Pedal Steel Warrior character art

The Bar, the Pedals, the Levers

The deep home for the steel guitar played with a bar: the lap steel in its one open tuning, and the ten-string pedal steel, whose pedals and knee levers retune strings while the bar sits still.

E9 Pedal Steel Chords Lap Steel Chords The Copedents Under the Bar

Free, playable references for the lap steel and both pedal steel necks — every chord a bar position computed from the instrument's own open strings, and every combination of pedals and levers worked out from its copedent's sources.

Three Necks, Two Instruments

Both pedal steel necks and the lap steel, each with its own chord list computed against its own open strings. All three are played with a bar; only the pedal steel can change a string's pitch under it.

E9 Pedal Steel

  • Ten strings in the chromatic E9 tuning
  • Re-entrant: string 3 sits above strings 1 and 2
  • The Emmons setup's pedals and knee levers

C6 Pedal Steel

  • Ten strings in the C6 tuning
  • The second neck of a double-neck steel
  • The maker's factory pedals and knee lever

Lap Steel

  • Six strings in C6, played flat on the lap
  • No pedals: one open tuning all night
  • A chord is wherever the bar finds it

The Copedents

  • Each pedal and lever, string by string
  • Every combination the knees allow, worked out
  • Where any chord sits under the bar

What Lives Here

Chords

Every key and quality as bar positions on all three necks: straight bars and short slants, the strings to pick, and the qualities no bar can spell marked.

Scales

Note maps with every root lit, so the bar always knows where home is on six strings or ten.

Neck Explorer

Tap a note and watch it light up across a whole neck — the fastest way to learn a tuning before any chord.

Progressions

Each key's whole chord family as places for the bar, so a change becomes a distance rather than a name.

Exercises

Drills generated from each neck's own open strings, with tab and playback built in.

The Copedents

What each pedal and knee lever does, every combination resolved from its sources, and what a straight bar holds with them down.

Free Tools

Reference tones for all three necks, a practice click, and a colour mixer. No sign-up.

How It Works

1

Pick the Neck

The E9 neck, the C6 neck or the lap steel. Every page names which one it means, and every bar position on it is computed against that neck's own open strings.

2

Find the Bar Position

A chord on a steel is a fret and a set of strings: the bar lies straight across the neck and the picks sound only the strings whose notes belong to the chord.

3

Add the Pedals

On a pedal steel, the copedent page shows what each pedal and lever puts under the same bar, and where any chord sits with them down.

Why a Site for the Bar

Pedal Steel Warrior is the Warrior Network's deep home for the two steels played with a bar. A steel has no fretting hand: the bar lies across every string at once, so a chord is only there if the tuning, moved up by the bar, already holds it. The lap steel lives with that one tuning. The pedal steel changes it on the fly — a foot on a pedal or a knee against a lever retunes a few strings under a held chord — and that is what the copedent pages here work out, combination by combination, from sources named on each page.

The dobro is played with a bar too, but its deep home is Guitar Warrior's resonator pages, where the squareneck lives with the rest of its guitar family.

Steel Questions, Answered

More on the full FAQ page.

What is the difference between a lap steel and a pedal steel?
Both are played with a bar laid across the strings instead of fingers pressing them. The lap steel stays in one open tuning, so a chord is wherever that tuning, moved up by the bar, already holds it. The pedal steel has pedals and knee levers that retune some strings while they are held, so the same bar position can spell a different chord with a foot or a knee engaged.
What is a copedent?
A pedal steel's open tuning plus what every pedal and knee lever does to it, string by string. This site charts two — the E9 neck in the Emmons setup and the C6 neck in the maker's factory setup — each cell taken from a named source, and works out every combination the knees allow.
Why are so many E9 chords marked "no bar shape"?
Because those pages show the neck with every pedal up and every lever at rest, and the open strings only spell some chords under a straight bar. The pedals and levers supply the rest: the copedent page for each neck shows which ones put a marked chord under the bar, and at which fret.
Where is the dobro?
On Guitar Warrior. The squareneck resonator is played with a bar as well, but it belongs to the guitar family's deep home, and this site links there rather than charting it twice.
Does any of this cost money?
No — every chart, table, drill and tool on Pedal Steel Warrior is free, with no ads, no account, and no upsell waiting at the end.