The Lap Steel Guitar
The steel guitar differs from a regular guitar in the way that it is played. The lap steel guitar is held in your lap facing toward you. The strings are raised above the fretboard; rather than pressing them to the fretboard, a steel bar is pressed against the strings. Typically the lap steel guitar is tuned in one of several “open” tunings rather than standard guitar tuning.
Steel guitars were originally invented and popularized in Hawaii. Legend has it that Joseph Kekuku, a Hawaiian schoolboy, discovered the sound while walking along a railroad track strumming his guitar. He picked up a bolt lying by the track and slid the metal along the strings of his guitar. Intrigued by the sound, he taught himself to play using the back of a knife blade.