History of the Lap Steel Guitar 

The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, from which other types developed.

There are three main types of lap steel guitar:

• Lap slide guitars, the first developed, which use a similar sound box to a Spanish guitar
• Resonator guitars, particularly those with square necks
• Electric lap steel guitars which include the first commercially successful solid body instruments

Lap slide and resonator guitars may also be fitted with pickups, but do not depend on electrical amplification to produce their sound. 

The Chandler electric lap steel guitar is a modern solid body electric instrument with the classic Weissenborn profile and built without its’ normal soundbox, relying on its’ electric pickup system to directly receive the vibrations of the strings. Solid body instruments are preferred in situations where acoustic feedback may otherwise be a problem, and are inherently both cheaper to build and more rugged than acoustic electric instruments.

Chandler Musical Instruments is a manufacturer of solid body electric guitars, lap steel guitars and electric basses. Weissenborn or H. Weissenborn is a brand of lap slide guitar manufactured by Hermann Weissenborn in Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s.

These instruments are now highly sought after, and form the base for most non-resonator acoustic lap steel guitars currently produced. It is estimated that fewer than 5000 original instruments were produced, and unknown how many now survive.

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 are; 

Lap steel guitar which may be: 

• Lap slide guitar, with a conventional wooden guitar box
• The square-necked variety of a resonator guitar  
• Electric lap steel guitar
• Electric table steel guitar  
• Electric pedal steel guitar   

The name steel guitar does not come from the material of which the guitar is made, but from the name of the steel, a slide held in the left hand and 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 lap steel typically has 6 strings and is tuned to either standard guitar tuning, or an open chord. It differs from a conventional or Spanish guitar in having a higher action and often a neck that is square in cross section. The frets, unused in steel style playing, may be replaced by markers.

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.

The technique was invented and popularized in Hawaii, thus the lap steel guitar is sometimes known as the Hawaiian steel 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.

Shirlan

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