The Dobro Guitar: Sounds of Wood, Strings, and Steel

The resophonic guitar, whose original brand name is Dobro certainly adds an interesting dimension to many acoustic. Americana, and folk styles of music today.

It has created a niche especially in the 'String band ensemble' often used in Bluegrass, Country, or many Folk music styles. It's ability to sustain, slide, and add inflection in ways that most plucked instruments can't makes for a nice contrast to the guitar, mandolin, and bass.

In the bluegrass style in which I am most familiar, the most common tuning is that of an open G chord, allowing for a somewhat heavy metal bar (called a slide) to easily achieve chords by running across the neck.

In another method, the resonator guitar is held and tuned like a regular guitar, making for the unique 'bright' tone familiar in many early blues recordings.

Actually it is fair to say that much of this 'brightness', or 'twang' in these recordings was due to the poor recording techniques of the day.

But in any case, the resophonic guitar can acoustically reproduce these sounds remarkably today.

BTW, for a nice beginner reso, like the one pictured here, see the link below.