Need words of wisdom
Moderator: Brad Bechtel
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Brian Nelson
- Posts: 16
- Joined: 22 Feb 2000 1:01 am
- Location: St.Paul
Need words of wisdom
Help! I feel like I've reached a roadblock. I started playing lap steel about 8 months ago, had 3 or 4 lessons from a great teacher and thought I had a grasp on this thing. Lately I feel like I haven't progressed from first grade. What do you do when you reach a "plateau"? Thanks in advance for any enlightenment!
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Chris DeBarge
- Posts: 811
- Joined: 4 Aug 1998 11:00 pm
- Location: Boston, Mass
- Contact:
Brian,
Get fake book of some sort and find a song where you're familiar with the melody. An old standard is good for this. then drive yourself nuts trying to work out a full chord melody arrangement.
Even when I can't get through the whole tune, I learn a lot from doing this. Just learning the melody is great practice, but adding the harmony really forces me to get to know the fretboard better.
Get fake book of some sort and find a song where you're familiar with the melody. An old standard is good for this. then drive yourself nuts trying to work out a full chord melody arrangement.
Even when I can't get through the whole tune, I learn a lot from doing this. Just learning the melody is great practice, but adding the harmony really forces me to get to know the fretboard better.
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Ray Montee
- Posts: 9506
- Joined: 7 Jul 1999 12:01 am
- Location: Portland, Oregon (deceased)
- Contact:
After a few lessons....you reached a plateau?
I've studying steel for 57 years and still haven't learned much. I go back to my Jerry Byrd records of the ''50's and discover things I'd missed the first hundred times through. You've got to make a mission statement for yourself. Then sit down and follow thro' on it. Don't let all the many, many styles of recording artists sway you. Pick one that seems to fit your personality.
Work on it. MORE THAN JUST A FEW TIMES! As the years go by, you'll expand by adding the learnings of other great pickers to your solid foundation. Make sense?
I've studying steel for 57 years and still haven't learned much. I go back to my Jerry Byrd records of the ''50's and discover things I'd missed the first hundred times through. You've got to make a mission statement for yourself. Then sit down and follow thro' on it. Don't let all the many, many styles of recording artists sway you. Pick one that seems to fit your personality.
Work on it. MORE THAN JUST A FEW TIMES! As the years go by, you'll expand by adding the learnings of other great pickers to your solid foundation. Make sense?
Pay attention to Ray. More wisdom in his post than you can imagine.
What you are experiencing, is par for the course. It will never stop happening. You will run the gamut from exhilaration to despair as long as you play it.
How many times have I felt soooo good playing it, and the next morning wanted to take a chain saw to my axe. Could not hit the strings with a tennis racket!!
How many times have I got up in disgust and said, "That's it. I am going to sell it! I can't tune it. And I can't play a note!" And that same afternoon, sit down to it nonchalantly and music from heaven comes out (albeit with my very limited talent)
Yes, welcome to the world of the world's most frustrating yet most incredibly beautiful instrument ever created, IMHO.
From my standpoint and I do NOT know this to be a fact, I believe in my heart that Jerry Byrd and Buddy Emmons have NEVER had this problem. If they have, it sho nuf don show
God bless you in your efforts,
carl
What you are experiencing, is par for the course. It will never stop happening. You will run the gamut from exhilaration to despair as long as you play it.
How many times have I felt soooo good playing it, and the next morning wanted to take a chain saw to my axe. Could not hit the strings with a tennis racket!!
How many times have I got up in disgust and said, "That's it. I am going to sell it! I can't tune it. And I can't play a note!" And that same afternoon, sit down to it nonchalantly and music from heaven comes out (albeit with my very limited talent)
Yes, welcome to the world of the world's most frustrating yet most incredibly beautiful instrument ever created, IMHO.
From my standpoint and I do NOT know this to be a fact, I believe in my heart that Jerry Byrd and Buddy Emmons have NEVER had this problem. If they have, it sho nuf don show
God bless you in your efforts,
carl
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Steve Allison
- Posts: 541
- Joined: 29 Sep 1999 12:01 am
- Location: Eatonton,Ga. U.S.A.
We now have a tool that I wish I had when I started called the compact disc player!
It will be in tune, all the musicians already know their parts, the timing will be flawless, they won't wait on you or your mistakes, and all you have to do is play along with it.
If it already has a lot of steel work in it and you want to try to duplicate the licks or runs or chord grips, then wait for another instument to play and then try to repeat what you heard. I like to wait for the guitar parts in a swing type song and try to play along with them to get that Charlton, Rhodes twin sound! After 25 yrs. I still don't come close!
It will be in tune, all the musicians already know their parts, the timing will be flawless, they won't wait on you or your mistakes, and all you have to do is play along with it.
If it already has a lot of steel work in it and you want to try to duplicate the licks or runs or chord grips, then wait for another instument to play and then try to repeat what you heard. I like to wait for the guitar parts in a swing type song and try to play along with them to get that Charlton, Rhodes twin sound! After 25 yrs. I still don't come close!
Also, just accept ruts as temporary stages. It's okay to have a rut once in a while. It can get you AWAY from the steel, which is healthy. Go listen to some classical music, saxophone jazz, piano jazz, new age, choral music, anything you like, just to refresh your ears. Even for a week or two. Believe it or not, I've often made more progress as a steel player when I've had long stretches AWAY from my axe (like away on vacation), then when I was sitting AT it! Know why? Two reasons: (1) Because I'm forced to listen to other kinds of music and integrate them into my hearing, and (2) Because when I sit down at the steel I tend to play what I already know how to play, instead of stretching. It takes real discipline NOT to do that when you sit at your axe, because we always want to "sound good" and what sounds better than that which you already know how to play, after all?
So, IMHO, don't fight the rut. Welcome it as an opportunity to grow as a musician. You'll come back a better steel player anyway.
So, IMHO, don't fight the rut. Welcome it as an opportunity to grow as a musician. You'll come back a better steel player anyway.