The Steel Guitar Forum

Perfect!

Many thanks, and best to all for the Holidays.

- Bob Markison

Wow!! Wonderful, Mike. Many thanks. - Bob Markison

John Billings asked about Freddie Roulette's tuning. I was lucky to spend some time with Freddie a few years ago at an informal gathering. He was playing A7#2, as listed by Andy Volk in Lap Steel Guitar (p. 151), hi to lo: E C# A E C# A E G Freddie said he often varies the bottom 2 strings to suit t...

Kristen - Freddie Roulette - no picks ever, coated bar, no volume pedal, generous use of volume knob - here's a little youtube of him. - Bob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09FdHpqX1iA

Bill - Great music, great tuning! Thanks so much. Really swinging. - Bob

Joe - Here's very nice resource by Bruce Clarke of Australia:

The Hawaiian Hotshots Play-along
2CDs - One CD is tracks, and the second is scores and tab (.pdf form)

http://www.cumquatrecords.com.au/index.html

Hope this helps. - Bob

Nice to be back among those who love the beautiful sound of steel guitar. I agree also with George re: longevity of steel. I hope steel guitars go on and on. The clarinet is a hybrid of the chalumeau and the recorder. When Jacob Denner put 2 keys on it in 1702, he did not anticipate a rise of a 12th...

Hi all - haven't posted on this forum in a couple of years, but this thread caught my eye. I took up lap steel about 10 years ago to add onto a long life of clarinet and sax (and flugelhorn and valve trombone) jazz playing. Clarinet blends very well with steel so long as clarinet doesn't bounce up i...

Pyro 05 from Cakewalk does the job. This is an inexpensive mp3 encoding program that also lets you make your own cell phone ring tones, upload them, then download them to your cell. The program can be downloaded from the site: http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Pyro/default.asp There is an 11.9 second...

Best wishes, Brad. Your site was the most powerful single inspiration I found when I began the steel adventure. Get well soon. - Bob Markison

Burr - Thanks! Bird was and is a profound influence. He brought absolute confidence to the art of improvisation. I've never heard a more certain improviser on any instrument. The freshness and phrasing were always incredible. Listen to his interview with Paul Desmond if you can find it (part of a PB...

Blue Hawaii
Joy Spring
Bluesette
Body and Soul
Chega de Saudade

(Contrapunctus)

Nice thread. The way I see it, the "trajectory" of the jazz chord was initially an amalgam of blues dominant sevenths and Chopin and Liszt sevenths, 9ths, 11ths etc. Few will admit the debt jazz owes to the European masters. Ellington and Strayhorn worked elegant soul into the 7th chords, ...

oops - idiosyncratic

I suspect there will be further grist for the pop culturists' mills when they begin reading science books to supplement their viewing of aquatic cartoons. The definitive work covering non-human "odd pairing" on land and in the air (mammals and birds) is this one: Bruce Bagemihl, PhD: "...

Indeed. Miles Davis and Charlie Parker (among other seasoned pioneers) considered vibrato to be an impediment to creative music making at any tempo. Dinah Shore's vibrato could shift the tectonic plates. I have to stick with Miles and Bird on this one. Just a rare trace of vibrato should do the job....

David offers a nice concept - the demo-POD (could call it a "Gig-Lure"). The Mac v. PC battle will go on for a while. I'm 50/50 - office runs entirely by voice recognition (Dragon Naturally Speaking, 8.0) on a PC (XP Pro), but creative work tends to be on a Mac (lower latency for sound rec...

Joey - thanks! It's about time Microsoft got more involved in protecting its vulnerable system - and the price is right. The descriptions are indeed the best so far. As always, I set a system restore point before cleaning off any spyware. Thanks again. - Bob

Jan - Nice! Keep up the good work. - Bob

Nice thread for a new year! As a 54 year old life long multi-instrumentalist (mostly jazz), I think the big musical game has always welcomed younger players with open arms. I played the other night with the Brubeck Institute (all under 30) jazz group, and I was a thrilled to hear their deep reverenc...

Howard - Excellent! Many thanks. I'm particularly pleased to find so many great lyrics. This forum is a true cornucopia. - Bob

Ebb - fabulous! I don't know if you have the Bluebird label "Artie Shaw: The Centennial Collection" - but it is a CD/DVD combo with a wonderful Shaw interview and live footage (including some of his clarinet concerto) on DVD - 20 fine tunes with some remarkable air check soloing. Yes, I kn...

Artie Shaw was (for clarinetists lke me) the driving creative force behind swing music. He was a master of the full range of the instrument and refused to compromise his creativity by playing the same thing over and over again. He was outspoken to a fault and publicly stated that he would stop playi...

Gave up on the Museum of Modern Art years ago - but wondering if the Guggenheim can be turned into a spiral pickup and strung accordingly. Best to all for the Holidays.