Imitating slide guitar for blues on E9/B6

[John Polstra]

A band I'm in is playing a sort of "Hawaiian music meets the blues" kind of song with lots of tasty one and two note blues licks that were originally played on a slide guitar or maybe a resonator. To give you an idea of what I mean, here's a brief snippet from the instrumental break in the original recording:

Click here for audio snippet

The song is "Sittin' Alone in the Moonlight" by Jo Miller and Laura Love.

What is a good way to play this sort of thing on E9 pedal steel? To get the right sound, I want to play it entirely with the bar -- not moving the pedals. The question is, should I play it without any pedals at all or would it be easier to park the pedals in some particular configuration -- for example, hold down the A pedal for a more pentatonic tuning? To me, it sounds like the guitar in the original was tuned to an open 7th chord, so maybe that's a clue.

I guess I should mention that my instrument is a uni, so another option would be to engage the E lower lever and use the B6 tuning.

Any suggestions? I can sort of fake my way through it, but I have a feeling there's a better way to play it.

Thanks,
John

[Jim Pitman]

John,

I played slide before I started on the steel and a great silent mentor of mine was the late Duane Allman of the Allman brothers band. I think I've heard him play every blues slide lick I've ever heard at one time or another. He used an open D or E with 3/5/1 on the top. I emulate his stuff leaving the pedals out. However, One can use pedal one and two in a few licks.
You might get an early Allman brothers record like Live at the filmore. listen to Stateboro Blues - wow!

Jim

[John Polstra]

Thanks for the tip, Jim. To get 3/5/1 on top, I could play strings 3 to 5 with the A and B pedals down, or I could play strings 4 to 6 with no pedals. I'll play around with both and see how they work for me.

John

[Brett Lanier]

try playing two frets back from the root position using the A pedal. You can use it as a starting position to get the blues sound going then move around from there.

[John Groover McDuffie]

E9th strings 8,6,5,4 - no pedals down = open E, A&B pedals down = open A. String 3 is out of range of a standard guitar tuning and gets a bit thin sounding if you want real accurate emulation.

Duane Allman favored open E or open D (root on top). Lowell George favored & Bonnie Raitt favors open A or open G (5th on top). Ry Cooder likes open D for lead and open G for rhythm.

Don't use the pedals dynamically - ie don't use the sound of the pedals bending the notes, only press or release pedals between licks. Also, you can allow more sloppiness in your bar movement when emulating slide guitar - slide into notes more than you might if you were playing pedal steel style.

IMHO if you want the inside track on Duane Allman's style listen to harp players like Little Walter. I hear a lot of emulation of harp phrasing in Duane's playing.

[Brett Lanier]

I agree about Little Walter. He's my favorite blues soloist.

[Chip Fossa]

I tend to agree with John Groover.

Actually you can use all basic E9 pedals [or not].

As JG said, make sure you make the change so it's not "the country sound". Like, just hang on a single note, and make your move. Now you're in a whole new ballpark. Which is cool and opens up hidden doors.

And don't forget the E-D#(Eb) lever. Very important move.

When playing slide, guess what? It's all in the bar movement.

Actually, when employing a pedal or knee, UNISONS work very well, too; especially when you slant the bar and put one of the notes slightly out of tune, and tease the listener [and you too]. You know - it's da BLUES.

[John Billings]

From the audio snippet, I'd say, "A&B pedals down = open A"

[Chip Fossa]

Remember that minor chords actually can substitute for dom7ths. Ex. - Am for G7 -
8th fret/ A pedal down = Am. Or G7. A very "outside" G7 in some cases. You have to use your brain and feel here.

This is basic steel. And believe it. I'm basic.
And not ashamed of it.

OK, I'm going to bed now.

[Ben Jones]

when you say "slide guitar", I , and apparently most in this thread, think of bottleneck.
but the audio snippet is a dobro.

those arent bottleneck licks in that snippet, those are some dobro licks.

to do that on pedal steel, do as John G McD said. No pedals, just forget em, and find those dobro licks. That alternating string lick dobro players always do is an easy one (strings 5 and 6 back and forth) . Dobro and slide players often play alot on a single string too, you might find some of those licks on a single string going up and down. To emmulate the tone, grab a boss GE7 and set the sliders to a comb pattern

disclaimer: playing steel 4 years and am a lousy dobro player.

