E9 0r C6 ?

[Herb Steiner]

Steven
The two most commonly used C6 pedals are pedals 5 and 6 (shown for 6 strings only)...
[tab]
stg. ped ped
5 6
2 E______________F__
3 C_________________
4 A_________________
5 G______F#______
6 E______________Eb_
7 C_________________
[/tab]

Pedal 5 creates the straight bar position for this common Jerry Byrd slant for a dom.7 or dom.9th, or an augmented chord (without the root), as shown...
[tab]
stg. G7 G9 C#aug.
1. E_______________5_____5
2. C_________5_____5_____5
3. A_________5____________
4. G_________4_____4_____4
5. E_______________
[/tab]

Pedal 6 creats the straight bar position equivalent of a slant for either a major diad, a dominant triad (minus root), and a minor 6th, as shown.
[tab]
stg. Bb Bb7 Bb7 Fm6
1 E_________6___________6_________
2 C______________5_____________5__
3 A_________5____5_____________5__
4 G_______________________________
5 E______________4______4______4__
6 C_______________________________
[/tab]

I'm sure there's others I could think of later, but these are what comes off the top of my Saturday morning head.

[C Dixon]

so, my question is :
which pedals are used to eliminate which slants?
(how about reverse slants?!)

(if this question makes sense, I would appreciate any feedback; if I'm way out in left field, kindly ignore me and carry on...)

If I ever knowingly ignored a sincere question, I would ask Jesus in sincere prayer to paddle my Glutomous Maximous, until I could not sit down for a month!

And I would deserve it!

Now to answer your questions:

"which pedals are used to eliminate which slants?"

GREAT question dear person.

Ok and first; you need to know WHY pedal 5 and 6 are on there!

In order to undestand, you have to go back before pedals and see how C6 "lapsteelers" played. This is particularly true of the player who came up with C6. Or at least he is on record stating he did, and I believe it.

Jerry Byrd was the absolute master at slanting in BOTH directions. And he honed it to the point he became, quintessentially perfect at it. NO one could do it like he could.

I have seen him slant that bar so quickly and back that it would truly win a title race with "64th" notes! EVAH time! And be DEAD on EVAH time!

EVEN if you slowed the record way down, which by the way is the acid test to see if a player is missun it! Be suprised at how many are. But NOT JB and under NO circumstances the greatest of all;

BUDDY EMMONS!

(The Vladimir Horowitz of the Pedal Steel Guitar! As I stand on this planet!)

TWO of JB's most famous slants; resulted in Buddy Emmons coming up with pedals 5 and 6; along with pedal 8; (which I intend to have a lesson on further on down the line; IF any one is still interested! Which I seriously doubt will happen!) Didn't know the above didjah? Well believe it.

Buddy's musical idol was JB. Buddy wrote Jerry many letters when he was growing up. And as always, Jerry answered EVERY letter. Note the following:

I was having difficulty getting the ending of Jerry's first recording "Steelin' the Blues". So I wrote to him, and the following is his immediate reply.




Now if'n ya thank I don' cherish this hand written ditty, I have some "Ocean Front Property" in the middle of tha Sahara desert to sell ya really cheap; AND I will throw in the Sphinx for free! Yeah YOU betcha!

What are two of JB's classic slants? Well they were what is called "split" slants; whereby 2 strings are NOT slanted while the 3rd one IS slanted.

Look at this:.


[tab]

D9th F7th

E E
C C C
A A
G F#
E Eb
C

[/tab]

You do this by making use of the bullet nose of your bar; where the top two notes stay still and the bottom note slants.

Now you know why Buddy came up with the changes on pedal 5 and 6, although he coupled the F7th with the raising of the top E to an F note, for obvious reasons.

When he went to 10 strings, he then raised the 9th string to F# (getting the lower octave); and raised the 10th sring to a D; to give him the root of D on that all important bass register strang!

HEEHEE

YEA "buddie Edmunds"! whoopee!

And now you know "The rest of the story"*.

"how about reverse slants?"

Jerry was also THE quintessential master on backward slants. You have a perfect emulation of this manuever on your E9th neck when you engage the E lever (E's to Eb) AND the B pedal, picking strings 4, 5 and 6; and then letting off both to go from a V7 to I resolve; ownlyist, ya don' havta move da bar!!

This is how JB did it:
[tab]


E E>>>F
C
A Bb>>A
G
E
C

[/tab]

Looking down from the top of the bar it looks like ya made an "X" at any two frets!

And one of the reasons for the A to Bb change on later knee lever additions to C6; using the knee lever first; picking strings 2, 3 and 4; then releasing the knee lever as you engage pedal 6.

Try it! Whatcha got to lose Pahdnah?

c.

