E9 question from a non-E9 player

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Two thing that seems to get drilled as "standards" are 1) the lowering of the E's, and 2) the raising of the E's. I had enough trouble trying to deal with my inability to block chromatic strings to think about those E's (for those who don't know, I play Sneaky Pete's B6. both on Fenders and on a modified GFI Ultra).

Caveat - I really do not comprehend much about theory other than I, IV, IV, iim and vim chords
(not the notes - just how to play them), and I don't play scales - my steel playing comes from a different path - one based on arpeggios with "bent" notes, banjo rolls and very little "normal" harmonized double-stops - essentially I adapted my guitar playing to steel and am quite happy with it (especially playing in a lower register - even on Tele I rarely play above the 12th fret)

I was just thumbing through some E9 stuff I had left over and discovered some interesting anomalies:

Lloyd Green, who is revered as one of THE "gods of steel", raises...but does not lower his high-E (and I think in another chart it showed NO lowers)...his E's. Buddy Charleton, on the other hand, did the opposite. Rusty Young's is like Green's - raise but no lower.

And then I found the book I thought I'd gotten rid of - the "Winnie" book - and it shows a basic 3+1 with the upper-E left alone, but the lower-E lowered (and the combination stressed as one of the "most basic" changes).

I'd been under the impression that on a "stock" 3+4 you had locked-in settings for the pedals and knee levers, with maybe ONE variation (and one I don't get): Both E's lowered; both E's raised; the second string lowered to D...or to C# (that's the one I don't get - some charts list one...some the other...but most BOTH, which is interesting, as I can't find another pedal or lever to combine it with to make it go to C#, or to D in a "split" arrangement ). I'm used to splits, with 4 on my GFI, but two notes on one string on the same lever is puzzling.

Those are the "normal" ones, with the 4th one often
often raising the first string - but also spread all over the place.

So - WHAT ***IS*** standard, and WHY??

Man, it makes me SO happy I discovered that particular B6 - although I have zero instructional materials, I don't have ones that use changes I don't have, making me wonder - which one of the zillions of players is *right* - and how do you KNOW?

And how do you sit at another player's guitar and play it if the tuning and changes are not "yours"? IT does explain why steel jams are not "jams", but guys playing along with Band in a Box - you can't jam and switch around on instruments if you brought a zither and your buddy brought his tuba...and someone from out-of-town a double-reed slide music stand.

Sorry - got carried away -

Seriously - what are the "E" changes about, and why are they not consistent; and 2) what ARE the standard changes for two other levers? And if anyone want to, I'd love to know how you get two changes on one lever without a split or a "WAG".

I have no practical-application system. Just curious, partially as a result of the thread regarding difficulty factor.

One last sidebar, if anyone wants a stab at it - is there a 50 words or less explanation for the chromatic strings - why; why those particular notes; why did they never seem to fit any chord I tried to play?

No big deal- just trying to figure out how players get beyond playing tab (programed playing) to becoming an intuitive player that can "sit in" and play well enough to get away with it.
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Ken Metcalf · From: San Antonio Texas USA

I lower my Es to play in B6th ( Herb Steiners swinging on E9th)
And have gone as far as switching to universal to add pedals to the 6th stuff.
Standard is to have one lever to raise and one to lower.
I like to raise my Es to get the A/F change because I like the way it morphs into 7th, minor, or Aug sounds cool to me.
All these diff. copedants .. we can all get the same stuff
Its just a matter of preference, familiarity and convenience.
Universal is not for everyone, I can play a D-10 and a semi-competent player would be surprised how similar universal is to D-10.. just familiarity RKL, LKR, LKL Blah blah blah not that hard, it's just we prefer our own guitars and set ups.
Sneaky Petes and Zane Becks copedants were always interesting to me but we evolve into copedants in a number of ways... I have become a intuitive sit in player by getting up and making mistakes in public, But I like to play and don't mind making an A$$ out of my self in order to hit the occasional cool lick
Lloyd Green speaks for himself.
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Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Jim,
I can't explain why a lot of things are on my guitar, most of the time I don't even know what I'm doing. I just play what sounds right. It took me a while to "find" a use for the top two chromatic strings, but now I use them constantly and would miss them seriously if I had to play without them.

