Uploaded June 2011 | Updated September 2026, 30 minutes ago
This song is played in the wonderful B11th tuning (treble to bass: E - C# - A - G# - D# - C#) . Halfway through the song I do some palm muting with my right hand at the bridge. You place your palm just before, but not on the bridge (because your palm needs to make some contact with the strings to mute). I really like the muting technique. Not enough players use it. It's 100% Hawaiian!
Also, I'm just using a $99 "ARTISAN" brand lap steel to play this song. You don't need an expensive steel guitar to play. I did however change out the original cheap import pickup with a telecaster or something. I forget.
I haven't tried it yet, but I just got a DiMarzio SDS-1 6-string pickup from MusiciansFriend.com with adjustable poles magnets. This is nice because sting 1 (high E) tends to diminish when playing augmented chords, et cetera. With an adjustabe pickup like this, you can raise the pole magnet by using an allen wrench. This makes the string louder and more individual when played in a chord. When my neck feels better I hope Lord willing to tackle this in my Artisan lap steel.
"SAND" is probably the most requested song on the B11th tuning. There's free tabs and rhythm tracks on my SteelC6th.com website.
I like the "Artisan" (also sold by "Rogue" and a few others, because there's no annoying plate covering the bridge. Someone actually built this lap steel correctly. Most lap steels are built with something covering the bridge or the volume knob is in the way, making it difficult or impossible to do palm muting of the strings.
For a $99 lap steel, it's a good bargain (legs and case come with it). I changed the strings too, putting on semi-flats. I always us .016" or 017" for my first high E, and then about .050" or 056" on the bottom C. Standard is about .036" to .038" for the 6th string, low C. I just like bigger strings, which kind of compensate for not having 8-strings. You can still have a low end felling even though you only have 6-strings. So it's kind of like removing strings 5 and 6 from an 8-string, leaving you still with your 2 bottom strings.
The only disadvantage of a 6-string is that I'm always retuning my low string to Bb, C, and C# for different songs (which is no big deal. I kind of like it actually, because it makes it more interesting for the people watching. To go from a standard C6th tuning requires that 3 strings be retuned to obtain a B11th. That's a piece of cake.
And if a C# is already being used on the C6th+DominantA7th, then you only need to retune 2 strings to get B11th. A Dominant 7th chord is what you get on strings 3,4,5 and 6 when you tune the sixth string up a half-tone to C# on the C6th tuning. So it's now called technically a C6th+7th. If you tune string six down to Bb, then you get a C Dominant 7th chord on the same strings mentioned. That's very interesting on the C6th tuning.
This song is played in the wonderful B11th tuning (treble to bass: E - C# - A - G# - D# - C#) . Halfway through the song I do some palm muting with my right hand at the bridge. You place your palm just before, but not on the bridge (because your palm needs to make some contact with the strings to mute). I really like the muting technique. Not enough players use it. It's 100% Hawaiian!
Also, I'm just using a $99 "ARTISAN" brand lap steel to play this song. You don't need an expensive steel guitar to play. I did however change out the original cheap import pickup with a telecaster or something. I forget.
I haven't tried it yet, but I just got a DiMarzio SDS-1 6-string pickup from MusiciansFriend.com with adjustable poles magnets. This is nice because sting 1 (high E) tends to diminish when playing augmented chords, et cetera. With an adjustabe pickup like this, you can raise the pole magnet by using an allen wrench. This makes the string louder and more individual when played in a chord. When my neck feels better I hope Lord willing to tackle this in my Artisan lap steel.
"SAND" is probably the most requested song on the B11th tuning. There's free tabs and rhythm tracks on my SteelC6th.com website.
I like the "Artisan" (also sold by "Rogue" and a few others, because there's no annoying plate covering the bridge. Someone actually built this lap steel correctly. Most lap steels are built with something covering the bridge or the volume knob is in the way, making it difficult or impossible to do palm muting of the strings.
For a $99 lap steel, it's a good bargain (legs and case come with it). I changed the strings too, putting on semi-flats. I always us .016" or 017" for my first high E, and then about .050" or 056" on the bottom C. Standard is about .036" to .038" for the 6th string, low C. I just like bigger strings, which kind of compensate for not having 8-strings. You can still have a low end felling even though you only have 6-strings. So it's kind of like removing strings 5 and 6 from an 8-string, leaving you still with your 2 bottom strings.
The only disadvantage of a 6-string is that I'm always retuning my low string to Bb, C, and C# for different songs (which is no big deal. I kind of like it actually, because it makes it more interesting for the people watching. To go from a standard C6th tuning requires that 3 strings be retuned to obtain a B11th. That's a piece of cake.
And if a C# is already being used on the C6th+DominantA7th, then you only need to retune 2 strings to get B11th. A Dominant 7th chord is what you get on strings 3,4,5 and 6 when you tune the sixth string up a half-tone to C# on the C6th tuning. So it's now called technically a C6th+7th. If you tune string six down to Bb, then you get a C Dominant 7th chord on the same strings mentioned. That's very interesting on the C6th tuning.
