Website Index

Beginner's FAQ - Overview of the learning process and other beginner topics.
Your First Steel Guitar - Tips and advice on buying vintage or newly manufactured instruments.
How to Tune Up - Use of the electronic tuner and issues surrounding tuning 'temperament' with recommended Adjusted Tuning settings.
About String Gauges - String gauge chart for Hawaiian steel guitar plus information on gauges for long and short scale instruments, use of wound, unwound, flatwound, and semi-flat wound strings, and other issues.
SGW Interview - Excerpted reprint of John Ely's Steel Guitar World magazine interview by Robbie Bossert.
Injury Prevention - John's 'tale of woe' and how proper playing technique and training can prevent repetitive stress injuries.

My Tunings and Settings - My Hawaiian steel guitar tunings and tuner settings using the Adjusted Tuning scheme.
SGW Tunings Article - John Ely's Steel Guitar World article on tunings for lap steel guitar.
Tunings of the Pros - A list of tunings used by professionals in Hawaii and around the world.
Tunings Master List - A list of most of the playable tunings used over the last 100 years.

Arrangements Overview - An overview of steel guitar arrangement features and notation conventions, which are due to roll out in June 2009.
Arrangements Catalog - An updated list of arrangements currently completed or planned.
Arrangement Downloads - Download a much improved sample arrangement and a tablature key, now available as high resolution PDF files. My String Gauge Chart can also be downloaded in PDF format.

Steel Lessons - I can now offer private steel guitar and dobro lessons over the Internet using the free Skype video chat software.

Generic Chord Locator - John Ely's generic chord finder for beginning and advanced lap steel guitarists. Locates chord positions on any tuning from a database of the most commonly used chords in most steel guitar styles.
Advanced Voicing Locator - John Ely's chord voicing locator for steel guitarists who know a little about chord construction. The script finds all positions for any chord voicing in any tuning, including open string positions.
Add Custom Tunings - Define up to 3 custom tunings for use in the ChordLocator tuning menus.
Locator Notes - Bug fix reports, planned updates, and program notes for both the Generic and Advanced chord locators
Tutorials - Basic tutorials for using the Generic Chord Locator and the Advanced Chord Voicing Locator for steel guitar.

Scale Locator - Scale finder for beginning and advanced lap steel guitarists. Locates scale positions on any tuning for most of the common scales and modes.
Scale Forms Generator - Scale form generator for beginning and advanced lap steel guitarists. Locates scale forms on any tuning for most of the common scales and modes.

Slant Bar Calculator - A calculator to help determine how easy bar slants are on any steel guitar model.
Wiring Diagrams - Much improved schematics for select steel guitars and volume pedals in PDF format
Cool Steel Guitars - Cool instrument photos

Guestbook - Add yourself to my mailing list and give me valuable input on your favorite tunings, future arrangement requests, and comments about this site.