- 1). Lay the Dobro on your lap with the neck facing your left hand and the body of the guitar facing your right hand.
- 2). Tune your guitar to open G. There are multiple tunings that you can use on a Dobro, but this tuning is one of the easiest to use when you are learning the instrument. Pluck the string closest to you as you watch an electronic tuner. The tuner will show what pitch the string is playing. The pitch needs to be G. Loosen the tuning key if the pitch is higher than G, and tighten the tuning key if the pitch is lower than G. Make adjustments until the tuner shows that you have arrived at the correct pitch. Repeat this for the next five strings, which should be tuned to B, D, G, B and D (ascending in pitch in that order).
- 3). Pluck the string closest to you. As mentioned before, this note is G. This is an "open" note, since you aren't fretting the string. Place a slide on a finger on your left hand and touch the low G string just to the left of the first fret marking (meaning, the fret all the way to your left). Pluck the string to play a G#/Ab note. Each time you move the slide one more fret to the right, you raise the pitch by a half step. The half steps in music are as follows, beginning with G: G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb.
- 4). Repeat the process from step three with the other strings. Remember that the other strings are B, D, G, B and D. Therefore, each time you go up a fret, you will raise that string's pitch one half step. The same concept applies with alternate tunings as well. The only difference is that you start from a different beginning note with each string.
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