The only thing I know about scales is what key to start in for a particular piece. After that it's purely what sounds right. I play with an outstanding guitarist and he knows the technicalities of music and when he says to play a E9 flat 7, I have no idea what he is talking about untill he plays it and then I can find it. Most of the time I do not know what chords I am playing, I just play what sounds right.

As for tab, I have tried, but I just cannot get the hang of it. I loose interest quickly with tab.

As for raising and lowering the E's, I would have a hard time without them as well. I constantly find new uses for them. I don't know what the chords are I get with them most of the time, but they come in real handy.

Same thing goes for the C6th neck, only more so! I usually have no idea what cord I'm playing, I just go by the sound. If I feel a little unsure I just play single notes, keep it moving and I sometimes make people think I know what I'm doing.

I even find myself using the B & C pedals. I don't know what the chords are, but they sound right. You can get some really good runs using them. I constantly surprise myself because I have found if I get the tune in my head it will come out my fingers if I stay with it. I use the pedals and levers without thinking about them or what strings they work on, just the sound they make.

As for fifty words or less on the chromatic strings one and two, they're great for runs, and really help with adding great sounds in progressions. I don't know what they're supposed do but, they do come in very handy!

I'm not trying to be funny, this is the way I play my guitar. I don't change the pedals and levers around, I use what I have.
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Chris Erbacher · From: Sausalito, California, USA

ditto what bill just said...i have a basic understanding of the tuning and where the major scale is according to what i started out with...emmons setup 3x4...i am also a banjo player and a little guitar. my playing is based around the rolls on banjo and the padding of the basic chords and my ear...my ear gets me by more often than not based on my intuition and listening to a lot of music prior to playing...i am not afraid to make mistakes and take risks where i am feeling it, and to learn...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but by now i have become accustomed to risk taking while under fire and getting away with it, most of the time. jim i have thought a lot about the tuning and why it is the way it is and have just learned to deal with it and learn how to use it. i play by how it sounds and have been told that my ear is "very good"...sometimes i feel inadequate when around those who know theory and who can play, but most of the time they can explain what i do already from an intuitive standpoint, and i think that by now if i knew theory-wise what i know intuitively, i would get messed up in all that thinking...i am interested in your tuning jim as banjo is the easiest of the instruments i play and it seems like we have that in common...who knows maybe your tuning would come easier for me...i recently posted looking for a way to adapt the banjo tuning to the steel...i resolved to just play 8,6, and 5 where i want the same configuration as the banjo has...if that makes any sense...it feels different space wise in my hand, but i am learning to adapt to it and use it...as for the lowering of the E's, i am just getting used to that lever, and am digging the F# to G lever more. the top two strings are fun for scale runs and are handy in getting from one area of the fretboard to another during a solo or scale run, but i haven't learned how to use the second string for chords yet...i'm sure there is a lot of stuff i miss that if someone who really knew how to play well was watching and making notes, i could learn a lot...most of what i know how to do is from being thrown up onstage as soon as i could make chords and forced to play backup with people i knew at the time...so in a sense, most of my playing has been a matter of finding something good to say out of thin air and by my wits...i hope that helps...

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

Hi Jim,
well those are some good questions. I think you're looking for a solid rational for something that has evolved to a sort of norm with all sorts of personal variations. I might be able to answer a few questions. The way that the 2nd string becomes a C# or a D is due to what is called a feel stop in which extra string tension is applied when the pull is half way through its travel so that you can rest at the D before you reach the C#. In E, C# is the 6th tone and D is the dom 7 tone. The second string D note is good for honky-tonk boogie licks with that 7th feel as well as another way to get a 7th chord. A lot of the older players started on non-pedal guitars and just added more levers and knees as they felt were useful, and I think Lloyd Green lowers his E's with a bar slant instead of a knee, just as a non-pedal player would. The knee levers changes seem to be designed for making more chords, so I guess the third and forth knees would be for what you see useful for chord building. The raising and lowering of the E's is useful for getting dom 7th chords, minor chords, and major chords. The standard set-ups seem to mirror what Buddy Emmons and Paul Franklin do, but I think they do what makes sense for their playing and sense for theory. As I understand it, the chromatic high strings were gradual add-ons to the standard 8 string E9 tuning. The D# note is not in the E9 chord as the E9 chord has a dom 7th tone (D) not a maj 7 tone (D#), so it makes sense to call the D# a chromatic note. The F# is a repeat of the seventh string F# which is the 9th tone, so I don't why that's called a chromatic as it's part of the E9 chord. People seem to mostly use the two high strings (the "chromatic" strings) for single note work--either appregios or licks and as rolls or syncopated picking patterns over strings 1-4. I think those first strings end up out of sequence with each other in terms of high to low because Buddy Emmons found it useful for picking and chord building, and players followed suit with Buddy Emmons. If I'm mistaken on any this please correct me. You should check out the book "Pedal Steel Guitar A Manual of Style" by Winnie Winston. In that book a lot of the old-school greats explain what knees they would add and why, which gets to the point of a lot of what you're wondering about.

