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Strings & instruction for lap steel, Hawaiian and pedal steel guitars
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Ray Price Shuffles
Steel guitarist Jim Baron's Classic country shuffle styles for Band-in-a-Box.
http://steelguitarmusic.com

Thijs Kappen's 10 String Universal

To: Bobby Lee
From: Thijs Kappen
the Netherlands
Date: December 29, 1996

I found your Internet-page. Two or three times a month I visit your address to see, if there's anything interesting for me.

Here in Holland (= the Netherlands) are only a very few pedal steel guitarists (maybe 50) and it is very difficult to get information about our instrument and how to play it.

I think, you'll find my setup a bit different, because I have a single neck 10-string guitar, but it has a kind of universal setup.
The guitar is built and the setup is developed in the Netherlands by Jan Visser. I changed the pickup into a GeorgeL double coil with 6 possibilities. The setup of the pedals is changed too in 7 footpedals and 5 kneelevers.
Untill now, 7 years later, I'm still very satisfied with my instrument and the setup.

I'll try to show you my tuning and setup.

As you can see, string 9, low D, is removed, the lower B-string went to place 9 and a A came instead of the lower B-string. These changes and setup make it possible to play almost any kind of music. For the countrymusic is the complete range of E9 available. When I'm playing blues or Western Swing or Rock or jazz, then I push my LKR and keep it so and here we go, even in the middle of a song. I find it very comfortable, that I can change my style of playing and accompanying with pushing just one pedal.

At this very moment, my computer is playing a CD of Katz Kobayashi, a great Japanese steelplayer.
Thank you for your WWW-page and I hope to visit it many times! It's a very good idea to give us, far from the native-land of our instrument, the possibility to get a bit more information!

I hope, you receive this message from a far Holland and, maybe, it's an idea for more players with always a lack of money.
Keep slipping and sliding.

Thijs Kappen
the Netherlands
internet: thijsk@iaehv.nl ; m.kappen@chello.nl

Copyright ©2003 by Thijs Kappen, HTML by Bobby Lee