Knowra Steel guitar Steel guitar A guitar played horizontally or on the lap, with strings stopped by a sliding steel bar to produce gliding pitches. Its defining technique allows continuous changes in pitch between notes.
Steel guitar bar : A smooth, heavy bar slid across steel-guitar strings to change their vibrating length and pitch. Moving the bar produces the continuous pitch glides that define the instrument.
Joseph Kekuku : A Hawaiian musician widely credited with developing the steel-guitar technique in the late nineteenth century. His playing helped establish the instrument’s defining use of a metal bar across the strings.
Country music : A popular music tradition rooted in the American South, shaped by folk, blues, and other regional styles. Steel guitar became a signature sound in country arrangements and performances.
Slide guitar : A guitar technique in which a hard object slides along the strings to change pitch. The term covers related playing methods, while steel guitar names instruments built for horizontal bar playing.
Open tuning : A tuning in which a guitar’s open strings form a chord without being fretted. Steel guitars use chord-based open tunings to make bar positions yield harmonies.
Hawaiian music : The musical traditions of Hawaiʻi, encompassing Indigenous practices and later local styles. Steel guitar emerged within Hawaiian musical culture before spreading to mainland America.
Western swing : A dance-oriented American music style blending country, jazz, blues, and swing. Its bands used steel guitar for both melodic solos and chordal accompaniment.
Lap slide guitar : A conventional guitar adapted for horizontal playing with a slide across its strings. It resembles lap steel playing but often retains a standard guitar’s construction and tuning.
Vibrato : A periodic variation in pitch used to enrich a sustained musical note. Small bar movements create the steel guitar’s characteristic vocal-like vibrato.
Hawaiian steel guitar : A steel-guitar style associated with Hawaiian music, often using a horizontal guitar and sliding bar. This early tradition shaped the instrument’s characteristic tone and performance approach.
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