Hawaiian, lap/pedal/dobro/SLIDE guitars

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 2 Mar 2002 11:22 pm

Hey folks, I hope you'll tolerate at least one more post from this ole guy. As a long standing, working musician that has always attempted to keep up to date on things relating to the steel guitar......since my very first lesson on the Hawaiian steel guitar at age 7 (circa 1944-45).....I today find that somewhere, I've really missed the boat.
Things that were always constants and invented years ago, all of sudden seem to be making the rounds as "new inventions" of someone......presumeably with a rock and roll foundation in their new era sounds.
When I started, the stainless steel or plastic bar (optional)....was what made the Hawaiian steel guitar.....what it was at the time, it made the melody destinctive and pretty.
Since the days of early rock and roll, anything the picker elected to slide up and down on the strings(noise makers) of the instrument have been applied toward the name of the guitar. Steel guitars are now being advertised, it seems, as "SLIDE"guitars
with vintage accessories being offered things like knives, beer bottles, plastic combs, large nails, spikes and/or whatever.
When did this transition occur and WHO invented it?
The vibrato unit (Bigbsy) and those that preceded it and used by Les Paul, Chet Atkins
and misc. others has been renamed "STRING BENDER or STRING STRETCHER" or whatever.
Please let me know.....is this what those who are striving to rewrite American History
have done to the Hawaiian Steel Guitar; or,
is there truly a factual foundation on which these lables are based? THANK YOU!
I just want to know how to explain what it is that I'm now playing.....when someone chances to ask me. I don't want to look out of date.

HowardR · Post by **HowardR** » 3 Mar 2002 7:19 am

Ray, if somebody advertises a steel guitar as a "slide" guitar, it's one of two things;

Lack of knowledge, or a deliberate attempt to lure a broad range of buyers to an instrument. This is done on eBay all the time. "Lap Steel Hawaiian Dobro Slide Guitar"
usually for some lesser quality guitar. It's the shotgun approach. You take a shot and hit whatever you can. I can't recall any manufacturer of steel guitars referring to their product as a slide guitar.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 3 Mar 2002 7:53 am

Ray, I think those "name changes" are made by those who are ignorant (no insult intended) or averse to the proper (decades old) terms. Any device on a guitar that gives a vibrato (which is the correct term) is now called a "whammy bar" by the younger generation. It just sounds "cooler". At one time, (probably back in the early '60s), there were so many Bigsby's around that name Bigsby became almost synonymous for any vibrato device on guitar. Then, things changed. Fender (I believe) came along, and called their vibrato device a "tremolo". (Actually, a misnomer, due to the fact that the musical term "tremolo" is a wavering of volume, while "vibrato" is a wavering of frequency.) Anyhow, due to the similar (to the un-initiated, anyway) effect, the terms are still mixed up today. At one time, they even designed a circuit that would give a wavering sound to both the volume and the frequency in their amplifiers, so I guess that made it OK to interchange the terms.

(That circuit, when perfected and augmented with a phase shift in the '60s, became the electronic Leslie, or "phase shifter". Electronically, it's a "wobbulated pass-band filter".)

The term "slide guitar", however, is an old one, probably going back to the late 1800's. I think that, for a purist, the term "slide guitar" is given to the technique of playing a regular fretted guitar with any kind of device that allows the notes to be slurred or glissed. It could be a bottle, a comb, a pinky slide, or whatever. When the frets were removed and the instrument laid down on the lap, the instrument became known as the Hawaiian guitar, and later the steel guitar, or "lap steel". Now, I guess the younger generation didn't like Hawaiian music, and the term "steel guitar" had become associated with country music. So, they kinda adopted the term "slide guitar", probably because it has no "negative" (to kids, anyway) connotation. Anytime the uninitiated see a steel guitar nowadays, they usually call it a "slide guitar".

The younger generation sometimes likes to give common things new names. Remember when "motorcar" became "automobile", and "automobile" became "car", and "car" became "wheels"? That's the same sort of thing.
("Fliver" was even in there somewhere.)

Don't get insulted by changes in terms, it's just time moving on (and leaving some of us behind!) Hell, I still say "kilocycle" and "megacycle".

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 3 Mar 2002 8:48 am

I guess I'm behind the times with terms also. Several times when younger members of the show or the audience have refered to my PSG as that "slide thing", I have patiently explained that the slide thing was when a guitarist placed that "metal thing" on his finger and played a fretted guitar with it, like some of the Blues players used to do, and it was not even kinfolks to the PSG.

No wonder they gave me a bewildered look as if I was ignorant or being condescending. They knew what they were talking about all along!

www.genejones.com

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 3 Mar 2002 11:32 am

Thanks! I feel much better, more confident
and assured that I am still playing the steel guitar, regardless of what some others might think! Much appreciated.

Mark van Allen · Post by **Mark van Allen** » 3 Mar 2002 1:52 pm

It could be worse- I can't even count the times somebody has watched me play all night and come up to compliment me on my "keyboard" work... don't forget when ebay sleuthing to watch out for "Peddle Steel", "Petal Steel", and "Lab steel" guitars... Ive seen a bunch of 'em...

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Mark van Allen- Lookin' for a gig! Pedal, Non-Pedal, Lap, Dobro and Lead Guitar- c'mon by and visit: www.markvanallen.com

HowardR · Post by **HowardR** » 3 Mar 2002 2:19 pm

and don't forget laptop guitars...does it have 8 strings or 8 megabytes....

Bob Stone · Post by **Bob Stone** » 9 Mar 2002 6:07 am

Grrrrrrrr! The whole "slide guitar" thing is a pet peeve for me. I think most people who call a steel guitar a slide guitar probably first heard blues slide (aka bottleneck) guitar before hearing or seeing a real steel guitar.

To me, "slide" means generally sloppy playing, which is something real steel players work hard not to do. And, of course, we are careful not to slide up to every note.

Then there are those who should know better but call all metal National resonator guitars "steel guitars" even though none of the shiny ones were made of steel, but were either German silver (a copper-nickel alloy) or brass.

In my forthcoming "Sacred Steel" book, I take a couple of pages to attempt set all this straight.

Maybe we should print up leaflets which explain all this and air drop a few hundred thousand all over the US by helicopter.

Ian McLatchie · Post by **Ian McLatchie** » 9 Mar 2002 7:01 am

Good idea, Bob, but I'll be disappointed if the air drop stops at the 49th parallel.

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 9 Mar 2002 9:08 am

When a young hipster looking like a Nirvana reject comes up to me and says, "hey man, you play a BAAAADDD steel slide pedal," I go past the pierced eyebrow, nostril, and tongue and thank him profusely and genuinely, since whatever I played gave him the desire to come up and compliment me.

Showing one's appreciation transcends all, regardless of the language or terminology used.

<font size=1>I might throw in, very discreetly, that "it's real name is a pedal steel guitar."</font>

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Texas Steel Guitar Association