The difference between playing lap slide and lap steel?

Theo Patterson · From: Oregon, USA

Is it method or style? I feel like there is a difference between lap slide and lap steel. I have a friend in a band that plays lap slide. To me it's the same as playing slide guitar, only in a different position. He uses a narrow bar, plays in open E, and never uses slants. I play lap steel. I use a bullet bar, play in a 7th tuning and use slants often.

While we both have the guitar in the same proximity (he actually stands to play), I feel like my style is closer to steel guitar(as in pedal steel) and his is closer to slide guitar (as in dobro). I even told somebody once that I didn't play slide, I played lap steel. Am I wrong? Are we all the same bird with different feathers? Is there a catagorical difference? Am I alone in this quandary?

Ron Whitfield · From: Kaaawa, Hawaii, USA

If he's playing the Dobro lap style but ala bottle neck slide, then it's not steel guitar, no matter how much it resembles it.
Both are fine, musically, but not the same.

Steel playing should de-emphasize the overt sliding sound and make the slides a major part of the emotive feeling instead of simply whizzing around on the neck.

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

But you talked me into it, Ron. You're quite correct.
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Jim Konrad · From: The Great Black Swamp USA

I think it's all "Hawaiian" style anyway, Do slants make ones playing a style? I don't think so....

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

I don't think that Ron was talking about whether or not someone uses slants. Though I can tell the difference between the styles of Don Helms and Jerry Byrd by the fact that Byrd uses many and Helms almost none. Rather, I thought he was talking about the difference between the bottleneck style of play that emphasises the glissando effect of whatever type of slide one may be using in whatever position one may be playing as opposed to what he called the Hawaiian style that uses that effect much more judiciously. There is certainly a significant difference here, a whole different feeling and effect. Whether or not one wants to call the distinction a style is, I suppose, a matter of individual choice. But I don't think that the very real difference in approach can be denied.
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Theo Patterson · From: Oregon, USA

So then, should one be termed "Slide Guitar" because of the emphatic use of glissando, regardless of using a steel bar or bottle neck type slide?

When people ask me about the instrument I'm playing, I tell them it's a lap steel guitar,I play it in my lap, I use a steelbar to play it, and it's a guitar. Then I get accused of playing Hawaiian music, so I tell them it's a Hawaiian guitar.

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

Oh, I get it, now. I think I may have been discussing the wrong question here. Yes, I would call it a steel guitar no matter what style I was playing. Because traditionally a guitar held flat on the lap and played with a slide has been called a steel guitar. The original slides were made of metal (not necessarily steel). It is just as legitimate to call it a slide guitar, however. These days tone bars (aka slides) are made of glass, plastic and who knows what all else.
All kinds of music has been made on these instruments. But they were invented in Hawaii by a Hawaiian boy. And the music originally played on them was Hawaiian music. In the early days they were known as Hawaiian steel guitars.
I'm in the habit of having prolonged discussions with anyone who expresses an interest in the instrument. They generally get everything that you just got and alot more to boot. Very Happy

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David Doggett · Posted 6 Dec 2008 8:53 pm

For me, slide guitar means playing a guitar vertically with a finger slide. Steel guitar is playing horizontally with a steel, either a grooved bar or a bullet bar, with or without slants. Any tuning can be used for either method. It's possible to play horizontally with either kind of bar in a slide guitar style. The Black Ace played country blues on a square-neck National tricone with a round bar. To me he played steel guitar in a slide guitar style. Freddy Roulette plays lap steel blues and R&B. He has a very slide guitar style, but also uses a more complicated tuning and some slants. What would that be?

These terms are all very loose, and I don't think we can impose strict definitions on them. And if we could, it might not be such a good thing. I play an S12 E9/B6 universal pedal steel, sometimes with a bullet bar, and sometimes with a grooved bar. I play in a blues band and use a lot of slide guitar licks in the E9 tuning, and use pedals and levers. But in something like Stormy Monday, I will also slip into the B6 tuning and use some jazz chords. I am fighting against the mentality of thinking "slide guitar" or "steel guitar," because when you do that you tend to lock yourself into slavishly copying previous slide guitar and steel guitar players. I think it will be much more interesting, and gain more respect from other musicians and fans if we play whatever makes interesting music, using both slide and steel styles, and maybe something in between that is new. Our instrument is way too stereotyped in the public mind. Copying the styles of the past will keep it that way. Blending them in new styles will take the instrument into the future.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

