Uploaded March 2013 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Here's some steel guitar music from my heart, I hope you enjoy it. I always enjoy sharing my music with people and taking time to explain my instrument to those who ask.
I've learned that the best video quality is obtained by taping with sunlight in the background. I try to stay in the shade where it's cooler. That's why my guitar is at an angle later in the video - I'm on a sand mound to get out of the sun. The inner reef is about 12 feet deep at most. The sunlight makes it turn a pretty turquoise color. Beyond the reef, where the wave crests break, the water gets deep quickly and it is dark blue in color.
My steel guitar is an 8 string Canopus made in Japan. The guitar has 4 legs, but I only use 3. My C6th tuning (treble to bass) is E, C, A, G, E, C, A, Low C. You can hear some of the nice sounds using the bottom Low C toward the end of the video on the song, "Blue Hawaiian Moonlight."
I encourage others to learn to play the steel guitar. It's not hard to learn in my opinion. There's a steep learning curve, that is, the hardest part is getting started, then it's all easier from there. The most difficult part is getting used to working with the finger picks and learning your string picking groups and bar slants to obtain chords. It's like most other stringed instruments, having it's I, IV and V chords on frets 0, 5 and 7 (that is C, F and G chords). The pattern stays the same, no matter what fret you are playing on.
Unlike standard guitar, the strings never touch the fretboard on a steel guitar. It's just fret markings. The stainless steel bar forms your chords by contacting the string(s). Since you have complete control over the bar, the steel guitar is a very expressive instrument to play, which is why I like it so much.
The best way to begin learning to play Hawaiian steel guitar is to listen to lots of Hawaiian music that contains steel guitar to familiarize your mind with the sounds. 90% of all Hawaiian music uses the C6th tuning.
And of course, purchase a steel guitar. There's millions of used steel guitars floating around the world from the 1930's through the 1950's before the British invasion to America, which ended the popularity of the steel guitar. Rock music became the standard. But back before television became popular, families sat around the radio, listening to the Oahu Hawaiian hour. Steel guitar was super popular. Every parent wanted their child to learn to play steel guitar, and every kid wanted one. Those were the good old days in America!
There are lots of resources online, but the best instruction course in my humble opinion is Jerry Byrd's Instruction Course, available only from Scotty's Music in St. Louis. That's also where you can get plenty of Hawaiian music to listen to, and my website, which is totally free. I share lots of rhythm tracks and tablature to get you started nicely if you're interested in learning to play beautiful music. Hawaiian music is a style, not a guitar. I focus on the electric Hawaiian style steel guitar on my website. Enjoy!
Here's some steel guitar music from my heart, I hope you enjoy it. I always enjoy sharing my music with people and taking time to explain my instrument to those who ask.
I've learned that the best video quality is obtained by taping with sunlight in the background. I try to stay in the shade where it's cooler. That's why my guitar is at an angle later in the video - I'm on a sand mound to get out of the sun. The inner reef is about 12 feet deep at most. The sunlight makes it turn a pretty turquoise color. Beyond the reef, where the wave crests break, the water gets deep quickly and it is dark blue in color.
My steel guitar is an 8 string Canopus made in Japan. The guitar has 4 legs, but I only use 3. My C6th tuning (treble to bass) is E, C, A, G, E, C, A, Low C. You can hear some of the nice sounds using the bottom Low C toward the end of the video on the song, "Blue Hawaiian Moonlight."
I encourage others to learn to play the steel guitar. It's not hard to learn in my opinion. There's a steep learning curve, that is, the hardest part is getting started, then it's all easier from there. The most difficult part is getting used to working with the finger picks and learning your string picking groups and bar slants to obtain chords. It's like most other stringed instruments, having it's I, IV and V chords on frets 0, 5 and 7 (that is C, F and G chords). The pattern stays the same, no matter what fret you are playing on.
Unlike standard guitar, the strings never touch the fretboard on a steel guitar. It's just fret markings. The stainless steel bar forms your chords by contacting the string(s). Since you have complete control over the bar, the steel guitar is a very expressive instrument to play, which is why I like it so much.
The best way to begin learning to play Hawaiian steel guitar is to listen to lots of Hawaiian music that contains steel guitar to familiarize your mind with the sounds. 90% of all Hawaiian music uses the C6th tuning.
And of course, purchase a steel guitar. There's millions of used steel guitars floating around the world from the 1930's through the 1950's before the British invasion to America, which ended the popularity of the steel guitar. Rock music became the standard. But back before television became popular, families sat around the radio, listening to the Oahu Hawaiian hour. Steel guitar was super popular. Every parent wanted their child to learn to play steel guitar, and every kid wanted one. Those were the good old days in America!
There are lots of resources online, but the best instruction course in my humble opinion is Jerry Byrd's Instruction Course, available only from Scotty's Music in St. Louis. That's also where you can get plenty of Hawaiian music to listen to, and my website, which is totally free. I share lots of rhythm tracks and tablature to get you started nicely if you're interested in learning to play beautiful music. Hawaiian music is a style, not a guitar. I focus on the electric Hawaiian style steel guitar on my website. Enjoy!
