Post #139727 by Tiki_Bong on Sun, Feb 6, 2005 10:52 AM

Tahitiki,

What everyone else has said to your question, and this:

When I first switched to steel guitar I also found myself playing bluesy sounding riffs, no matter how hard I wanted to be Sol Ho'o'pi'i.

I wore a lei when practicing - to no avail; I wore ku'ku'i nuts - no go; I wore a hula skirt and all previously mentioned items when practicing - wasn't sounding like Waikiki at all.

What finally began to work for me is simply and only listening to the type of Hawaiian music I wanted to master - only.

Eventually my style began to evolve into a more distinct Hawaiian sound.

What I'm getting at is that it isn't always in the tuning that gives a steel player the Hawaiian feel, but rather all the little sliding, picking, and dampening techniques you pick up by just learning the steel masters tunes.

As Alan Akaka said in the book "The Hawaiian Steel Guitar":"The Hawaiian style of playing is a feeling - an emotion that is nurtured throughout ones life. It's from being a part of the Hawaiian musical culture. In order to play in the Hawaiian style you have to live, eat, and drink Hawai'i".

But tuning is important also. The tunings I use on my Fender triple-neck 8 string are (from highest to lowest strings): E7th - E,B,G#,E,D,B,G#,E; C6th (Jerry Byrd tuning) - E,C,A,G,E,C,A,G; G Major - D,B,G,D,B,G (I only string that neck w/ 6).

What's important about having different tunings are what's called "grips"; these are just different intervals of stings that you're picking; for some styles of music, it's better to have certain chord structures within close reach.

The steel is already tediuos to play and to make things worse you don't want to be traveling all over the neck to fetch notes.

I'm sure as you've learned already, most steel 'chords' aren't really chords, but rather 'chord partials' as they typically do not contain the tonic, a 3rd, and a 5th interval.

Chord partials is a broad term under which you'll finds things like double and triple stops, harmonic intervals, and shells.

So now you got to figure out what intervals capture as much of the real chord on your steel.

I don't know everything by any stretch about the steel, but I've found you're typically limited to: 'tonic and major 3rd' and 'tonic and minor third'.

Without being tuned in a E7th or a C6th, it's real tough to pull off a 6th or 7th sound with the tonic and the 6th, or the tonic and the 7th double-stop combo. It's kind of weak because it's a long intervolic (is that a word?) leap from the 1 to the 7th interval.

That's why I have a tuning in a 7th and a tuning in the 6th; and the ever-handy G major.

Good luck, and practice like your possessed.

My '51 triple.

[ Edited by: Tiki_Bong on 2005-02-06 12:45 ]