Steel Guitar FAQ

Questions, Answered

What is the difference between a lap steel and a pedal steel?

Both are played with a bar laid across the strings. The lap steel sits in one open tuning, so a chord is wherever that tuning, moved up by the bar, already holds it — its pages chart the six strings in C6. The pedal steel has ten strings plus pedals and knee levers that retune some of them while they are held, so the same bar position spells a different chord with a foot or a knee engaged. Its chord pages chart the open strings, and the copedents chart the rest.

What is a copedent?

A pedal steel's open tuning plus what every pedal and knee lever does to it, string by string — a raise or a lower, in semitones, to a named note. This site charts two: the E9 neck in the Emmons setup and the C6 neck in the maker's factory setup, each cell taken from a source named on the page.

Why is the E9 tuning called re-entrant?

Because string order is not pitch order. Strings are numbered from the one furthest from the player, and on the E9 neck strings 1 and 2 sound below string 3. The chord pages name strings by number for that reason: "strings 3 4 5" is where the bar and the picks are, whatever the pitch order.

What is the Emmons setup?

The arrangement of the E9 neck's A, B and C pedals and left knee levers that the sources read call the standard. The Day setup reverses which foot position does the A and C changes, and which side of the left knee does the two lever changes — the same changes on different controls, so it reaches the same tunings.

What happens when two changes move the same string?

It depends on the two changes. Two raises to the same note share the pull and land on that note. A raise and a lower together sound the sum of the two — a split. Two raises of one string to different notes are described by no source read here, so the E9 combinations that do it are named on the copedent page and not charted.

What is a split?

A string that one change raises and another lowers at the same time, so it lands between the two — for example, on the E9 neck the right knee lowers string 6 a whole step and the B pedal raises it a half step, so with both engaged it sounds a half step below its open note. The copedent pages mark every split they chart.

Where is the dobro?

On Guitar Warrior. The squareneck resonator is played with a bar as well, but its deep home is the guitar family's site, and this one links there rather than charting it twice.

Is any of this paid?

No. Every chart, table, drill and tool on Pedal Steel Warrior is free, with no ads and no account.