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Topic: steel vs. dobro technique |
Clyde Mattocks
From:
Kinston, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 28 Jul 2008 9:57 pm |
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Prompted by some comments in the "Crying Steel Guitar
Waltz" thread, I'll throw some ideas out. These are just my ideas and yours are solicited.
Most players who play both instruments employ somewhat the same picking techniques on both
instruments, causing one to suffer a little. Dobro
requires a harder style of picking closer to the bridge to get a sound resembling Jerry Douglas, Rob Ickes or Josh Graves. It seems to me that good
picking technique on dobro is actually more akin to banjo than steel.
Of all the high profile players, Tommy White is the
best at proper sound on both instruments. Buddy
Emmons and Lloyd Green employ the more steel-like approach, but manage to pull it off because of
excellent taste in their choices of what they play where,
(Lloyd on the Don williams stuff).
Mike Auldridge has always utilized a softer picking
style with slightly more vibrato than most on dobro.
This serves him well in his crossover to steel.
Dobro players usually groan when they see a player
start to use a long, round bar and they go into their "he's not one of us" mode.
Comments?
_________________
LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 28 Jul 2008 11:13 pm
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You're certainly right. But there is one thing you seem to have missed. That is that all the players who use what you are calling Dobro technique began as bluegrassers. And they still play alot of bluegrass. They are very heavily influenced by it. You can hear that infuence almost no matter what they are playing.
Emmons and Green have not done much, if any bluegrass. The more main stream forms of country from whence these gentlemen came almost might as well have been popular jazz (G.A.S.) or pop rock. It's a much broader approach.
While Auldridge was a big fan of Josh Graves, he seems from the beginning to have been more of an old timey player at heart. His switch to 8 strings and the music he has played since then shows where his heart is really at, I think.
I think it is the bluegrass orientation that turns the acoustic steel guitar into more of a banjo than a steel guitar. It's not the instrument or the player per se.
Having said that, I should invite you to listen to Sol Ho'opi'i's recording of Hapa Haole Hula girl from about 1927. Is that a Dobro attack or a steel attack? If you listen to alot of Sol, you'll find that the steel attack is his norm.
_________________
Amor vincit omnia |
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John McGann
From:
Boston, Massachusetts, USA * R.I.P.
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 3:45 am
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Since electric and acoustic guitars are generally played with a different approach to touch and tone (and volume!), it stands to reason that steel guitar and dobro would require different approaches.
Heck, even non-pedal steel, which I string with heavier gauges than pedal steel, for me requires a different touch.
I prefer the small BJS bar over the Stevens style for dobro. |
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Clyde Mattocks
From:
Kinston, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 6:34 am
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Ed, I agree with all your observations. I didn't
get into the hiwaiian approch, vital as it is to
this discussion. It seems to be yet a technique
unto itself with softer attack and more vibrato.
Thanks for your input, it is exactly what I was
hoping for.
_________________
LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro |
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Charley Wilder
From:
Dover, New Hampshire, USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 8:15 am
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With respect I guess I would object to the phrase "proper sound"
I know what you mean,of course, but in my case I don't believe there is any proper sound. In fact that phrase has caused any number of problems on this forum.
I started as a dobro player influenced by Josh Graves and moved to six string non-pedal. I saw no reason why I couldn't use the same tuning and still use G today. I look at the dobro influence as a big plus because it kept me note oriented instead of chord oriented. There is the big difference. Steel players are by training are "park and pick" chord oriented. I look at it as restrictive. Too many players are conditioned by that proper sound thing. "Let's see, I'm playing steel today so I will use steel technique" That sort of thinking is beyond me! JMHO |
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Twayn Williams
From:
Portland, OR
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 8:39 am
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On dobro, I prefer to use a round bar for Hawaiian and a Shubb SP-2 for everything else. The round bar is definitely better for slants, though I think that mainly has to do with the shape of the bottom of the Shubb. On steel I use a round bar most of the time but occasionally will pull out the Shubb for fast stuff where I want lots of bar control. My right hand attack is pretty much the same for both. Of course, the different tuning on the dobro (open G or G6) vs the PSG E9 dictates a very different musical approach as well.
_________________
Primitive Utility Steel |
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Gene Jones
From:
Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 8:41 am
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This may be a too simple explanation, but I started playing a dobro in 1946 because it was the least expensive option. Everyone else played a fiddle, so my $5.00 guitar evolved to a dobro by buying a steel nut to raise the srings and played with a flat bar.
