I wanted to jump in here and give my praise to Don E. Curtis. He has not only been my steel teacher for almost 5 years but also a good friend. With the help from Don, I went straight from a GFI student model to a GFI Universal and never looked back.
The transition was a lot easier than I thought. Don’s “C6 on E9” book is a must for anyone going from E9 to a Universal. Actually, all of Don’s material is a must. (I’m a little biased.) Here’s my take on the advantages of “One Big Tuning”. Today, Don and I went over pentatonic scales and it all made complete sense in both E9 and B6. From no pedals, two frets back with pedals AB is a pentatonic scale. Then one fret forward with the E lowering knee lever with pedal 7 is another. Knowing I can go from pedal 7 slurs right into A pedal slurs opens up so many different styles of playing. The example was, pedals AB are similar to a Chuck Berry sound and Pedal 7 with the knee lever is similar to that Day/Emmons sound from the 60’s. (I say similar because no matter how hard I try I will never sound like them.) Those are two sounds most people wouldn’t want to play these days but I do. I can go from B6 Boo Wah pedal, straight to A6 with AB, straight to Nashville E9 in the same lick. (I never would do that but it is possible with a Universal.)
Being fairly new to the steel guitar I still do not understand all the technical issues that go along with these machines. All I know is mine works and I finally can incorporate every knee lever and pedal in my playing.
One more thing, if it was not for Don and Scotty’s Music I would have never dared to play a pedal steel. I still remember my first lesson with my GFI student model. I brought in a Willie Nelson song with Jimmy Day playing all over it. Don just looked at me like I was crazy but he still tabbed it out. After that lesson we stuck with learning scales and what all the pedals do. Thanks Don, for humoring me that day.
New take on Universal Steel guitar by Excel...........
Moderator: Shoshanah Marohn