Console steel guitar

The console steel guitar is a type of electric steel guitar intermediate between the lap steel guitar and the pedal steel guitar, defined by its resting on a frame supported by legs. Console steel guitars typically have multiple necks and/or more than six strings per neck. The instrument was created when players in the late 1940s needed to play in different keys and with different chords than the lap steel afforded.[1] To do this, they added additional necks (each tuned differently with additional strings) to a lap steel. The player could then easily switch to a different neck on the same instrument, but this made the instrument so heavy and cumbersome that it could not be managed on the lap.[2] Trying to solve the problem with multiple necks led to the invention of the pedal steel guitar in the 1950s.[3]

Console steel guitar
Fender Dual 8 Professional Lap Steel (around 1952)
Classification String instrument
Related instruments

Console steels are particularly favored in Hawaiian music, especially the twin neck eight string per neck configuration. Don Helms played a Gibson Console with Hank Williams. Also, Hank Williams III's steel guitar player Andy Gibson plays a Fender Dual Professional steel guitar. Kayton Roberts, who also played with Hank Williams III, used this same particular model as well.

Console steel guitars most commonly have eight strings per neck, with six or seven strings less common and mainly on older instruments. Up to four necks is not unusual, as without the benefit of pedals, the player has only as many tunings available as there are necks, but two necks are most common. As with the pedal steel guitar, the neck closest to the player is most commonly C6 tuning, and the next closest E9 tuning.

The line between electric lap steel guitar and console steel guitar is fuzzy, with a great deal of overlap. Some makers and authorities do not use the term console steel guitar at all, but refer to any steel guitar without pedals as a lap steel guitar. In 1956, Gibson was selling an 8+8 string with folding legs as a lap steel guitar, but this particular instrument is unplayable in lap steel fashion; The Fender Stringmaster with up to four necks was also described as a lap steel guitar in some Fender catalogs, while in others it was simply described as a steel guitar.

Makers

See also

References
  1. Seymour, Bobbe (April 30, 2012). "Early History of the Pedal Steel Guitar". pedalsteelmusic.com. Steel Guitar Nashville. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  2. Ross, Michael (February 17, 2015). "Pedal to the Metal: A Short History of the Pedal Steel Guitar". Premier Guitar Magazine. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  3. Anderson, Maurice (2000). "Pedal Steel Guitar, Back and To the Future!". The Pedal Steel Pages. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
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