Website Index


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Learning Pages

  • 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 elecronic tuner and the problem of 'temper' tuning with the 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.

Tunings Pages

ChordLocator!

  • 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.
  • Tutorials - Basic tutorials for using the Generic Chord Locator and the Advanced Chord Voicing Locator for steel guitar.
  • Program Notes - Bug fix reports, planned updates, and program notes for both the Generic and Advanced chord locators

Arrangement Pages

  • 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

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

Instrument Pages

  • Wiring Diagrams - Much improved schematics for select steel guitars and volume pedals in PDF format
  • Cool Steels - Cool instrument photos

Gig Calendar Pages

Photo Gallery Pages

Guestbook

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