The first time that I played "steel guitar rag" at the Day General Store Show, and the audience gave me a standing ovation, I was hooked for life. |
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Clyde Mattocks
From:
Kinston, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 10:36 am
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Charley, excuse the term "proper sound". I was
groping to describe the prevalent sound of each instrument. I run into quite a few steel players
who want to play dobro because it is "in" now.
Some have difficulty with the different picking
technique required to get what they are hearing on
today's records. That having been said, one of my closest steel friends, Tim Tyner, made the transition
in a short time and is a competent dobro player with the "proper"/accepted sound.
Thanks for your input.
_________________
LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 11:26 am
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Charley, I'm with you as far as being oriented towards notes rather than chords. No less a non pedal luminary than Jerry Byrd talked about how the steel was a melody instrument and not a chord instrument. I often describe my approach on non pedal acoustic C6 as the violin approach. Mostly single note with some double and triple stops. The chordal approach to non pedal guitar has IMVHO led to a bunch of unnecessary confusion. The best thing that came out of it was the invention of the pedal guitar.
But the pedal guitar is different. I find the chordal approach extremely effective on a pedal guitar. And I think that's one of the points we might be discussing here. There is acoustic, electric AND pedal. And in spite of their shared genetic background and similarities of orientation, none of them is quite like the others.
_________________
Amor vincit omnia |
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Charley Wilder
From:
Dover, New Hampshire, USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 11:59 am
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Excuse me for jumping on the soapbox. I'm not as hard core as I sound. I like to say I'm strictly note oriented but I find myself doing lot more two note chords in the last couple years (let's see...that's about when I joined this forum) especially slant sixths etc. So there is room for all techniques on all three instruments. In fact I like to hear steel players, both pedal and non pedal play dobro. I think the dobro sometimes suffers a bit from the same problem that pedal does. It has become an instrument of "style". You expect something when you hear dobro.(And pedal steel). I like to hear people play the unexpected once in a while on both! Maybe a little more pedal steel on the dobro and a little more dobro on the pedal steel would be in order.LOL
And I took the subject a bit off on a tangent. I apologize for that! |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 12:12 pm
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On the contrary Charlie, I thought you were right on. And I don't mistake general statements for absolute ones. You did well.
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Amor vincit omnia |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 4:52 pm
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| Edward Meisse wrote: |
You're certainly right. But there is one thing you seem to have missed. That is that all the players who use what you are calling Dobro technique began as bluegrassers. And they still play alot of bluegrass. They are very heavily influenced by it. You can hear that infuence almost no matter what they are playing.
Emmons and Green have not done much, if any bluegrass. The more main stream forms of country from whence these gentlemen came almost might as well have been popular jazz (G.A.S.) or pop rock. It's a much broader approach.
While Auldridge was a big fan of Josh Graves, he seems from the beginning to have been more of an old timey player at heart. His switch to 8 strings and the music he has played since then shows where his heart is really at, I think...
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If you have played the dobro with more of a bluegrass mindset from the beginning, then you are more likely to "think harder" about the tone you are getting, because you might be listening to the great modern players that pick aggressively, and that in your mind is "good dobro tone."
You have to pick hard, as has been mentioned, more like a banjo player to extract that certain "growl" from the guitar.
As far as Mike Auldridge and his "switch" to 8-string dobro: he never truly switched - at one point a number of years ago he added the 8 string to his repetoire. In the past couple years, he hasn't been spotted playing much 8 string at all. I have seen him play with Emmylou and Carolina Star twice in the past two years, all six string reso.
Yeah, he has a softer attack overall than Douglas,Ickes, Randy Kohrs, Andy Hall,Phil Leadbetter, etc., but he still picks pretty hard and achieves "the growl."
The instrument obviously can sound any way you like if that is what makes one happy, but the reason it has become much more popular in the past decade or so is the sound that players like Douglas and Ickes bring to the table. I think that is what band leaders and producers hear in their heads when they say "you gotta give me more dobro!"
Others have been mentioned that play multiple instruments very well, like Tommy White, and I want to add Dan Dugmore. Aside from being a great pedal and lap steel player, he really has the "modern" dobro sound nailed as well.
Some steel players can name off every brand of bullet bar produced in the past 20 years, but often times they will refer to any and all what I call "sculpted" dobro bars as a "Stevens type bar" for the sake of convenience. So the term "Stevens" when referring to these bars has become the equivalent of using the word "Kleenex" in reference to all nose tissue.
That is a mindset thing in itself. Between Stevens, Shubb, Tipton, Bradley, E.G. Smith, Scheerhorn to name several, and all the others that are available, there are many, many differences.
