The Steel Guitar Forum

I like to figure out my own version of a tune - I remember it much better that way. But often I hear a really nice lick or phrase or just a few notes I like that someone else has played. I can usually figure out how to play that by hunting for the notes, but it can take a long time, and I'm never su...

DeWitt Scott has 2 Mel Bay books - a pedal steel guitar course and an anthology. Both are really excellent! The W. Winston book is also excellent. (There is a wealth of other instructional material by Jeff Newmann, Herby Wallace, Buddy Emmons, Doug Jernigan, John Hughey, and MANY others. See the &qu...

DeWitt Scott has 2 Mel Bay books - a pedal steel guitar course and an anthology. Both are really excellent! The W. Winston book is also excellent. (There is a wealth of other instructional material by Jeff Newmann, Herby Wallace, Buddy Emmons, Doug Jernigan, John Hughey, and MANY others. See the &qu...

I play Last Date frequently and never notice any negative(*) results, so I'm guessing your experience is a random statistical fluctuation without significance. However, I'm an amateur steel player, not a pro; but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express once... (*)I did wake up in Cleveland with no idea ...

Saturday: 4/8. I've noticed I can't connect to SteelRadio using http://steelradio.serverroom.us:8300 for the last several hours. (The error msg I get is "unknown host" which likely means the server is down.) Maybe the bad weather is to blame...anyone know what the problem is? Thanks, chas ...

I have BJS 7/8 and 15/16 bars. The 15/16 sounds good, but I was never sure I liked the heavier feel, so making them the same weight sounds like a smart idea. But why a 12 string bar - that's a little longer isn't it? Is there an advantage in that?
chas

I have BJS 7/8 and 15/16 bars. The 15/16 sounds good, but I was never sure I liked the heavier feel, so making them the same weight sounds like a smart idea. But why a 12 string bar - that's a little longer isn't it? Is there an advantage in that?
chas

The only thing about not using an amp for practice is that I find that sometimes something sounds OK without the amp, but then doesn't sound quite as good with the amp. Usually that's because some ringing strings clash with a chord, and that can be fixed by playing it in some different position (or ...

After reading all the posts, I had to buy the CD today; just finished listening to it. I enjoyed it. I'd have been happy if the whole disk was Buddy and Randy Elmore (fiddle), but it's good listening as it is. As far as the vocals, I occasionally had the feeling that the tempo and/or phrasing didn't...

Jeff has great teaching materials; I have a bunch of his courses. When I heard of his untimely death it was a little after the Texas show about 2 years ago. I had bought some of his material at the show but I didn't feel like looking at them because it made me sad to think he was gone. Then a little...

Thanks, everyone!
chas

My Nashville 112 sometimes makes a popping sound when I move it while it is turned on. From reading some of the other posts, I got the idea that this might be caused by the reverb unit. Is that actually a spring type? (I had the idea it was electronic, but I don't really know.) Is the popping likely...

In addition (after having heard both for the second time at the Texas Jamboree in Dallas), I have to say that, IMO, Russ is one of the finest steelers of all time, and Laney is a really great vocalist. Their set this year in Dallas was one of the most enjoyable for me. A huge amount of talent for on...

The Forum search turned up:
cadavidson@charter.net
chas

Calvin,
I live in San Marcos. (I thought you were in
Colorado!) If you email me
(friedman@math.utexas.edu), I will send you my
phone number, etc, (or we can discuss things by
email.)
chas f

The server at http://steelradio.serverroom.us:8300/index.html seems to be down today...a bit inauspicious (whatever that means.) [And now, curiouser and curiouser...as of 8pm, SteelRadio seems to be back at the old Live365 address (it wasn't earlier today, though.)] chas<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e2...

Chris, The artists you mentioned all have some good tunes; sometimes they even have some great steel as well. However, a lot of the new tunes don't inspire me much (at least in the sense of wanting to learn them on steel.) Randy Beavers's (attributed) comment strikes home somewhat for me. I recently...

The Buddy Emmons tab I have seen is great both because of the arrangements and also the beats are indicated below so you can figure out the rhythm. (A lot of tab I've seen lacks this feature, and it is tough to understand without a recording.) DeWitt Scott has several Mel Bay books that are very nic...

Tom,
Thanks for the reply!
chas

Tom, (You wrote: I toyed with several acronyms before coming up with "co-pee-dent." ) Some confusion may be due to the fact that in the Winston-Keith book, it is spelled "copedant". You seemed to say it is "copedent". Is that the case? (It certainly makes sense that way...

Termites in your Pac-a-Seat?
(This is sort of like the "puzzlah" on Car Talk; maybe it should be a regular feature!)
chas

I had a similar problem with one of their 15/16" bars; It looked like the chrome had
been buffed off in a few spots. I called
BJS; the person I talked to said to mail it to them; they sent me a new one immediately -
I had it in less than a week from the time I sent mine back.
chas

Pedalsteelia sounds a bit silly to me. I like "Steel Bridges" better. If you want to use "steel" in the name, there are many possibilities. How about "Steel Away"? (That may be taken already; I'd do a web search for any name I thought about using to avoid that possibili...

Donny's explanation makes sense; I'll just add that in the book "Pedal Steel Guitar a Manual of Style" edited by Winnie Winston, it says that "The basis of the style in (is?) the alternation between the thumb and finger on a single string" (with movement of the bar, of course in ...

Mark, Thanks, yes, it is likely my browser version, because the site seems OK with Netscape (also an older version, though.) The site seems to use Flash and also ActiveX which may be confusing my IE. I usually resist upgrading because it has often been some trouble to get upgrades installed and work...