All the songs in this book are arranged for the 6-string version of each tuning but are also playable on the 8-string versions. Table of contents below. SONGS ARE IN TAB & STANDARD NOTATION

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The non-pedal steel guitar is an instrument of many tunings. The earliest Hawaiian steel guitarists tuned to an open A major chord. As 20th century popular music became more harmonically sophisticated, steel guitar tunings evolved to match that complexity. As time went on, pioneering players developed tunings based on open major, minor, 6th, 9th, and 13th chords as well as hybrid tunings.

Some tunings offer multiple opportunities to play inversions of major, minor, dominant and other chord types and major and minor scale tones lie on the fretboard in logical, playable patterns. Other tunings offer a rich palette of strum-able chordal sounds of a particular type, such as B11th or E13th, which contain dominant 7th, 9th and 13th chords. These tunings offer opportunities for rich, close voiced chords that would be difficult or impossible on a standard guitar.

All the steel guitar tunings in this book evolved over many years as players experimented with the instrument and increased the number of strings. Players such as Sol Ho’opi’i, Dick McIntire, Jules Ah Se, Jerry Byrd, Noel Boggs, Leon McAuliffe and many others were important links in the chain of tuning history and even today, we owe them a great debt for their creativity and skill in developing tunings for our favorite instrument.