Playing
The lap steel ukulele is typically placed on the player's lap, or on a surface in front of the seated player.
The strings are not pressed to a fret when sounding a note, rather, the player holds a metal slide called a steel in the left hand, which is moved along the strings to change the instrument's pitch while the right hand plucks or picks the strings.
This method of playing greatly restricts the number of chords available, so lap steel music often features a restricted set of harmonies (such as in blues). Alternatively, the lap steel ukulele player can play the melody or another single part.
Read more about this topic: Lap Steel Ukulele
Famous quotes containing the word playing:
“The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life—the first twenty years of it—had about them something semi-fictitious.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)