* Paul Harvey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Harvey

(Scroll down to the section "Move to Chicago" and read the 7th paragraph showing where his famous quote originated.)

[b0b]

How do you get this signature Jerry Byrd slant on pedal steel?

[Herb Steiner]

[tab]
4. 2b____5b___7b___9b___10b___12b___14b___14b
5. 2_____5____6____8____10____11____13____14
6. 2_____5____5____7____10____10____12____14
[/tab]

Here ya go, b0b. Key of Db

[C Dixon]

How do you get this signature Jerry Byrd slant on pedal steel?

b0b and Herb,

A point of interest about Jerry's handwritten tab note to me in "circa" 1996.

Try as I may, I was NOT able (after receiving the mail) to get what I kept hearing on Jerry's recording. I was hearing something, and even using that tab, there was something missing.

But because I have a "tin" ear, I could NOT figure out what it was. I just knew that that tab was not right; or it was missing something.

So I shelved the idea and forgot about it.

Years later, I was laying in bed, and my mind began to hum "Steelin the Blues", and lo and behold, when I got to his ending, I NAILED it!

I KNOW in my heart it did NOT come from me. I am not capable of such. It doth not take a rocket scientist to know what caused that miracle.

I jumped out of bed, ran down to my music room. And VOILA! I played it just like the record.

Apparently in Jerry's desire to answer letters, he left out ONE important classic "JB" trio.

And I was saddened, that Jerry had just passed away, and there was NO way to call him and ask him. For I had talked to him in his hospital bed just a few days before his lights went out for his last "curtain encore".

NO words can describe how much I admired and loved that man. Sorry, but I am crying like a baby just remembering it.

The following is his last letter to me; after I asked him to do something for me:







May Jesus rest his precious soul, and may I one day see him again, where NO one will EVER die again!

Praise Jesus!

c.

[b0b]

What I mean is, how do you get that sound on C6th pedal steel, where the strings are too close for adjacent bar slants on the low frets? Is there any way to approximate JB's 3-string forward slant with pedals?

[C Dixon]

What I mean is, how do you get that sound on C6th pedal steel, where the strings are too close for adjacent bar slants on the low frets? Is there any way to approximate JB's 3-string forward slant with pedals?

Well, how can I express it b0b. Without sounding condescending? But here goes!

Been doing it for 40 yrs on all my pedal steels.

It is why I MUST have the E to Eb lever AND the E to F lever on my left knee. Remember that long thread talking about this years ago? And how Buddy came to my defense?

Well what I did not tell "ya'll" was, I must be able to emulate Jerry's fast in and out 3 fret slants in a micro second. And I have found NO setup that will do it, except the standard Emmons 5 knee lever setup.

Hate me if you will. But what I am telling you Bro, is true.

Now how do I do it:

I USE the "split" feature (lowering the 6th string a whole tone and the B pedal) more than any other knee lever; on my guitar, all the time.

And here is why. I do NOT play B6 like ALL others play C6. First of all I do NOT know how. And I never will.

Second, I do not want to, because I don't care for jamming AND I do not care for "western swing" (where just about every note is a big chord) type steel Guitar. Not trying to be rude or disrespectful

I WANT to play C6 PSG LIKE I believe Jerry would have played it, IF that hard head (I love the fire out of him, but he WAS a hard head ), would have ever gone to pedals.

So if you split you HAVE the 3 fret slant on strings 4, 5 and 6! And that is what I use.

But you have the E to Eb lever in the place that AIDS your going in and out of the classic JB slant.

In other words:

1. Engage your E lever.

2. And do that entire ending using the E to Eb lever alternating as the case may be with the split. And back and forth.

3. It will take a while to get all the movements; because remember you will NOT be slanting AT all. The bar will remain straight. But some of the locations will seem odd at first.

If I do say so, I can do it so fast now, that it is identical; as if I was doing it on a short scale lap steel guitar; using all those slants.

It has taken hours and hours of practice however. Because I have to shift my mind when I play my 7 sting bakelite Rick. And back to PSG using splits and the E lever.

But Jesus made our brains to be able to adapt to almost any thing if the desire is there.

Any more questions, I am here always. Promise,

c.

[C Dixon]

oops, forgot something very important.

You can only do this on a D-10 C6 neck, if you lower the 4th string and raise the 2nd string.

I have tried it, and it fights me all the way. Remember JB goes into and out of a slant quicker than the guy behind you blowing his horn when the light changes from red to green.

And I can't do that on my C neck.

But I can do it on my E neck as I described in my last post. BUT then I lose the 5th and 6th pedals, voiced like Jerry did using his "split" slants. So I am in between a rock and a hard place.

This is the MAIN reason I went to Universals. So I could play C6 (B6) like I think Jerry would have done, IF he had gone to pedals.

Dang his precious hide

c.

