VINTAGE STEEL GUITAR MUSIC FOR MODERN PLAYERS

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This PDF is a collection of vintage acoustic and electric steel guitar music transcribed from nine published sources from about 1915 to the late 1930s. In the case of the early acoustic songs, this is music that has likely not been played for more than a century but still has appeal for steel guitarists’s today. These waltzes, Hawaiian Hulas and other genre pieces have a great deal of charm. The electric songs range from beautiful ballads to exciting, dynamic late 30s swing from golden age steel masters Sol Ho’opi’i and Dick McIntire.

Many of us who have collected these old method books from eBay, flea markets or used book stores have found them fairly inaccessible due to being arranged for tunings few people play today and often, they were written in only standard notation. I decided to become something of a musical archiologist and see if I could bring this cool music back to life for contemporary steel guitarists.

Most of the acoustic songs were originally published in Low-Bass A major tuning (Low to Hi) E, A, E, A, C#, E. In most cases, I’ve transposed these to the modern Low Bass G tuning (Low to Hi) D, G, D, G, B, D or the modern Dobro standard High-bass G (Low to High) G, B, D, G, B, D. One song is in D7th, a variation of the modern Open D tuning where the 2nd string is raised to C.

For the electric arrangments, we have a mix of tunings including E major, E7th, C#m, High-bass A as well as  C#m7 and F#9 - a variation of C#m where only strings five and six are tuned differently. All the tunes in C#m can be played in F#9.

PLEASE NOTE THAT VOLK MEDIA BOOKS HAS NOT ENCRYPTED THE FILE NOR REQUIRED A PASSWORD. WE ARE TRUSTING YOU ( THE PURCHASER) TO KEEP IT FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE AND NOT SHARE THIS PDF VIA EMAIL OR ON THE INTERNET.