WeenieCampbell.com
Country Blues => Country Blues Licks and Lessons => Topic started by: jrn on January 02, 2013, 11:09:21 PM
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Hello!
I'm looking for advice on lap style playing. I pretty much always play bottleneck style. I'm a total newb when it comes to lap style though. Just started fooling around with it tonight.
I really listened to the Black Ace alot years ago. Always wanted to learn that style. While I don't have a tricone, I do have a single cone.
Any advice what so ever for a beginner at this style?
Thanks, Jason
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Wow. Did I accidentally put this in the frozen food section?
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No not in the freezer, but I don't know how many lap players we have here, and also you ask a fairly broad question. My quick thoughts would be:
1) Use low-bass G (from bottom DGDGBD) as your default tuning. Others are used, including hi-bass (GBDGBD) which is more common in country dobro, and D/E, but good ol' low bass is the most common.
2) Get a good solid steel bar -- don't try to use your finger-slide as a lap-style bar. I use a bog-standard Stevens bar; many other types are available. Make sure it's one that enables you to play "slant" chords; the technique is not as common in blues in country, but it can crop up; I think Casey Bill Weldon started doing it once he heard a bit of Hawaiian steel playing.
3) Make sure you've got the action up high enough that you can get a good solid attack without grounding the bar on the neck. One of the keys to lap playing is hitting the strings strongly and confidently (which means that if you screw up, everyone knows, but...).
4) Listen to Black Ace, Buddy Woods and Casey Bill Weldon as the main exponents of blues lap steel ... but note that there are many more than is sometimes suspected -- quite a lot of those rural "bottleneck" pieces are in fact played lap style, including many by Charley Patton (but not Son House or Booker White .... except for Po' Boy, which is overhand).
5) Be careful of intonation -- you've got to have the bar right over the fret wire... but you'll know this from slide playing.
You mention Black Ace; he a favourite of mine too, and his style is quite accessible. The notes to his Arhoolie album talk about him using multiple tunings; as near as I can work out he uses low-bass Spanish nearly all the time, apart from on "Further Along" which is in Vastapol. But where Ace can be confusing is that he often doesn't play out of the root key -- he is quite commonly playing in C or D on a G tuning, which can be lots of fun as it makes your open G the IV or V chord. Two I've worked out that are played this way are (New) Triflin' Woman and Santa Claus Blues.
Al Y
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That's good advice from Al. I'd just add that if you're trying to play Casey Bill Weldon, start off with high-bass Spanish, as that's the tuning he favored. I'm using the term "high-bass Spanish" because while the intervals are always root, third, fifth, root, third, fifth, Casey Bill's root is sometimes Ab, A, or something else other than G. Listen for open notes, especially on the second or third string, to see what the true pitch of the tuning is. If there are no open notes, it doesn't really matter if you're tuned in G but playing in A.
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I just play slide sitting as well but have been a little intereted in laptop. In case you want to go with video instruction on starting or setting up your resonator- Michael Messer's Introduction to Lap Steel Guitar might be useful. Here's a sample: An Introduction to Lap Steel Guitar with Michael Messer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esH4E21m0BM#ws)
He also has a forum devoted to slide enthusiasts of all sorts. I think he mentioned he started by playing lap style on on a regular resonator and has a section where you can post questions to him directly.
I found it helpful to watch the attack and damping styles of experienced and accepted players, there's so much more to slide than just dragging a slide down the fret board and creating a vibrato.
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I thought Black Ace also used the high bass tuning? Didn't he learn some from Buddy Woods?
I would just add one bit of heresy to the good advice above. I dabble in lap, very little, and am drawn to the less sophisticated playing more than the fancy stuff. I'm sure if I was better I'd be drawn to the harder stuff too. :) Anyway, for figuring out songs that are not pitched at G, A or lower, such as some Patton material which can be pitched close to B, I have found a lap-style capo invaluable. One is supposed to be able to play out of all positions of course, but screw that, and some stuff just requires open strings to sound right or play right. It's also valuable for adjusting pitch to suit your vocal quickly.
I got one of these from Elderly: http://elderly.com/accessories/items/WRGC1.htm (http://elderly.com/accessories/items/WRGC1.htm)
(https://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Felderly.com%2Fimages%2Faccessories%2FACC%2FWRGC1_sm_.jpg&hash=260370e27a2a6aff0515928a397ddfa96b623162)
Pricey, but I love mine.