And dobro players having an interest in getting that Douglas-Ickes-Auldridge modern aggressive sound, and extracting the big tone out of their resos, have some knowledge about these various bars, and to them, they aren't lumped into a catch-all phrase like "Stevens type."
Even when Jerry Douglas is backing Alison Krauss on a ballad that flows more toward country than bluegrass, he's still going for that certain sound.
There is a way of picking, combined with handling the bar that makes that sound happen, which is very distinctive from playing a dobro with a bullet bar and not utilizing so much dynamics in the picking hand.
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Mark |
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C Dixon
From:
Duluth, GA USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 5:19 pm
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Much of what has been said, I totally agree with.
I would like to add something that brings in another slant (NO pun intended  ) to the "Steel versus Dobro technique" subject.
Long before "bluegrass" was made popular by Bill Monroe and Josh Graves and a few others of his era, there were players who played a Dobro but they did not play it ike most "bluegrass players" play it today.
One example is Bashful Brother Oswald. While you can hear some of what most Dobro players play today in Oswald's playing, He was more an outgrowth of the way MOST non Hawaiians learned to play steel, before tri cone resonator guitars came into vogue.
In fact, it is the way many of us learned to play back in the 30's and 40's with our "raised nut" regular guitars, many of which were bought at Sears and Montgomery Wards. And we played nothing like Dobro players play today.
Their's is more of an attack and heavy "plectrum" style of playing with mucho "hammer ons and offs" and "pull offs and ons". Ours was more of a melody driven, mellower style.
This was NOT only because it evolved from Hawaii. Much of it was due to the fact that "popular" music of that era, often had a steel guitar player in the band. Even big bands often had one. And they played WHAT the arranger wrote on their score, and NOTHING else  or ELSE! 
My teacher was one of them. And she was as far from Dobro playing as Osama Bin Laden is from Mother Teresa! And she played tri cone Nationals and Dobro guitars often.
This is why I commented as I did about the playing of Little Roy wiggins versus Shot Jackson in the other thread. Roy emanated from the more mellow style of playing, where he not only picked softer, but he played mostly simple melody in a very smooth way. And of course Shot emanated directly from bluegrass. And he was very good at it.
In addition Roy's vibrato was smoother and always IN tempo with the timing of the music. Rather than a simple and consistent, short, nervous quiver (if at all) regardless of tempo.
Another characteristic of the difference; is Little Roy slanted often for a more melodic resolve. Dobro players more often than not, pick, then block, then change frets and/or grips for the next note(s) without slanting, and so on. This was true EVEN when Little Roy did his signature ting a ling.
Many Dobro players ting a ling today, but none that I have heard come any where close to the smooth mellow way Little Roy did it. Thus why Eddy chose him instead of players like Oswald when Eddy first started out.
Note: I am not knocking the way Shot or Jerry does it at all. I am merely pointing out the differences. There is a time and place for everything.
Western Swing lapsteel players often do the shortened nervous quiver vibrato also (if they vibrato at all). But they are more into substituted big chord type playing, rather than play melody. Tom Morrell was one of the masters at this.
In fact I doubt whether few on this planet could carry Tom's case. He was absolutely incredible.
Of course the master of all masters of non pedal steel is Jerry Byrd IMO. Incidently I never heard or saw him play a Dobro, but I have seen and heard him play National resonators a number of times.
For whatever it's worth.
carl
_________________
A broken heart + † = a new heart. |
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Clyde Mattocks
From:
Kinston, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 29 Jul 2008 10:30 pm
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Thanks Carl. It was your comments over in the other
thread that inspired this discussion. You mention
Bashful Brother Oswald as an example of dobro players from the pre-bluegrass era. There is Cliff
Carlisle who had a rather "clunky" sound. I suspect this was because the instruments of his day just
didn't have the power and sustain that the later
builders have been able to obtain. As we go farther
back in time, I think the hiwaiian sound of the dobro
and lap electric steel were pretty much one and the same. It seems that the modern dobro sound developed out of necessity to compete with the volume of the banjo, and that "growl" has even come to be desired on ballads.
_________________
LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro |
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Charley Wilder
From:
Dover, New Hampshire, USA
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 6:52 am
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Good post, Carl!
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C Dixon
From:
Duluth, GA USA
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 7:17 am
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_________________
A broken heart + † = a new heart. |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 7:31 am
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Rob Ickes. A picture is worth a thousand words.
h
_________________
Howard Parker
03\' Carter D-10
70\'s Dekley D-10
52\' Fender Custom
Many guitars by Paul Beard
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Bryant Aycock
From:
Pikeville, North Carolina
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 1:01 pm more!