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

Is the original question what is standard and why? The 10 string E9 tuning is standard, and the standard grips fit the tuning, and the standard pedal and knee lever changes expand the chords for the standard grips. Same with the 10 string C6 (I guess a D on top is now standard) and the 12 string Universal tuning. The standard is not static, as the history of the tuning, popular changes, and number of pedals and knee levers shows.

btw, I have some Buddy Emmons material and some Herby Wallace material that is pretty good at presenting enough generic theory for the tuning that can be applied outside of the tunes included in the material.

David Doggett · Posted 3 Jul 2009 9:48 pm

[I didn't see anything after Bill Duncan's post, so some of the below may have already been mentioned.]

Well, Jim, you’ve got a lot of questions here. I’ll see what I can do. Let’s start with the modern standard below, which is the Carter stock model based on their most requested changes.

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

Raybob Bowman · From: S. Lake Tahoe, CA, USA

David Doggett · Posted 3 Jul 2009 10:30 pm

For what it's worth, I've never used much tab, and can hardly read it. I already played piano, sax, guitar, Dobro and lap steel when I took up pedal steel. I had a fair understanding of simple theory (major and minor scales, I IV V, rel. minor, some pentatonic blues stuff). So I just explored pedal steel by ear and learned simple chord progressions to play backup to LPs (later CDs) and with a group. I didn't play much lead and licks at first, just padded and slid around from one chord to the next. I learned you can get the same chord multiple ways (no pedals, A&B, A&F, etc.). When I did start doing lead, I learned that it is best to try to do the lead stuff at the appropriate chord positions rather than just strike out on single strings on frets without useful chords. That way you can add one or two strings for harmony here and there.

I believe I learned to wing it by ear much faster that way than if I had slogged through specific tunes and licks with tab. But it does make much of my playing personalized - I don't know the exact licks from the original versions of the standard country repertoire. But then, I don't play in country cover bands. I can play something country sounding with a country band, but it's not the exact licks a purist might want to hear. After the first year on country-like pedal steel, I moved on to country-rock (it was the '70s), rock, blues, and now a little jazz and classical. There's no tab for much of that stuff anyway. If you can't play it by ear, I don't know how you could learn it.

I'm not thinking of the names of notes and chords when I'm playing. But I am usually aware of where I am in the number system - for example the fact that I'm on the V and getting ready to move to the I. And I am pretty well aware of which strings the roots are on for each position I am at, and that tells me which strings the internal intervals are on. I know and think about the basic intervals (1, b3 or 3, 5, 6, b7, 1); but I might have to stop and think if you told me to add #6 or something not so simple.

David Doggett · Posted 3 Jul 2009 11:11 pm

E9 Evolution:

Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

To expand on RayBob's #3 use of the E lower, this is not a major chord (assuming you are using the same grip of strings 4,5,6,8,10) unless you lower string 6 a whole tone giving you the major chord (explaining one reason why people have that 6th string lower - will not work with 3rd string which most people don't lower). The E lower lever alone as he mentions gives you a IIImin. Let me add that I am not saying that RayBob is necessarily talking about E chords. His explaination is a good rule of thumb to remember where to find the other inversions of a chord in relation to the no pedals position for ease of explaination - one to memorize. My examples assumes using the no pedal position (strings 3,4,5,6,8,10) on fret 0 which is an E chord, 3rd fret with pedal A & the lever that raises E to F which is once again an E chord, just a different inversion, fret 5 with the e lower and 6th string lower (does not work using the 3rd string, but the other grips work) give you an E chord, and lastly, the A & B pedals down at fret 7 give you yet another E chord.