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Thanks guys! That's some good info. Open g is my favorite tuning, so that's what I'll start with. Lap style is something I've been interested in for years. Finally got the urge to get serious with it.
Alyoung- I'm glad you mentioned that the Black Ace didn't always play out of the root key, that probably would have given me fits!
Thanks again for your replies!
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Interesting, uncle bud. Does that just clamp around the strings and not onto the neck?
I have to admit that rather than retune or capo, I just open an mp3 of a song in Transcribe! and adjust the song's pitch to match the pitch I'm tuned to.
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Interesting, uncle bud. Does that just clamp around the strings and not onto the neck?
I have to admit that rather than retune or capo, I just open an mp3 of a song in Transcribe! and adjust the song's pitch to match the pitch I'm tuned to.
It clamps around the strings, so it is "floating". Basically it creates a kind of single-fret fretboard underneath the strings wherever you place it, then it clamps the strings down onto that fretboard. It works great and is as easy to use as a regular Shubb once you figure out how to get it onto the strings. The red sleeves in the photo go underneath the strings.
Just an addendum about instructional material. Orville Johnson has some dvds as well.
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Capo is so cool looking almost makes me want to get a guitar so I can to use it :)
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Another contemporary lap style player is Mary Flower. The last time I saw her, she played a Gibson, IIRC. She doesn't have any instructional videos on lap style that I'm aware of, but she's definitely worth listening to.
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I've not heard of her. I'm gonna go check her out now. Thanks
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Bob Brozman has two lap style dvd's out on Homespun Tapes (most of it is in low bass open G tuning)
here's a taste of it
Slide Guitar for Blues: Lap Style - DVD Two by Bob Brozman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9OpUCNTwM#)
Slide Guitar for Blues: Lap Style - DVD One by Bob Brozman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x3hv5W2psg#)
Steve Dawson has a dvd out in C tuning
http://learnrootsmusic.com/html/SDDVD01.html (http://learnrootsmusic.com/html/SDDVD01.html)
And an interesting one for Hawaiian music
http://learnrootsmusic.com/html/SDDVD01.html (http://learnrootsmusic.com/html/SDDVD01.html)
I uploaded 23 lapslide video's on youtube in open G, open D and open C tuning
Here's the playlist
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDA2ECE96285E2B25&feature=view_all (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDA2ECE96285E2B25&feature=view_all)
check the videodescription of these video's as I made lessons with tab for many of them
Here's an example in open G
Blues On My Lap - Weissenborn Lap Slide Guitar - Instrumental in open G (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o1COd_SWyw#)
Tab for this at daddystovepipe.com
And here's my favorite Buddy Woods song
Don't sell it - Don't give it away - Lap slide blues - Oscar "Buddy" Woods (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr6Q0vi1r1M#)
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Try Kelly Joe Phelps lap steel instructional vid. This dude is an incredible player. Not just on lap steel. He has good pointers on how to aproach lap style or just regular slide in general.
But the way he talks it's also good for helping you get to sleep. ;)
The Slide Guitar of Kelly Joe Phelps (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8F0raymy4I#)
Kelly Joe Phelps - Go There (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmut5WhT3cI#ws)
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Just throwing in my 2 cents, but I found that an extender nut makes a world of difference for lap style on a roundneck. Hope it helps.
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Hi, I don't know how relevant this may still be considering that this is an older thread. I myself play lap style and noticed the references in here about capos so thought it may be useful to share a link that was a big help to me.
http://www.sternercapo.se/Capomuseum/Special/Dobro/resophonic.htm (http://www.sternercapo.se/Capomuseum/Special/Dobro/resophonic.htm)
The page is all about resophonic/dobro capos in particular but the same capos can also be used for any guitar setup to play lap style. From the information on this page I was able to make a couple of capos for when I play lap style. Before I discovered this page I was unaware that there was such a thing as a capo that clamped a bar to the strings without also being clamped to the fretboard, so I thought perhaps there might be another lap style player out there who could also hopefully benefit from this Aladdin's Cave of capos.
Also, speaking of Aladdin's Cave, this page is only part of a larger site called The Sterner Capo Museum which is as good as it potentially sounds.
http://www.sternercapo.se/Capomuseum/index.htm#menu (http://www.sternercapo.se/Capomuseum/index.htm#menu)