The archetypal instrument is the Hawaiian guitar, also called a lap steel. This popularity spawned the manufacture of guitars designed specifically to be played horizontally. The sound of Hawaiian music featuring steel guitar became an enduring musical fad in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and in 1916, recordings of indigenous Hawaiian music outsold all other U.S. Joseph Kekuku developed this manner of playing a guitar, known as 'Hawaiian style', about 1890 and the technique spread internationally. The Hawaiians began playing a conventional guitar in a horizontal position across the knees instead of flat against the body, using the bar instead of fingers. The idea of creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to early African instruments, but the modern steel guitar was conceived and popularized in the Hawaiian Islands. Typically, the strings are plucked (not strummed) by the fingers of the dominant hand, while the steel tone bar is pressed lightly against the strings and moved by the opposite hand. Known for its portamento capabilities, gliding smoothly over every pitch between notes, the instrument can produce a sinuous crying sound and deep vibrato emulating the human singing voice. The instrument differs from a conventional guitar in that it does not use frets conceptually, it is somewhat akin to playing a guitar with one finger (the bar). The bar itself is called a 'steel' and is the source of the name 'steel guitar'. String instrument, flat picked or finger pickedДЄ steel guitar ( Hawaiian: kД«kДЃkila ) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. Hawaiian guitar, lap steel, pedal steel, console steel, kД«kДЃkila, Dobro Three types of steel guitars: resonator, lap steel, pedal steel

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