Something I haven't seen mentioned is that the E to F lever alters other chords in ways that are used quite a lot. In the A & B pedal down position (again working with grips using strings 3,4,5,6,8,10), adding the E to F raise makes the chord an Augmented chord. In the no pedal position, it gives you a diminished chord. The diminished chord is actually found one fret below the no pedal position (example: E no pedals at fret 12, add the F change and you have to slide to fret 11 to make an Edim), but a very common chord change is going from an E to Fdim (assuming again playin in E). Of course, this is not taking into account that augmented and diminished chords repeat themselves every 3 (diminshed) or 4 (augmented) frets. I'm not going to get into the specicic theory as to why here.

The E lower also combines with the B pedal to give you a 7th chord (dom 7th) 2 frets down from the A & B pedal position (example: E with A & B pedals at fret 7, slide -or move your bar- down 2 frets letting off the A pedal and you have the 7th chord version of the E on fret 7.

The F# to G change also gives you another minor in the no pedal position using string 1 & 7 instead of 3 & 6.

And remember that EVERY change, whether it be on a pedal or a knee, gives you scale movement within chords, and in single note runs.

And if I remember correctly, I believe I read that Lloyd Green doesn't lower his 4th string to D#, only string 8, because of tuning stability on string 4 which he did not like. When you lower a string, it wants to return sharp just a tad. Some can hear this, some can not.

Brint Hannay · From: Maryland, USA

Regarding the D/C# lower--"two notes on one string with one lever"--on the 2nd string: I hope my quick review of the thread hasn't caused me to overlook where someone discussed this, but there are two ways this is accomplished:

1) If the lever has a whole-step lower on the 2nd string, and also has a half-step lower (D > C#) on the 9th string, it can often be set up so that, as the lever is pressed, it first lowers only the 2nd string till it reaches D, and at that point you feel the half-step lower on string 9 engage, and from that point it lowers both 2 and 9 a half step (2 to C# from D, 9 to C# from D)

and/or

2) An extra linkage is installed whereby the lever mechanism, tuned to make a 2nd string whole-step lower to C#, encounters a spring at the point in its travel where it has reached the D note, so that the knee feels added resistance at that point, and thus can stop its movement at the D note.

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

I enjoyed reading this thread and all the excellent contributions. I'm going to print it out and read it again several times because of all the info, much of what I didn't know or hadn't thought of. Thanks.

Georg Sørtun · From: Mandal, Agder, Norway

Will just chime in with a strange coincidence regarding the G# to F# change.

I've had it on my RKL since 1988, and in 1991 I showed what I could do with it to Lloyd Green and Scotty (on a seminar in Norway).

Scotty asked for a copy of my copedent, got one, and I thought no more about it.
In 1993 I asked the person who handled steel imports in Norway if there was anything new going on regarding the E9 I should know about.
He said: "Yes, there's a new knee lever lower, apparently signed B. Emmons, that you might find interesting". So, he mailed me a copy.

I was a bit surprised when what I got was the G# to F# lower I already had, only that I lowered the 6th string to F# and the 3d string to G on that lever (I've later changed to lower both 3d and 6th to F#).

In 1988 I also added half/full raise/lower for all E strings, on LKL and LKR. Spring-loaded half stoppers were no good for this, so I built solid, adjustable, stoppers that I move with an added LKV. Think they're still unique.
I use full-tone raise, E to F#, a lot, and full-tone lower, E to D, a bit less - often combined with G# to F#. They also compensate for the "replaced" 7th and 9th string on my steel - I play an "extended" E9 on S10.
My old/present copedent here

So, I guess we all add, or leave out, raises and lowers (and even strings) until we get the set-up that serves each of us best. Some variations may make it a bit more difficult to play someone else's E9, but one can usually get by simply by leaving out unfamiliar raises and lowers and move/slant the bar more.

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

The G# to F# change might have been "invented" by many players.

Another man who has this change is Dave Seddon in England and lord knows how long he has had it.

I hope Dave will join in and clarify, and tell us about its uses.
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Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

From my understanding, there was no "musical reason" that Lloyd stopped using the high "E" lower. His early Bud had a problem with the change staying in tune, so he just deleted it, and found other ways to get the effect when he wanted it. While the "E" raise and lowers are pretty much standard, where they are isn't.

From my point of view, a lot of (non pro) steel playing is a game of one-upsmanship. Each player has to try and come up with a "nifty lick" that will impress other "nifty lick" players, and far less thought seems to be given to how the overall music sounds. It seems it's become more a game of "how many notes can I bend", or "how many chords can I make" than just playing good music. Like guitar players and (electronic) keyboard players, everything for steelers becomes a procession of sounds, tones, stomp boxes, and gimmicks to get something "neat". (Although in our case, we also keep adding pedals, levers, or strings.)

