Archive for November 3rd, 2009
A Resonator guitar is an acoustic guitar without the traditional sound hole, instead it has a large round metal plate. The metal plate covers the resonator cone which is best described as looking like a speaker. They were origional produced to sound louder than the acoustic guitar that couldn’t be heard over horns and percussion instruments in big bands. A by product of this guitar is the distictive sound for which it is used today.
Steel guitars are more of a style to which a guitar is played rather than the guitar itself. The name steel guitar gets its name from the Steel Slide that is used to play it. You can find steel guitars as a guitar with its own stand also known as a Pedal Steel Stand. It is not unusual to see a pedal steel guitar with several necks and two to three sets of strings, each tuned seperately.
Because of its louder and distinctive tone the resonator guitar has found a home a steel guitar (also called a Lap Steel Guitar). While the resonator can be played as a conventional guitar it is mainly played being held across the lap with the lower strings towards the player.