GAA's Guide to C6 Lap Steel Resources

Introduction

This page describes instructional material and links for the six string C6 lap steel tuning. From bass to treble the notes are C E G A C E.

C6 Instructional Material

The following are instructional materials that I've used and recommend.

  • Learn to Play Western Swing Guitar by Cindy Cashdollar is a good C6 instructional video on two DVDs with accompanying tab booklets. It teaches an 8 String C6 tuning (ACEGACEG) but it's easily adapted for 6 string C6 since the 1st and 8th strings are not heavily used. One thing I like about the video is that it shows some good picking exercises. It teaches some nice tunes too - "Cold, Cold Heart", "San Antonio Rose", "Steel Guitar Rag" and "Right Or Wrong". Almost no slants are required to play the tunes.

  • Stacy Phillips' book, The Art of Hawaiian Steel Guitar, touches lightly on the C6 tuning. He actually teaches the G6 tuning (GBDEGB, low to high). The notes have the same relative relationship as the C6 tuning. The nice thing about G6 versus C6 is that if your lap steel is tuned to High-G tuning (GBDGBD, low to high) you can loosen the first three strings to get a G6 tuning. This lets you try a C6-style tuning without forcing you to put on a special set of strings for C6.

    There are only five G6 tunes tabbed out, but they do give you a feel for some of the things you can do in the tuning. The tabs for "Little Heaven in the South Sea #2", "Alekoki" and "Kaua I Ka Huahua I" are especially nice sounding arrangements that make good use of the G6 tuning. One odd thing about the "Little Heaven" tab is that it shows lots of two-fret forward slants on the 1st and 3rd strings. These are more easily played as a straight bar on the 1st and 4th string (for example, the ending can be played on strings 1 and 4). In fact almost everything shown on the 1st-3rd string pairs can be played on the 1st-4th strings.

    He spends some time relating the G6 tuning to the standard High-G tuning. For example the pattern of straight and reverse slants that you use on the 1st and 2nd string when playing a scale of harmonized thirds in the High-G tuning is the same pattern you use on the 2nd and 3rd strings of a G6 tuning. I found it was a useful way to think about the tuning. If you already know the High-G tuning then you can apply what know about the High-G tuning to G6 (or C6). It helps you orient yourself on the fretboard.

  • Scotty's Music sells collections of C6 tabs with accompanying audio tapes. They are not too difficult for a beginner and they give you a good idea about how tunes lay out in the C6 tuning. Some of the tabs are for the C6/A7 variant (C#EGACE), but they are easily adapted for C6. They also carry a book, Your Cheatin' Heart, which contains tabs for Hank Williams' tunes. It's by Don Helms who used to play lap steel with Hank Williams. It's written for an eight string E13 tuning, but eveything is played using an E6 subset (EG#BC#EG#). That is the same as the six string C6 tuning except it's moved up two whole steps. There are very few slants used. It shows you how to get that classic "country lap steel guitar" sound.

  • The book Joaquin Murphey - Classic Western Swing: Steel Guitar Solos contains transcriptions of solos by Joaquin Murphey. It's a good source of swing licks and ideas for playing over swing chord progressions. The C6 tuning is used throughout. Some tunes use a seven or eight string C6 tuning, but it's easily adapted for six string C6 because the six highest strings are CEGACE for all the tunings. The book is available from the website or you can order it from Elderly Instruments. Here are some samples of Joaquin's playing from Herb Steiner's site.

  • I wrote a guide to The C6 Lap Steel Tuning which outlines a systematic approach to learning the layout of the C6 fretboard. I also wrote a guide to Harmonized Scales in C6

    Other C6 Instructional Material

    The following are other C6 materials that I'm aware of. However, I have not had direct personal experience with them.

  • DeWitt Scott of Scotty's Music wrote a Basic C6th Nonpedal Lap Steel Method. It's an especially good book for beginners. It assumes no previous experience. It starts with the basics. Included are tabs for quite a few songs in a variety of genres - folk, country, Hawaiian, etc. The songs increase in complexity, but they are all playable by beginners.

    Doug Beaumier's Play Steel Guitar website has a C6 Lap Steel Song book. Good collection of tunes. Nice C6 arrangements. Includes audio CDs with lead and backing tracks. Check out the audio samples on the website.

  • Scotty's Music carries a video and workbook by Jerry Byrd. The workbook is a very complete course. It starts with the A tuning and covers many tunings before it gets to C6. The video demonstrates important elements of lap steel technique.

  • GeorgeBoards is a manufacturer of lap steels that has also produced some C6 instructional DVDs and CD-ROMs. Some of the material is for beginners. The emphasis is more on blues, rock and country western styles.

    Internet Resources

  • The Steel Guitar Forum is an excellent source for steel guitar related information. The Steel Without Pedals section is devoted to lap steel guitar.

  • Brad's Page of Steel is a very informative website devoted to lap steel guitar.

  • HawaiianSteel.com has some C6 material. This lesson shows some nice harmonizations of a V7->I transition that make good use of the C6 tuning: Part 1 and Part 2. The site also has a handy lap steel string gauge chart and an insightful article discussing lap steel tunings - what distinguishes one tuning from another and why you'd want to choose one over another.

  • Here's a document from the Horseshoemagnets.com website describing how modal scales in the C6 tuning lay out in a simple "2-fret box". The "Theory" section of the site contains some other information about slants and string gauges in the C6 and C6/A7 tunings.

  • Here's a website that takes the "2-fret box" concept and goes to town with it: C6 Modal Theory Document and a C6 Fretboard Diagram with modal boxes laid out.

    C6 Tabs on the Internet

  • The Steel Guitar Forum's Tablature section mostly contains pedal steel tabs. However, there are some lap steel tabs and some of them are in C6:

  • Brad's Page of Steel has a page of lap steel tabs which includes some C6 tabs.

  • Two other pages with some C6 tabs are Rebel and Ricky tab page and Doug Beaumier tab page.

     

    Feel free to contact me if you have any comments.

    • Updates:
    04/12/05 - Initial version
    04/26/05 - Added "Other Materials". Added link to HawaiianSteel.com
    04/29/05 - Added information about Joaquin Murphy transcriptions
    05/06/05 - Added link to Doug Beaumier tab page
    12/15/05 - Added link to George Boards website
    01/10/06 - Added links to Steel Guitar Forum tabs
    01/24/06 - Added links to more Steel Guitar Forum tabs
    04/03/06 - Moved to new server
    01/31/07 - Updated Steel Gutar Forum links
    11/29/07 - Updated Steel Gutar Forum links