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I love this stuff!
Thanks,
Bryant |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 4:56 pm
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| Quote: |
| Dobro players more often than not, pick, then block, then change frets and/or grips for the next note(s) without slanting, and so on. |
Yep.
Hardly ANY dobro players do what I hear steel players doing when they try to "fake" dobro - play that two-note tremolo stuff Oswald Kirby was the last one to really play.
Stevens bars are also (while still around) not really preferred - Scheerhorns, Shubbs and other elongated, pointed nose bars are more often used in bluegrass. I also use a Shubb wood-handled bar (with stainless string contact area) for a different sound and feel.
The only thing really common about steel and dobro is the idea of a bar on the strings - dobro players live off hammers, pulloffs, left hand bar lifts (which I do on steel regardless of the "rules!), wider vibrato and much more sliding into (either up OR down) into notes than the precise blocking and intonation of steel.
I'd consider myself a pretty competent dobro player but a mediocre steel player. I've heard plenty of the reverse as well.
And I STILL don't get the steel guitarists' fascination with the tremolo style that pretty much went away in the 40's.
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 5:16 pm
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I sometimes get the impression that when some steel players claim an affinity for dobro they really think Oz or Shot. In fact, the dobro has gone through a radical transformation since the 70's.
This transformation has been largely fueled by a rash of very young players. Certainly Mike, Jerry and Rob are very much at the top of their collective game but, I'm already hearing a generation of 20 year olds and even older teens with real recording and concert credits under their belts. The whole scene is rather explosive.
I won't even discuss the changes the instrument has gone through during that period. "not your fathers dobro/dobro music applies here.
I'm "in the business" in real life.
ymmv
h
_________________
Howard Parker
03\' Carter D-10
70\'s Dekley D-10
52\' Fender Custom
Many guitars by Paul Beard
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Clyde Mattocks
From:
Kinston, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 5:39 pm
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I play in the current dobro style, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the tremolo style and employ it
when I play with the Malpass Brothers. They do a fair amount of Acuff and Flatt & Scruggs. Breaking
out in the tremolo will get you an audience response every time. It is still an effective techique if done with respect for the pioneers and not as some
sort of comedy schtick.
_________________
LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro |
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Tim Tyner
From:
Ayden, North Carolina U.S.A
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 8:05 pm
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I like the comments Charley Wylder made,and
agree with him.When my friend Clyde Mattocks was
helping me get started on Dobro a few years ago,
he told me that playing Dobro would improve my
steel playing in some ways.This proved to be true,
and he should know as he is excellent on either
instrument.By the way Guys,I love Bluegrass music
and love to play electric music as well.Whodathunkit.
Regards,Tim |
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Tim Tyner
From:
Ayden, North Carolina U.S.A
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Posted 30 Jul 2008 8:09 pm
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Sorry,Charley,it's Wilder isn't it.
Tim |
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John DeBoalt
From:
Harrisville New York USA
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Posted 31 Jul 2008 5:55 am
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I wish Mike Auldridge would weigh in on this. In the now defunct "Chesapeake" band he would play resonator, lap steel, and pedal steel in the same set. I know he could give everyone a great feel for what it's like to slide from one instrument to the other. I play both instruments well enough to snag an occasional gig, and to me it's two different mind sets. For me, the continuous bar slants the players used on the dobros in those old country songs, are cumbersom, and hard to play in tune, and I think the evoloution to the pedal steel was the direct result of the need form chord inveraions more effectively. When I play resonator guitar, I want to be able to keep up with the ba#%o. The punch in the modern day reso sound has grown out of the need to fit the bluegrass style. It's not easy, and I think that's why there are fewer reso players, compared to b---o guys doing that kind of music. In the long run it's all good, and I have an immeasureable amount of fun doing it. John
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Equipment: Carter D10, Zum Stage1,
Wechter Scheernhorn Reso, Deneve Reso, Fender Jazzmaster, Martin D16, Walker Stereo Steel amp, TC Electronics M One effects unit, JBL 15" speaker cabs,Peavey Nashville 1000,Peavey Revoloution 112, Morrell Lap Steel, Boss DD3 delay,others |
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C Dixon
From:
Duluth, GA USA
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Posted 31 Jul 2008 6:46 am
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Well put John.
c.
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A broken heart + † = a new heart. |
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