Vintage Steel Guitars

Steel guitar is:

* A method of playing slide guitar using a steel. Resonator guitars, including round necked varieties, are particularly suitable for this style, but other types are also used, usually with modified high actions, as well as instruments produced specifically for the purpose.

* A specialized instrument built for playing in steel guitar fashion. These are of several types:
o Lap steel guitar, which may be:
+ Lap slide guitar, with a conventional wooden guitar box.
+ The square-necked variety of resonator guitar.
+ Electric lap steel guitar.
o Electric table steel guitar.
o Electric pedal steel guitar.

The name steel guitar comes not from the material of which the guitar is made, but from the name of the steel, a slide held in the left hand.

Steel guitar refers to a method of playing on a guitar held horizontally, with the strings uppermost and the bass strings towards the player, and using a type of slide called a steel above the fingerboard rather than fretting the strings with the fingers. This may be done with any guitar, but is most common on instruments designed and produced for this style of playing.

The technique was invented and popularized in Hawaii, thus the lap steel guitar is sometimes known as the Hawaiian guitar, particularly in documents from the early 1900s. However in Hawaiian music, Hawaiian guitar means slack string guitar, played in the conventional or Spanish position.

Steel guitar technique also developed from bottleneck guitar, which is a similar technique to steel guitar but with the guitar held in the conventional position, and using a different form of slide to accommodate this playing position.

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