Chord Positions — Lap Steel

The Lap Steel chord reference: pick a root, then any of 62 qualities, and every bar position the lap steel's six strings in C6 holds for it arrives charted, with the strings to pick and audio.

The lap steel sits in one open tuning — C-E-G-A-C-E from the lowest string, which rings as C6 with nothing touched — and the bar lies straight across it, so a chord is available only where that tuning, moved up by the bar, already contains it. The picks choose the strings; nothing else changes a note.

A few chords need a slant: the bar angled across three strings so each crosses it one fret apart. Those are charted where they exist and nowhere else, which is why some qualities on this page have no position at all.