another really good site:
Brad's Page of Steel

As for instructional material:
Any and all Stacy Phillips books published by Mel Bay...The Dobro Book, The Complete Dobro Player (my recommendation), The Art of Hawaiian Steel Guitar.

Also the book by DeWitt Scott: Basic C6th Nonpedal Lap Steel Method (also Mel Bay)

I've avoided listing materials that pertain mainly to Bluegrass playing.

As for videos: Bob Brozman's Hawaiian video is excellent. Kelly Joe Phelp's video is also pretty good.

Steel instruction is categorized by the open tuning you like to use...common ones: Low G (Brozman favorite), high G (bluegrass), D, C6.

I personally use Low G on my lap steel and C6 on my 8-string electric steel.

I'm sure Mr. Leff and Mr. Brozman have more info sources....

[This message has been edited by mikeln (edited 06-22-2000).]

The first thing to do is get a good bar (slide). Orville uses a Stevens-style bar (most dobroists use this) and Bob uses "bullet bar" that most pedal steel and lap steel players use. I use the bullet bar. Dunlop makes a "Jerry Byrd" bar that is inexpensive and good. Bob endorses a bar from Latch Lake called a "Brozophonic" that's good too. I can't tell you about Stevens bars, but Paul Beard's Resophonic Outfitters has some nice pictures on the web of different styles if memory serves me.

You'll also need a thumbpick and fingerpicks. You may already have these from playing regular guitar.

The standard acoustic resophonic guitar (ie dobro) is strung with a set of strings that are meant to be tuned to the GBDBGD tuning (low to high). The low-bass G tuning (DGBGBD) will work with that set of strings too. If you want to play in a higher tuning, such as C6, you'll need lighter strings (note - use one of the G tunings and tune the 4th string up to E for a sixth tuning for fun instead of stringing the guitar up for C6).

Back to the instructional materials now:

There's a bunch of beginning Dobro videos out there from Homespun etc. I haven't seen them.

I have Bob's Hawaiian video and it is challenging. I would not recommend it for a complete beginner on dobro. Great video though!

I have Stacey Phillip's "Art of Hawaiian Steel Guitar" and have found it useful. You won't be familiar with the tunes though.

I have Stacey's "Complete Dobro" book and it has some good stuff in it, but haven't found it all that useful personally. I do better trying to copy stuff off CDs (easy stuff where I can find it).

I have the DeWitt Scott C6 book. It was pretty good but not for Dobro, since the tuning is in C6.

I also have the Jerry Byrd course and it was very useful for me when I started playing steel, but is mostly for Hawaiian C6 style music. It comes with tapes that are pretty bad, but all in all I learned a lot from it.
You'll need to contact Jerry Byrd or get it from Scotty's Music since it is hard to find (also expensive - about $100 when I bought it several years ago).

My advice is for you to find one of your local dobroists and book at least a lesson or two, then maybe invest in a video if you like video instruction.

After playing a couple of years, I took a lesson from Bob Brozman last year and have to say it was one of the most memorable musical experiences I've ever had. I learned more from that lesson than all the books and videos combined.

Have fun playing your new instrument. We'll trade licks in August in Santa Cruz!

Aloha,

-Bill

PS On a related note, I picked up Led Kaapana and Bob Brozman's concert video a few weeks ago and it is fantastic. Lots of great slack key from Led (solo) and duets with Bob on National and Weissenborn lap steels. The camera work is excellent (I've learned a lot of Led's licks that I've always wanted to learn) and the sound is good too.

Thats cool. I was thinking about doing the same thing. I would love to learn to play slide and really dig that reso sound. I was thinking about getting a round neck though that way I only have to bring one guitar to SC. Nothing like paying a bunch of money to go play a guitar your not familiar with! I just can't decide on a wooden or steel resonator guitar. Good luck.

Bar selection was critical to me playing well...I tried several "stevens" bars and bullet bars. I found that stevens bars are initially easier to use, especially when transitioning from chordal work to single string work, but it takes a lot more work to get slants to go smoothly (the bar falls over). Bullet bars are much easier for chordal work, but hard to transition to single string....but... if you can find a bullet bar that is about the length of you middle finger, you can "hook" the back of the bullet with the muscle at the base of your finger, this allows you to "pick up" the bar to transistion to single string playing. I personally use the Brozophonic bullet bar (Latch Lake...sold by Homespun Videos) 'cause it's long enough for my hands. I tried several of the John Pearse bars, but they were all too short for me.

As for starting out, I agree with Bill. Last year at SC, I had Orville give me an introductory lesson. Really helped get me started correctly.

Bring your John Pearse bars to SC if you are interested in selling them. I'd like to try them and might be interested in buying.

Cheers

After a bit of research, and finding the great number of different tunings and styles for the Dobro, I had to sit back, stop my head from spinning, and ask myself 'What do I want to play?'. I think it best to start in a tuning I know from conventional and slide guitar, open G or D. I can at least use familiar picking patterns and scales while learning the new playing technique. I am going to try both the round-bar and stevens style steels. It appears that lifting the steel is important , so maybe the 'handle' is handy. After I try some Brozman IGS class tunes, I'll attempt some stuff that is specific to Dobro. That's where your suggestions have helped. And I'll be sure to find you all at Santa Cruz.

Many thanks, again.

Couple of things to consider on the bullet vs Stevens steel:

1. Bullet is easier to do slants with (you need to slant to play Hawaiian properly)

2. Stevens is easier for pull-offs (essential bluegrass Dobro technique)

3. If you want to go on to pedal steel, learning the bullet bar will have been the way to go. Note that I have seen some folks play lap steel with a Stevens, but the majority of electric players you see will use a bullet bar.

4. You can't "roll" a Stevens (pedal steelers use this technique).

5. It's harder to play "through" the strings with a Stevens, though someone invented a Stevens with a round tip that helps for this.

What I mean is, most bluegrass Dobroists lay the bar across the strings (all of 'em) and pick the notes. The Hawaiian style players will tend to move the bar over those strings so that the tip of the bar covers the string you want to play, and not the other strings, so that the other strings don't ring at the same time.

Of course, a lot of pros can do any of this stuff with either Stevens or bullet.