Slide/bottleneck guitar is usually played without a nut riser so that you can finger the bass strings. Most bottleneck work is done on the higher strings, high up the fingerboard, where the strings are less likely to rattle with low action.
Once you raise the strings above the fingerboard to the extent that the instrument cannot be played with the fingers it becomes a steel guitar no matter what technique you use.
I've always played a lot of blues, but I've never thought much of bottleneck playing. It's very restricted and gets very "samey" after a while, and the playing position is downright awkward. Shocked

Josh Cho · From: New York, NY (orig. Honolulu, HI)

Theo,

Your post is such a great question because IMO it would seem like a fairly obvious answer: either you sit down or you don't; the strings are either horizontal or not; you use a bar with a hole in it or a solid piece...

however, reading the other posts here one gets the impression that the answer is that what we do is both a method of playing and a style.

Some Nashville pickers out there can make their Telecasters sound just like pedal steels, they're playing the "style", not the method

And then there are those that play their lap steels like regular guitars, even using flatpicks and exclusively single note lines, like David Gilmour from Pink Floyd.

Then there's a guy like Junior Brown...well he invented a new instrument...but the lines can really get blurry when you think about this questions enuf.

owww, my brain hurts.....I think I'll get more coffee...thanks Theo, great food for thought and great discussion

Josh

Mark Eaton · Posted 7 Dec 2008 7:49 am

I think lap slide is sort of a "layman's term" that is applied to what we call lap steel.

I have played in groups with some veteran musicians who are not, or never have been steel players of any kind, and they use the term lap slide.

It's one of those things where they don't "speak the language" per se, and somewhere along the line they have gleaned on to that term.

As far as the device that you hold in your left hand, I have always called it either a steel or a bar, and to me a slide is something that you put on a finger to play bottleneck style. But i have seen internet store sites where the bar or steel is referred to as a slide.
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Bob Simons · From: Kansas City, Mo, USA

As a former "bottleneck" style blues player- both acoustic and electric- let me say that when I took up both lap and pedal steeI I found them to be a very different thing all together. Even though I adapted some slide guitar arrangements, the physical and conceptual technique of steel guitar is really a different realm with some overlapping capabilities with the music of slide players.

What difference this distinction makes, however, is beyond me except as it is useful in advertising for a new gig. There is already too much compartmentalization in steel guitar with two necks supposedly segregated into different styles. (THat's why I play a U-12) Come to think of it, this whole conversation is a somewhat about segregation. (Can't say I've ever seen a sacred steel player in St. Louis, and I get the feeling people there sort of look askance at them for daring to use a steel guitar for something besides "Johnny Bush" songs.)
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Randy Reeves · From: LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA

while reading this interesting thread the middle child in me was speaking in the back of my mind.
it was telling me:
nylon strings on the guitar = not steel guitar.
steel (metal) strings on the guitar = steel guitar.
slide in one hand while playing = slide guitar.
metal strings and slide = steel slide guitar .
using pedals and levers, metal strings and slide = pedal steel guitar.
steel guitar, short scale, raised nut, played with slide, traditionally played while on the lap = lap steel guitar.

my typical style of blues on lap steel has me playing single notes up and down the fretboard. rarer are slants. more common are double stops.
when I switch genres I find comfort with chords and slants. lap steel lends itself to certain styles as does, lets say, a banjo, an accordian or bassoon.
if you slant and I single note are we not both lap steel players? yeah, we are.

Lynn Oliver · From: Redmond, Washington USA * R.I.P.

I would just stick to the standard definitions. If it is played with a steel, it's steel guitar; with a slide, slide guitar. If neither, it's just a guitar.

Ray Langley · From: Northern California, USA

Bob Brozman calls his 2-DVD set, "Slide Guitar for Blues: Lap Style". On the cover, he is playing a Weissenborn while using thumb and finger picks, and using a bullet nosed bar.

Chris Drew · From: Bristol, UK

Randy, don't listen to that child, man!
Steel strings on a guitar doesn't make it a "Steel Guitar".
That'll be a steel-strung guitar.

"Lap Slide Guitar" is basically a handy term that folks unfamiliar with the correct terminology may find easier to relate to, the concept of "Slide Guitar" being a lot more well-known.

If you say the words "Steel Guitar" to Joe Public he may think you mean a metal-bodied resonator guitar, whether it's played as a regular guitar, slide/bottleneck, or what would be called a "Dobro".
( "Dobro" has come to mean any brand of resonator played "Steel Guitar Style" predominantly for Bluegrass music. )

"Lap-Style" now more often refers to the "2-handed overhand tapping" method of playing, which doesn't involve a slide or steel/bar at all, though "Steel Guitar" is often called "Lap-Style Slide Guitar" for easy marketing purposes.