[John Polstra]

when you say "slide guitar", I , and apparently most in this thread, think of bottleneck.
but the audio snippet is a dobro.

those arent bottleneck licks in that snippet, those are some dobro licks.

Sorry I blew the terminology, Ben. If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't need you guys. I've never even held a dobro in my hands, and I just think of it as a buzzy sounding slide guitar.

To emmulate the tone, grab a boss GE7 and set the sliders to a comb pattern

Hey, I'll give that a try! I tried the beer-can-as-slide trick somebody posted here, but it didn't work very well. They just don't make beer cans like they used to.

disclaimer: playing steel 4 years and am a lousy dobro player.

Disclaimer: Playing steel 1 year and am a lousy slide guitar player.

John

[Chip Fossa]

Ben,

Notes are notes.

How you get to them,?

That's what it is.

Don't fight it.

You gotta play with the instrument. Get your dumb brain out of the picture. Let her go, babe. Thinking always kills creativity.

Relax.....

[Jack Francis]

I follow Chips thoughts...lower your "E's"!

Playing in the key of E.

First fret, strings 8-7-6 Third fret, strings 6-5 Fifth fret, string 5
Fifth fret, strings 4 - 2 - 4 -2 - 4 - 3 back to Fifth fret 5 string.
Fifth fret, strings 4 - 2 - 4 -2 - 4 Slide to Eighth fret 4 - 2 - 4 - 2
to Tenth fret, string 5...Your now in the 4 chord.

Fool around with it...it works for me!

[Mike Perlowin]

First, I want to state that in my admittedly subjective opinion, the greatest slide guitarist of all time was Mississippi Fred McDowell. If you're going to play slide, you can't do better than listening to and learning from him. I know for a fact that Ry Cooder used to go see him play at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles during the 60s, and I'd be willing to bet all my knee levers that Duane Allman also listened to and was inspired by him (or at least his recordings.)

I too played slide guitar before I took up the steel, and I was fortunate enough to meet McDowell in 1964 and cop a couple of lessons from him.

About 2 years after I started playing the pedal steel guitar, I picked up a little 6 string lap steel, and found that everything I could play on a slide guitar worked better on the lap steel. Eventually I got a 3 neck stringmaster.

The Mississippi Delta Bottleneck style of playing requires that the guitar be tuned to a major chord, with no added 6ths or 7ths or 9ths, and that the style can only be played in the key to which the guitar is tuned. When I got the stringmaster, I put cam levers on 2 of the necks so I could get open chords in A, C, D, E. and G

Half of this tune is the stringmaster by itself, and the other half is a duet between the pedal and non pedal steels. Anybody familiar with McDowell's work, or that of any of the other great Mississippi Delta bottleneck players can hear their influence on my non pedal steel playing.

http://www.perlowinmusic.com/GershwinPrelude2.mp3

Eventually I learned how to more or less adapt the style into my pedal steel guitar playing, and integrate the use of pedals. This includes the use of the A and occasionally C pedals to play certain licks.

Blues guitar lines include a lot of whole step bends, they are just not the same ones we normally play. There's no reason why the A and C pedals can't be used to duplicate the same kinds of lead lines a 6 string player would make by bending strings.

[Chip Fossa]

If we are talkin' blues on the E9th pedal steel.

OK.

But some references were made for the dobro. A wonderful instrument in it's own right.

So, I play both.

I find that the dobro lends itself better for sliding and unison [open string] than the steel guitar. To me, that is the beauty of the dobro. It's easily at hand and when you get two notes going and start going wacky with your bar, well?

It's like this - no matter what open tuning your dobro is in, simply take any string and slide up to where that NOTE is on an adjacent string.

Start wailing away. Slide back and forth. You'll get it. Use only your thumb and another finger. That gets the ball rolling. It's so simple. Everyone, including yours truly, thought the more fingers you entered into the BIG SCHEME, the better.

NOT SO.

What worked for Peter, Paul & Mary, Dave Van Ronk, Paul Simon, and any number of great Travis picking-style artists, do not work on the dobro or pedal steel. They do some times. But basically, to get SPEED, you have to go with the back and forth thumb/one-finger style.

