Lap Slide Guitar vs Conventional Slide Guitar. What is the difference?

Lap Slide Guitar vs Conventional Slide Guitar. What is the difference?

• Are there some things you can do when your guitar is lying on your lap that you can't do when you hold your guitar in a conventional manner? If so, how?

• Answer:

  For conventional slide guitar, a guitarist can also use his other fingers to play notes the normal way. For lap steel (or if you use a regular guitar or resonator for slide and place it on your lap), you don't normally see guitarists fretting notes with their fingers instead of a slide for some notes. Lap steel is kinda like a version of pedal steel, but without the pedals to bend strings (or the knee levers, for that matter). As for the difference between a resonator (or dobro, as they're often called) with a squareneck and one with a roundneck, the squarenecks aren't normally played in the same position as a normal guitar would be and, instead, are placed flat on the guitarist's lap. A roundneck, however, is easier to play either lying flat on one's lap or being used in a standing (or sitting) position being played the same way a normal guitar is positioned in. Anyway, I hope that helps, but in case any of my contacts can answer better, I'll star the question.