Then, at the other end of the spectrum, there's the poor violinist (fiddle player), or classical guitarist. Pity that poor fella. So few strings, no amps, no stomp boxes, no levers, no pedals, no pickups, no EFX racks, no speakers, and no warm overdrive, heavy crunch, or plate reverbs. None of our wonderful "distractions" (toys?) to pine over or argue about.

No wonder you don't hear any good music from those guys. Wink

Rich Peterson · From: Moorhead, MN

A note on Lloyd Green. An element of his style was to play strings 4 & 8 together, with 8 lowered, then release the lever to scoop up to the octave. It's interesting to learn that this came about from a malfunction of his guitar.

David Doggett · Posted 4 Jul 2009 9:18 am

I understand what you are saying, Donny. But, the last time I looked, MP3 downloads, CDs and concerts featuring guitarists with gaggles of stomp boxes and amps, and the latest new licks were outselling classical guitarists and violin virtuosos by like a hundred to one. Seems like the musicians aren't the only ones that like a variety of new sounds. Winking

Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

There is nothing wrong with one not being a professional musician. They are no better than me, they just happen to pick for a living.

I chose my field of occupation, and it isn't music. However I love to play, and not being a professional doesn't make me second class to a professional steel picker. He may pick better, but I love pickin' just as much as the pro does!

I bought my steel and amp, and I can pick it if I want too.

I can't imagine a steel manufacturer turning down a sale just because the buyer isn't a "PRO".
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ed packard · From: Show Low AZ

Jim S et al:

From being a standard guitar laid down flat and retuned to a triad (actually several different keys, to adding strings to get more than triads, to having a neck for each tuning, to adding pedals and levers to get different musical necks on a single physical neck...the game has been one of "follow the leader". The E9 PSG "standards" were generated by the "leaders" and we followed. That includes the so called "chromatic" strings...see EMMONS and DAY.

You pinned it with the I,IV,V,IIm,VIm,IIIm chord requirements. If the E9 can be morphed into I,IV,V necks with changes, the results can be morphed into the IIm, VIm, and IIIm musical necks...and all on the same fret!

On each of these musical necks, one would like 6ths, b7ths, and M7 as chord extensions. adding a 9th here there is nice.

Can we make an E6 on the E9 neck...yes (p1)...and it is also C#m7. A6 (p1p2) is also F#m7. B6(L>)is also G#m7, so there are the I,IV,V,VIm,IIm, and IIIm necks all in one. Might as well make use of the D string as a root and get D7/D9 = bVII neck.

Things came together from two directions...the 7th chord and the 6th chord. Nashville was heavy in I,IV,V sequences...added b7s and 9s. The SW was big in swing = the relative minors and M7s...each went their own direction for a while...enter 2 necks = E9 & C6.

The west coast did it's own thing...sort of = 19 pedal units etc. I have no idea why Sneaky chose B6 over C6...but he sure liked to drill holes in the body of his PSG. B6 has one nice thing...you can add the high 6th note pulled to a 7th...can't on C6.

You probably use Sneaky's B6 for the same reason many pickers use EMMONS or DAY's E9...he was around in your neck of the woods, and on the records you listened to.

It is a matter of what sounds/chords/licks do I want and what do I have to add to get them.

Enter the Universal(s)...

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I'm in this late, so a lot of Jim's questions have been answered. But I'll add my dos centavos anyway.

First, I think the three most "standard" lever changes are E=>D# (E-lever) and E=>F (F-lever) on both strings 4 and 8, and D#=>D=>C# on string 2 and D=>C# on string 9 (D-lever), where some only have the single change on string 2 as already noted. As Brint already noted, one can get the feel-stop on the D-lever at least a couple of ways. Most guitars I have work off the tension of the 9th string lower just fine.

Of course, some great players like Lloyd don't lower the 4th string to D#. IF one has the diatonic strings 1 and 2, then one can definitely get that note on string 2 without moving the bar, so it isn't absolutely necessary with a standard 10-string E9 setup. Myself, some things I do really want the sound of the 4th string as it's lowering, but as already pointed out, there are different things one could do if that 4th string change wasn't there. On pedal steel, the choice of pedal & lever changes is ultimately a tradeoff - there is a practical limit to the number of changes possible.