But the second finger is also very important, too.

Am I in bed, yet?

[Chip Fossa]

Mike,

Thanks for your great observation and insight into blues concerning the E9th tuning.

You are absolutely correct in your reasoning that any note can be had by using pedals or knee
levers; as opposed to sliding or slanting to get to said note.

And my only objection is that, by relying on pedals and knee levers [activating them as a song moves on] may and could cause an inexperienced player to "fall back" on those pedals and abominate the whole deal. Turn the song into a, uh, Country song. It's so easy to do, when you're just startin' out.

Hell, man, that was always the fun of playing a pedal steel. Squash those pedals. Let's see what happens? What did we know? I just loved it.

Thank ya, kindly

[Ben Jones]

Ben,


You gotta play with the instrument. Get your dumb brain out of the picture. Let her go, babe. Thinking always kills creativity.

Relax.....

No problem there Chip, I never let my stupid brain get in the way

John wants to imitate the sound sample he offered us, on E9th pedal steel. That sound sample is a dobro.

there are some very cool bluesy licks with the pedals and levers, but for dobro licks...Id avoid using em for the reasons chip mentioned.

I got a couple no pedals "blues boxes" on psg and use em lots. For blues I run the boxes in conjunction with some of the pedal and lever moves. In this context the levers and pedals function like finger bends or slides and whammy bar on a regular guitar. That E lower is a whammy bar sound to me. Bending into the A pedal raise on 5, then plucking 4 is your classic guitar bend. The c pedal unison on 1 and 4 is the classic hendrix slide on the open e string on guitar (hey joe).

For dobroey sounds I have a few stock dobro licks within those boxes and dont touch the pedals.


I play no pedals and levers alot. If your ever lost, you can always fallback on those patterns. one of the best things i ever taught myself on psg. you dont find much of it in instructional material. voodoo chile is a good teacher

[b0b]

From the audio snippet, I'd say, "A&B pedals down = open A"

I was going to say the same thing. Also, ignore the top 3 strings. This is definitely a "5th on top" collection of licks. Use the F lever to simulate the forward slants on the low frets.

[John Polstra]

From the audio snippet, I'd say, "A&B pedals down = open A"

I was going to say the same thing. Also, ignore the top 3 strings. This is definitely a "5th on top" collection of licks. Use the F lever to simulate the forward slants on the low frets.

Thanks, guys. That's the kind of advice I was looking for. I'll play around with that position and see how it works out.

John

[John Groover McDuffie]

E9th strings 8,6,5,4 - no pedals down = open E, A&B pedals down = open A. String 3 is out of range of a standard guitar tuning and gets a bit thin sounding if you want real accurate emulation.

Like I said.

[Geoff Cline]

Be sure to check out my pal, former band mate and great steeler Joel Ferguson playing blues/slide on pedal steel with his band Cockeyed Junior (there's more on youtube, search "Cockeyed Junior"). He gets as good a slide guitar/blues sound as anyone I've heard...and that's a bunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-zY5u_DZGk

[John Polstra]

E9th strings 8,6,5,4 - no pedals down = open E, A&B pedals down = open A. String 3 is out of range of a standard guitar tuning and gets a bit thin sounding if you want real accurate emulation.

Like I said.

Yes you did, and I appreciate it!

John

[Doug Palmer]

When playing pedal guitar we try to stay in tune. When playing slide guitar blues stay out of tune a bit. When I hit that flat 5th and slide up slowly staying between the frets it turns heads. Kinda like that harmonica bending thing. Very emotional, that is what your looking for. Muddy Waters would be a great place to start!

Doug Palmer

[Bernie Straub]

I like the AF position for blues. I leave the F lever engaged and use the A pedal for the slide effect, alternating with actual sliding. and the IV chord is 2 frets up (open position) well within an easy slide.

[Dan Tyack]

That's forumite Orville Johnson, if I'm not mistaken.

I'd start out with the AB pedals down but also play in the box three frets above that. For example if you are in C, start at the 3rd fret with AB down and also hang out at the 6th fret. Don't be afraid to use the pedals, just not using the standard country idioms. Don't be afraid of playing the whole thing without pedals, though.

Here are some examples of blues on the E9th:

Haggard Blues shuffle

Blues Jam