[b0b]

I can do it on E9th, strings 4, 5, 6 with the E lever and the B+C pedals (in key of C) like this:

1E -- 4E -- 3BC -- 5BC -- 9E -- 8BC -- 10BC -- 13E

No split or slants required, and it sounds right. It looks like there's no way to do it on C6th without the Ab lever, though, and I don't have that right now.

[C Dixon]

I can do it on E9th, strings 4, 5, 6 with the E lever and the B+C pedals (in key of C) like this:

Yes it can be done technically with the C pedal and the E lever. However, if you listen to the recording closely, the way the C lever pulls two whole tones moving together, it does not equal the minor>inversion minor chord the same as slanting the bar does.

It is similar to what happened before BE split the lone BI pedal into two pedals. IE: You want, in this case, to go form a minor 3rd to a major third two frets up; where both strings start and stop at the same time, EVEN though one is pulling a half a tone and the other one is pulling a whole tone, etc.

So I had to reject the C pedal way; and opt for the split feature; so as to be able to control that dilemma.

Hope I am making sense. In any case if you are pleased with the sound using the C pedal, by all means go with it. I am not; because I want it exactly as Jerry went into, and out of, his classic slants. After 60 yrs of listening to it, I am not pleased if it is not exact. But that is me, and what do I know?

Finally, remember now, that tab is missing an important note using 3 strings. Tomorrow I will doctor the chart and insert the missing 3 fingerings and repost it, for those that want the exact lick.

c.

[C Dixon]

As promised.




Where you see the 3 red dots, slide into and out of these strings as well.

12
11
10

Jerry left this out I am sure by mistake. You can clearly hear this on the record.

Finally,

In his opening lick similar to this, he starts on the downbeat. On this ending, he stars on the UP beat.

It was here, where I found why I was doing it wrong. I was starting out on the down beat.

Instead of "Boo Waa"

It is R (rest) Waa Boo Waa Boo Waa Boo Waa; and so on. If you get the record, and practice it, it will come. Promise.

Sincere questions, please ask,

c.

[C Dixon]

With NO dissrespect to Jerry, I believe after studying the tab, that the last triad, should be in the last bar rather than the second bar.

So I believe it should be timed:

[tab]

BAR BAR BAR

Rest And 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4

xx De-Da-De-Da--De Da-Da-Da Da--------

1 4 6 8 9 10 11 12 13
1 4 5 7 9 9 10 11 13
1 4 4 6 9 8 9 10 13

[/tab]

If anyone knows the ending and timing as JB did it, and can tab it out, I would be soooooooooooooo greatful.

Thanks,

c.

[b0b]

That doesn't look right to me, Carl. You show a descending note on the 3rd string. I don't hear any descending notes.

[C Dixon]

That doesn't look right to me, Carl. You show a descending note on the 3rd string. I don't hear any descending notes.

You could be absolutely right b0b. Remember I have the worst musical ear in the world.

But even with that, I AM hearing something, that is NOT in that tab that Jerry sent me. Whatever it is, I thought I found. But maybe I didn't.

There is at least one more top note(s) on my record than are shown on that tab. Or at least my brain hears it. If you have "HI FI Guitar" by Jerry, please play it and listen very closely to that ending. I believe "Steelin' the Blues" is on that album. If not I will dig mine out and post its name.

What and how he did it, I am not sure.

Please tell me there is one more note. Cuz if not, I am gunna cut my ears off and pray that Jesus replace 'em. YESTERDAY

Note: I have no problem with the beginning lick, which is similar to the ending. Could play that one in my sleep. Played it a thousand times. But I simply cannot play what I hear, when it comes to the ending.

If ANY one knows for sure what he is doing, including of course you b0b, please help and ole man before I leave this world. But if not, I am going to ask Jesus when all truth is revealed on judgement day.

For, it has bugged me for 50 yrs!

c.

[C Dixon]

Oooops! I just realized I made a BIG "typo".

Try this on for size, b0b:

[tab]

BAR BAR BAR

Rest And 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1, 2, 3, 4

xx De-Da-De-Da--De Da-Da-Da Da--------

1 4 6 8 9 11 12 13 13
1 4 5 7 9 10 11 12 13
1 4 4 6 9 9 10 11 13

[/tab]

The last four triads should say (in the key of C):

Dmin, Ebmin, Emin, and A minor (relative minor to the key C chord.)

This is classic JB. He used it a million+ times on countless songs and evolve phrasings.

Try it forward AND backward. You must keep that top note still between the 3rd and 4th triad (forward ascending) or 4th and 3rd when going in the descending direction.

Now that I learned 60 yrs ago. One of the few things I learned.

I believe IN my heart, it is now correct. Sorry for the typo b0b.

But then who am I?

c.