Even though a lot of elementary instruction in E9 (most I've seen, anyway) doesn't cover the first two diatonic strings, F# and D# respectively, very much, I think they're critical to the tuning, and not necessarily intuitive in their use. I recently spent 5 days in a "steel guitar bootcamp" with Mike Sweeney, and we went over a lot standard E9 pedal steel moves involve those two strings and the D-lever with both half and whole tone changes. I have to hand it to the pioneers who figured this stuff out in the first place - we're talking about some very subtle but cool ideas involving counterpoint with lots of contrary motion. To me, this kind of sophistication is one of the things that separates really good E9 players from ordinary ones.

Of course, another use is much like the way melodic banjo players approach speed picking by putting scale notes on different strings so they can be rapidly picked using different fingers.

As has already been mentioned, lowering both 4 and 8 to D# opens up the universal E9/B6 approach, and I use it a lot - in fact, I often play a 12-string universal guitar. But it is also quite effective on 10-string E9.

Another important basis for more sophisticated E9 playing is playing out of the 9th-string D root and use of the D-lever in that context. Again, most elementary instruction materials I've seen don't really deal with this much, but it's very elegant when done by someone who really knows the ins and outs. Mike and I spent quite a lot of time on this kind of thing.

All that is just from a basic 3+3 setup. There are lots of options for 4th and 5th levers - 5th string (and possibly 10th string) B=>Bb (which can often be split with the A-pedal), 6th (and possibly 3rd) string G#=>F# (which can often be split with the B-pedal), and many more. But I think the guts is in 3+3.

I'm not trying to sell anybody on E9 if they prefer a different approach. But it is an incredibly sophisticated and versatile tuning if you go past the basic A/B pedals-up and pedals-down (E-root and A-root) positions. I have a lot of ideas to grok and get under my fingers for at least the next several months.

BTW - If anyone really wants to get deeper on E9, I strongly suggest working with a serious player like Mike for an extended session like I did. We went over tons of stuff that would have taken me years to discover on my own, and if you're playing a tuning nobody else knows, that just isn't possible. The other thing is that the stuff we went over is emphatically not restricted to country music. Mike has a great handle on playing cool jazz and blues on E9 (or C6 for that matter), and if you take the time to listen, the really good players are musicians first.

Tab? I only use tab if I get stuck on something that I need to figure out very quickly - pure expediency. To me, there's no substitute for really grokking what I'm playing, and finding interesting variations around anything I'm doing. Tab's a quick roadmap when I'm lost and don't have anybody like Mike right there. But the interesting part is what happens after I figure out the basic moves.

All my opinions, naturally.

Barry Hyman · From: upstate New York, USA

Music theory is easy! You guys shouldn't be so scared of it! (Talking to Jim and Bill and Chris there -- the first three to post on this thread.) The problem is that everybody seems to assume that you need to know how to read music notation (or at least tablature) in order to understand music theory. Wrong! It's just simple ideas that can be explained simply in words, like the idea that if you have a scale with seven notes you can make a chord scale out of it with seven chords.

Several years ago I wrote a guitar manual with a lot of straightforward, no-notation information on music theory and blues theory (which is different and a bit more complicated). Reading this post makes me want to find the time to write a version for pedal steel players. I teach music fulltime, have for many years -- private lessons -- and I really delight in making things easy for people. Music theory is just a tool to speed up the learning process, and to make it easier to communicate with other musicians. Learning entirely by ear, or by trial and error, works fine -- that's how I learned guitar for the first five years before I became a music major in college -- but it is faster and much less frustrating if you learn a little theory. Between teaching 30 lessons a week, teaching part time at two schools, playing in three bands (two or three gigs every week), and making cds (not to mention all the hours I have been spending lately obsessing on the SG Forum when I should be sleeping!) I don't have much time, but if I find some I promise I'll write an easily-understood plain-English guide to music theory for PSG players, and I'll share it for free (or for cost if I make hard copies). It doesn't have to be so hard -- it is all the music snobs who insist that you have to learn to read first that make it seem hard. Music theory is easy and fun!
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I give music lessons on several different instruments in Cambridge, NY (between Bennington, VT and Albany, NY). But my true love is pedal steel. I've been obsessed with steel since 1972; don't know anything I'd rather talk about... www.barryhyman.com

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