"Slide Guitar" is played using a tubular slide over a finger, with the guitar "regular-way-up", notes are still fretted.

In the term "Lap Steel Guitar" the word "Lap" is superfluous, unlike in the term "Lap Slide Guitar"

If it's played "overhand"/flat with a steel then surely it's Steel Guitar, irrespective of the genre of music or style of playing.
If I choose to take a flatpick and play some Death Metal on a Steel Guitar, it's still a Steel Guitar. ( No matter how much of an anathema this may be to the purists! )
If I play bluesy rags on a Weissenborn it's still a Steel Guitar.

It's also fine to call it a "Hawaiian Guitar" even if you're not playing Hawaiian Music, as the "flat guitar played with a bar" method was made popular by the Hawaiians.

Jim Konrad · From: The Great Black Swamp USA

I start the breakdown at "Spanish" or "Hawaiian" style and go from there, they are two different approaches.

Theo Patterson · From: Oregon, USA

I'm not trying to alienate anybody. We're all in this boat together. Many of us play the same type of instruments, using a bar (or slide) over raised steel strings. To most of my listeners/fans, I use the visual definition I referred to earlier (in my lap - using a steel - and it's a guitar - lap steel guitar) but to fellow musicians and some fans, I tend to want to be more precise with my defintion giving hints to my style.

The friend I was referring plays an old Mangatone lap steel that he calls 'slide'. On it, he plays mainly blues with a ton of glissando and rarely, if ever any single notes. He's pretty good at what he does. While watching him play one day, I mentioned to a fellow listener that I played lap steel, but not that way, meaning that I played the same kind of instrument, but in an entirely different manner, more like you would hear from a steel guitar. I could imagine him thinking of me playing country music, PSG style, but in reality I play stuff like the Beatles, Dylan,Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Muddy Waters, Sunny Boy Willaimson ,and Elvis Costello to mention a few. I didn't want to confuse or mislead the person but wanted him to know that there is a difference. That he should not expect to hear what he is hearing to come from me when I play. In reality, it probably made no difference to him. As far as I know everything I said went in one ear and out the other.

I like what Dave said about "playing steel guitar in slide guitar style". This makes sense to other musicians but to non-music folks it's like saying the same thing twice. I guess I could say I'm playing lap steel, steel guitar style (as opposed to slide style), but even that does not seem definitive enough. Maybe it's best to just smile and move on to the next song.

Chris Scruggs · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

If you play a guitar on your lap or on a stand with the strings facing up towards you, it is a steel guitar.

If you play a standard guitar with a tubular object on one of your fingers you are playing a slide guitar.

A steel guitar is NEVER a slide guitar. If I were in a situation where I was playing a blues song on my steel, I would probably end up playing some parts that sound like a slide guitar, but even if a were to play a Robert Johnson solo note for note, I am still playing it on a steel guitar.

For instance, when Kayton Roberts or Billy Robinson pull strings behind their bars to get a pedal sound, they aren't playing pedal steel. Or when Paul McCartney makes his electric bass sound like a Tuba on "When I'm Sixty-Four", he's still playing a bass guitar.

It goes beyond playing style. They are two separate instruments deserving of their own names no matter what style they are being used to play. The instrument stays the same, it is the player who makes the difference in style.

Very often people come up to me and say things like,"You're slide sounds great!" I always politely say,"Thank you very much, it's called a steel guitar". Many people just don't know. That's not their fault, but if steel guitarists don't tell them, who else will?

The only thing that annoys me more than somebody calling my steel a "slide" is when they call it a "keyboard"!

Chris

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

I enjoy playing "bottleneck" guitar. But I'm always foolin' around with different things. I do many slants, and fret in front of and behind my slide. It's fun to throw in an Hawaiian song in the middle of a bunch of blues tunes! I also play "Misty" in jazz chord melody style. I have a new student who called me strictly because I wasn't stuck in just a blues mode all the time. Bottleneck is a fun break from my Kline. I get to stand up and walk around a bit.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Ron Whitfield · From: Kaaawa, Hawaii, USA

I was going to stay out of this after my initial post, as obviously eveyone has their own greatly varying opinions, and it'll probably never be settled.
But since I've been called out...

Chris Drew · From: Bristol, UK

Oops, sorry Ron!
I thought you'd posted some mp3s before... I was wrong & did indeed think you were someone else! Laughing

It's been a long weekend! Oh Well

Randy Reeves · From: LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA

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