A few months ago I did an interview with Cindy Cashdollar. She is an amazing player and super nice lady. I asked her about some tunings that shee uses for her Dobro and steel guitars plus a good tuning for someone getting started playing 6-string lap steel. Here is what she had to say:
300guitars: What are the tunings that you like to use?
Cindy Cashdollar: For acoustic slide and lap steel, I mainly use G, or sometimes G6th to suggest a swing tuning. Also D, Dsus, E, or C, depending on who I’m working with. For steel, C6th and E13. If I use a triple neck steel, I’ll add an A6th for a lower and richer sounding version of the C6th..it’s nice to have a choice, depending on the favored keys /styles of music certain artists will sing in, or if there are a lot of fiddle tunes in A, or whatever else comes into the picture.
300guitars: Can you suggest a tuning for our readers that want to get started on 6-string lap steel?
Cindy Cashdollar: I usually ask what style of music people are interested in before I can recommend a tuning. I think G is the “workhorse” of tunings, it seems to get the job done in any style, and it’s a bit more friendly for minor chords and inversions, so you’re not just limited to flatting that third on one string. (I cover some of that in an instructional DVD I did for Homespun Tapes called “Dobro Variations”), but of course it can be applied to lap steel.
For straight ahead blues (and also the more modal Americana style types of music), I would say D or E. If it’s western swing and you want to play around with it before committing to an 8 string, I recommend a modified C6th that can be applied to 6 string. I also have an instructional DVD on Homepsun Tapes for western swing, so this could be applied to it. I have most of these tunings and string gauges listed on my website, at cindycashdollar.com.
Click here to visit Cindy Cashdollar’s site.
Click here to read the full interview and see a list of her instructional DVD’s.