference in the manner of holding the guitar, the actual technique for playing a steel guitar is also unique. The strings of a steel guitar are typically about half an inch above the fretboard, raised to this height at both the nut and the bridge. It is thus not possible to use the frets on a lap steel guitar, as the action, or distance between the strings and fretboard, is so high. Rather than using the left hand to depress the strings, then, a steel guitar player uses his or her left hand to hold a metal slide, referred to as a steel. The steel is moved along the strings, which changes their pitch as they are plucked or picked with the right hand. The combination of the guitar being held in the lap and played with a steel is how the name is derived.

Since the steel places tension on all of the strings at the same spot on the fretboard, the number of chords available to a steel guitar player are less than those available to a traditional guitar player. Tuning for a steel guitar is usually an open tuning, to somewhat increase the number of chords that the guitarist can play. With limited chords, however, steel guitar players usually play either the melody or harmony of a song, but are not really able to play more elaborate musical passages.

Interestingly, steel guitars are generally considered one of the easier guitars to build. This is primarily because it is possible to make a very rudimentary steel guitar simply by attaching guitar strings at an appropriate height above a piece of wood. It is also possible to modify an existing guitar into a steel guitar by raising the action with an extension to the existing nut.

As far as genres other than Hawaiian music, country music and bluegrass are two additional genres that have made substantial use of steel guitars. In addition to guitarists of these genres, other guitarists have similarly used steel guitars for their unique characteristics and sound. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin are two rock musicians who used steel guitars during their careers. Even some modern day guitarists have made use of the steel guitar, with Troy Van Leeuwen (Queens of the Stone Age, A Perfect Circle) and Travis Steever (Coheed and Cambria) being just two of the very recent guitarists to include this instrument in their music.

Although the lap steel guitar differs substantially from a standard acoustic or electric guitar, it is still an interesting instrument for a guitarist to consider. The playing technique is relatively simple, but the tones that a lap steel guitar produces open up a new realm of possibilities for the modern day musician.




Resources:

Brad's Page of Steel has extensive information about the history of lap steel guitars and a list of manufacturers of electric lap steel guitars.

Build Your Own Guitar has a section devoted to the construction of lap steel guitars.

Lap Steel Guitar includes some basic information, many pictures, and music clips of lap steel guitars in use.