Lap Steel Practice Routines
Guided Lap Steel chord-practice sessions with a built-in timer: each routine steps through a chord sequence at a steady pace so your hands learn the changes, not just the shapes.
Pick a routine, press Start, and switch chords when the timer says so. Finish sessions to build a daily streak, earn badges, and track which routines you've completed — everything is free and runs in your browser.
Want several tools running on one tempo? The practice desk locks the drum machine, metronome, strumming trainer and change counter to a single clock. Want a session tailored to you? Build your own routine from timed chord, scale, strumming, technique, and song blocks. Or commit to a month: the 30-day practice challenges track a daily streak toward a permanent badge, and your stats page turns every logged session into a year-long heatmap. For the theory side, Dojo Decks drills fretboard notes, chord spellings, key signatures, and intervals as spaced-repetition flashcards — a few minutes a day, counted toward your streak.
Login and saving progressions to your account coming soon
Open & Simple Bar Positions
Where the chords live under a straight steel bar in C6 tuning. Open strings ring the tonic, the bar at the 5th fret gives IV and the 7th gives V — learn to slide cleanly and in tune between these home positions.
- Straight-Bar I–IV–V — beginner
- Sliding Between Majors — beginner
- Bluesy Minor Sevenths — intermediate
- Relative Minor Positions — intermediate
Hawaiian, Country & Swing Changes
The progressions that made the lap steel sing: the Hawaiian II7–V7 vamp, Western swing sevenths, lush hapa-haole maj7 colors, and country sus vamps — all sounded by sliding the bar between positions.
- Hawaiian Turnaround Vamp — intermediate
- Country Sus Vamp — intermediate
- Dreamy Maj7 Island Colors — intermediate
- Western Swing Sevenths — advanced
How the routines work
Every routine is a short, focused chord workout. Open any routine to see the player: it shows the current chord as a fretboard diagram, counts down the seconds until the next change, and tells you what's coming up so your eyes stay ahead of your hands. Routines run for a set number of rounds — most sessions take between two and ten minutes.
Start with the beginner open-chord routines, then work toward barre chords and faster changes. Slow, clean changes beat fast, buzzy ones: if a routine feels rushed, repeat an easier one until the shapes land without looking. Pair your session with the metronome or the one-minute chord changes drill, and look up any shape in the chord library.
Progress is saved in this browser automatically. Cross-device sync with sign-in is coming soon — see the account page for your history, streaks, and badges.