Anyone play lap steel?

morroben

I realize it's bit off topic for this forum since Jim doesn't play lap steel, but since we're all guitar nerds at heart I thought maybe someone around here plays lap steel as well. I just got this old Fender Dual Professional and am looking for any advice that folks might be able to lend. I'm leaning towards E13 and C6 tunings, mostly because I've found instructional books using those tunings. Does anyone know what tuning Jonny Lam uses on the Honeyfingers stuff? I'm guessing C6.

Here's a pic since I'm so proud of it!

MrHoneyfingers

Hi!
It's Jonny Lam. SWEET axe!!

I play C6 on my steels!
I would say for a double neck you should do a C6 type tuning with E on top, and then maybe the E13 with a G# on top so you can get that don Helms super high and lonesome sound.
In C6 tuning you have a ton of options to quickly change it to other tunings, Raise the C to C#, lower the G to F#, and its an A6 with the 5th on top, or put it into an E6 with the root on top.

But my #1 piece of advice to people wanting to play lap steel is to choose a tuning based on the style of music you want. For example, If you want to play rock and roll from the get go and you put on C6, you might end up always sounding hawaiian and its a little bit maddening. Although there is a tremendous amount of music in the c6, when first starting its tough to not sound hawaiian all the time.


and dont put your bar on the paint, you'll chip it!

have fun!

morroben

Thanks so much for the response, Jonny! I can definitely see what you mean about always sounding Hawaiian on the C6 neck. I've been working a bit with a Mel Bay C6 book. Pretty basic stuff but I'm enjoying it. I also got the Don Helms E13 book of Hank Sr songs. I'm waiting on a set of strings to come in the mail before I can get into that, though. I'm guessing E13 will also work better with my rock band if I ever get good enough to take the lap steel to a bar gig. I play regular slide in that band at the moment, generally in standard tuning but sometimes open E.
My biggest struggle so far is the fingerpicks and palm blocking. I could never get used to fingerpicks on acoustic and they're not proving to be any easier with the lap steel. I've just become so used to my bare finger right hand technique that I use for regular slide, that I need to break some of those habits, like my finger muting instead of the correct palm blocking.
Anyway, thanks again Jonny! I've been watching an awful lot of your Honeyfingers youtube videos since I got this lap slide. Very inspiring stuff!
-Ben