Lap Steel Tuning

[Chris Templeton]

Many people use a 1-3-5-1-3-5 tuning on 6 string lap steel.
For the ZZ Top type rock songs, the major third on the 5th string is too sweet and bright for me.
For the power chords, I prefer to have a nice solid 1-5-1 on the bottom.
I tune, 1-5-1-4 -5-1. It's also nice having the tonic/1 on top. Sometimes I tune the Sus/4 to a major third.
Watch out for slants.

[D Schubert]

Somehow, I've ended up with 151351 (sevastapol) as my preferred botleneck slide tuning and 135135 (hi-bass G) as my preferred lap tuning. Having the 151xxx on the bottom sure has it's place!

[Allan Revich]

Many people use a 1-3-5-1-3-5 tuning on 6 string lap steel.
For the ZZ Top type rock songs, the major third on the 5th string is too sweet and bright for me.
For the power chords, I prefer to have a nice solid 1-5-1 on the bottom.
I tune, 1-5-1-4 -5-1. It's also nice having the tonic/1 on top. Sometimes I tune the Sus/4 to a major third.
Watch out for slants.

That’s an interesting tuning, Chris. What advantages do you feel are gained by putting the 4 where most players have the 3rd? Do you slant to play major chords?

[Dave Mudgett]

I tune, 1-5-1-4 -5-1.

Banjo players call that sus4 tuning 'modal' or 'sawmill'. Of course, standard 5-string Open G is gDGBD, thus Gmodal is gDGCD. I use it sometimes on banjo. Also on slide guitar. The 4 in that type of tuning eliminates the 'majory' sound, but doesn't force a total Aeolian minor. For example, if one is playing a minor-modal tune like Cuckoo, it completes a minor pentatonic scale (based on the Dorian mode) by hammering the 1 to b3, then 4-5-b7 can be gotten a couple of ways. Or the 4 or 4-5 can basically be a drone. It's a very particular sound, and used a lot in old-time music.

I almost always have a 1-5-1 somewhere on the low end for slide guitar. Vestapol 1-5-1-3-5-1 for 1 on top/bottom or 5-1-5-1-3-5 for 5 on the top/bottom. And one can get both of these with the same set of strings - e.g, Open D = D A D F# A D or Open G = D G D G B D. Since I came up this way, playing blues, I generally prefer these types of tunings for either slide guitar or lap steel when playing blues or rock and roll. There are some advantages. But I don't generally think they're as versatile as, let's say, 6th tunings. And for bluegrass resonator, clearly 1-3-5-1-3-5 is the meat-and-potatoes. Of course, there are variations on all of these themes.

[Chris Templeton]

You sure know your stuff, Dave!

[D Schubert]

Another interesting open tuning I've tried in C, low to high....

CGCGCX where X can be altered to D, D# or E to suit the particular song

[Chris Templeton]

√

[Larry Allen]

Mine are 156135…more chords and melodies.. Weissenborn in E and Dobro in G.