Hawaiian steel resources?

[C. Eric Banister]

I've been asked to play some Hawaiian steel guitar in a couple of months, and I'd love to do it. The problem is I don't know any Hawaiian song!

Can you share some of your favorite resources for learning some songs? Thanks!

[Joe Cook]

Get Doug Beaumier's excellent books of songs. Not all are Hawaiian but he has quite a few classic island songs with melody and backing tracks. Highly recommended!

[Nic Neufeld]

It'd be easy to flood you with suggestions but you kind of need a quick intro vs comprehensive.

I would say, start with C6 tuning because it is probably the most common for Hawaiian generally (and a strum across a 6th tuning just sounds instantly Hawaiian). You can check out the youtube lessons from Troy Brenningmeyer, he has a handful of Hawaiian tunes and he teaches pretty well.

Other quick recommendations:
* This is personal taste, but listen to old Alfred Apaka recordings to get a good intro to the (admittedly cliched but boy, I love it) 1950s touristy Hawaiian music era.
* Connect the notes, avoid playing choppily...let notes glide into each other.
* Slide slowly, not quickly (the latter will "sound country")
* It's a cliche but you can never go wrong with a strum across the 6th tuning strings that you slide up to the octave (always slow down right before you get to the octave). Same with "1 fret slides" where you play a fret behind the target chord and slide into it, often on the 4th beat of the measure, sliding into the chord on the 1. Easy cliches that sound recognizably Hawaiian to most people.

[Ben Alt]

+1 to Doug Beaumier's books - he has great arrangements which sound good and are well organized and great song choices.

[Paul Seager]

Most of the public will associate Hawaiian music either with the slow and IMHO, saccharine melodies, or "Hapa Haole" styled tunes, popular in the 30's and 40's.

For the former, Alfred Apaka is a good starter as is Bobby Ingano and I would add that later Jerry Byrd concerts, available on YT, are excellent resources. For the latter https://www.huapala.org/ is a great albeit, extensive resource of tunes.

Beyond the Reef, Song of the Islands,... these are good starting points. Again your Scottsburg, Indiana audience may not detect the subtleties of Hawaiian music but my advice is get the melody down for your gig and then listen, listen, listen to those original players touch for your own development - it is eye (and ear) opening!

[Jack Hanson]

Agree wholeheartedly with Ben and Joe on the Beaumier books. Andy Volk offers lots of excellent material. Sebastian Muller's awesome tabs are highly recommended, but perhaps are a tad advanced for the rank beginner. Another fine book by the late Stacy Phillips is this one:

[Anthony Lis]

I just looked at the Phillips book earlier today for information on how the steel guitar technique changed with the introduction of true electrical amplification, for some research I'm conducting.

[Glenn Wilde]

Agree wholeheartedly with Ben and Joe on the Beaumier books. Andy Volk offers lots of excellent material. Sebastian Muller's awesome tabs are highly recommended, but perhaps are a tad advanced for the rank beginner. Another fine book by the late Stacy Phillips is this one:

This book, with cassette helped me on my way immensely, it's all in there.

[Gregory LeBlanc]

I am a big fan of the Stacey Philips books, but if I had to choose one to learn songs for an upcoming gig, I would start with Vol. 2. It has a few songs that are more traditionally 'hot hawaiian' that will be less of a stylistic leap.

But yeah, you'll want to decide pretty quick if you're going to play highbass G/A or C6 as those tend to be the two tunings you'll find lots of tabbed music in.

The Sebastian tabs are also fantastic, and as noted above many are more advanced, but some like 'Coffee in the morning' are straight forward enough that you could quickly add them to a set-list.

[Lloyd Graves]

The Sebastian tabs are also fantastic, and as noted above many are more advanced, but some like 'Coffee in the morning' are straight forward enough that you could quickly add them to a set-list.

Sailing on to Hawaii is another great "beginner" song from his selections. A really nice introduction to forward slants. (And easily a adapted to reverse slants, which is how I became more comfortable with those.) And the backing tracks are to die for! You'll really want to find some swing musicians to get together with!

[Doug Taylor]

What tuning dues the Stacey Philips books use?

[Lloyd Graves]

What tuning dues the Stacey Philips books use?

At least 90% of the tunes are in high bass G (Dobro or GBDGBD). There are a few C6 tunes, I believe. None in C#m that I've ever noted.

One thing to know about the Stacy Phillips books. Is that the accompanying tracks are not Play along tracks in the strictest sense. Some of them are old recordings of the source (Sol Hoopii, King Benny, etc), And others are just sections of the song which are introduced by the measure they're being played. It is never. Stacy Phillips just playing his tabs straight through. As a beginner, I found this to be very difficult.

[Doug Taylor]

Lloyd Graves thank you!

[Lloyd Graves]

No problem.

One other thing about S Phillips books, is that the music tracks are all mp3s now, so you can re-pitch then with an Amazing Slow Downer, or whichever app you prefer.

But again, the usefulness of the tracks is limited, in my opinion.

[Michael Kiese]

Hi Eric,

So glad to hear another person interested in playing Hawaiian Steel!

BLUF: Listen to Hawaiian Steel performances on Youtube, pick out the songs that speak to you the most. Then find song transcriptions of the songs you like. Jerry Byrd's transcriptions are an EXCELLENT resource for Hawaiian songs.

Jerry Byrd's complete instructional method, and very many of his individual song transcriptions are still available at:

http://www.scottysmusic.com/index.html

I have found Michael Scott, the proprietor, very easy to deal with. He is a nice and kind man.

That's a good start to give you all the different tunings.

But I recommend starting on six string C6 tuning. In my humble opinion, C6 is a "universal tuning" for steel guitar, especially Hawaiian Steel. Once you get a handle on C6 and learn a handful of tunes, then branch out on other tunings if you care to. In all honesty, I can get through a 3 hour gig with my Hawaiian band solely on C6.

Other than that, I recommend just looking up Hawaiian Steel guitar performances on YouTube. There are many fine players all over the world!

Pick out the songs that you like the best and learn those first. The vast majority of Hawaiian repertoire can be played on six string C6 tuning, which makes it a great starting point.

Other than that, if you really want to internalize the feel and spirit of Hawaiian steel, I suggest focusing on the steel players on YouTube from Hawaii. There's Hawaiian music as played by Hawaiian musicians, and then there's Hawaiian music as interpreted by the rest of the world. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a real phenomenon. Best to make you aware of that and manage your expectations up front.

It's like learning Spanish by living in Mexico vs. learning Spanish from someone who learned Spanish as a 2nd language, and never spent time in a Spanish speaking country. A kind of telephone game phenomenon occurs.

Having said that, there's always exceptions to the rule. Good music is good music.

In the end, whoever you learn from and imitate, you're going to sound like them. Just wanted to give that piece of advice to you as you "hack your way through the jungle" of self-teaching, like we all have to.

Best of luck on your journey learning Hawaiian steel! There sure aren't a lot of Hawaiian Steel players, so it's always nice to hear someone interested in learning it.