Vic Wong – Jazz guitarist, player of stringed things, engineer and maker
8-string lap steel chord finder
8-String Lap Steel Chord Finder
8-string chord finder
Common 8-string lap steel tunings:
A6
F#,E,C#,A,F#,E,C#,A
A6 (Herb)
E,C#,A,F#,E,C#,A,F#
E9
E,B,G#,F#,D,B,G#,E
E13
E,C#,G#,F#,D,B,G#,E
E13 (Leon)
E,C#,B,G#,F#,D,G#,E
C6
E,G,A,C,E,G,A,C
C6/A7 (Byrd)
E,C,A,G,E,C#,C,A
C6/A7 (Murph)
E,C,A,G,E,C#,A,B
C13
G,E,C,A,G,E,C,Bb
G6
E,D,B,G,E,D,B,G
Instructions:
I created this tool to visualize the steel guitar fretboard and find chord voicings in unfamiliar tunings. I find it helpful to visualize all the chord tones simultaneously with their scale degrees in unique colors
Enter your tuning in the first text box (comma or space separated, high to low). You can also copy and paste some common tunings in from the table above. If you're using less than 8 strings, you can just leave the last few blank.
Select a chord root and a chord type
The fretboard will light up with each chord tone
Identify some straight bar positions for your selected chord, or pick out out some slant positions that will cover the key notes (the perfect 5th can usually be omitted, most important notes are likely the 3rd, 7th, and beyond)