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Topic: How many pedal steel players are there?? |
Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 10:07 am |
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So I was at a rehearsal last night and one of the band members asked me how many pedal steel players there are.... I formulated an answer but thought I'd ask you all what you thought.
Now I'm thinking:
PEDAL steel players
Gigging professionally (not people that just own a pedal steel and play in their bedrooms)
How many in the US/World?
Anyone care to tender a guess?
(Sorry if this topic has been up before.. I couldn't find it in a search.)
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Glenn Uhler
From:
Trenton, New Jersey, USA
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 2:39 pm Steel players in TX
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Rather than taackling the whole world, we did an estimate once for Texas. Came up with a number of steelers per square mile. Threr's a lot of Texas.
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1974 Marlen S-12 1968 Tele 1969 Martin D-35H |
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Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 2:45 pm
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that gets us started....
I was guessing MAYBE 500 for the whole world?
Am I way off? |
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John RJ Wilson
From:
United Kingdom
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 3:24 pm
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I would say 500 was way too low, There are 13000 members here, and it is heavily weighted to pedal steel from my limited experience, not all will be players. even less pros. There are 1600 or so pedal steel guitar Association members worldwide.
The last time this topic came up here in 2003 a figure of one hundred eighty two thousand six hundred and forty four was quoted.!!!! But that is total players.
Worldwide, pedal steel players that make some kind of living from the instrument. There are 7106,000,000,000 people in the world. If one billionth of these people were pro players then there would be
7106 My guess is just into 5 figures world wide
_________________
Guyatone HG-91, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Ernie Ball Jr volume pedal. |
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Jim Bates
From:
Alvin, Texas, USA
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 5:43 pm
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If you mean "professional' as someone who gets paid to play, then there are two questions:
How many steel players are there that make their living playing?
and
How many steel players are there that play part time (part time professionals)?
I am curious about the total for the first question.
Thanx,
Jim
PS- I belong to the to the part time professional category and have for ~60 yrs. |
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Joseph Barcus
From:
Volga West Virginia
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Rick Campbell
From:
Sneedville, TN, USA
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 7:41 pm
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I think there is a lot more steel players than there is good music for them to play.
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John Ed Kelly
From:
Victoria, Australia
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 9:57 pm
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Josh wrote "I was guessing MAYBE 500 for the whole world? "
That bloke (name?) who was the boss of IBM in the 40s, apparently said that there would be a need for a total of only eight computers in the world...ahhh the perils of forecasting and guessing statistics. I sure know about this...I was a sales manager in another life.
John Wilson wrote ''There are 7106,000,000,000 people in the world''
What actual number is this? Seven thousand one hundred and six billion? That may be the number of ants possibly, but certainly not people.
You may have got your information from Wikipedia - I did - and it states seven point one oh six billion. So a billionth of that number equals seven point one oh six.
If one takes the whole number as ''professional'' then there are seven PS players in the world, and the remainder may be part-time. 
Glen wrote" Rather than taackling the whole world, we did an estimate once for Texas. Came up with a number of steelers per square mile.''
This is fraught with difficulties when doing a world-wide estimate - not that you did, of course.
Texas would surely have the highest numbers of PS players per sq. mile/kilometer or whatever - just don't extrapolate to the ROW. Australia has bugger all PS players and China - whilst they make 'em, I'd say they probably don't play 'em.  |
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John RJ Wilson
From:
United Kingdom
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Posted 21 Aug 2013 11:51 pm
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Ha Ha Oops, that's what happens when you read things in the wee small hours of the morning and try to extrapolate statistically, read the point as a comma then didn't read the whole article. Sorry about that. 
_________________
Guyatone HG-91, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Ernie Ball Jr volume pedal. |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 22 Aug 2013 6:55 am
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Just a few of many previous discussions on various aspects of this (from 2 simple google searches on the terms "how many steel players" and "how many pedal steel players" targeted to site:steelguitarforum.com):
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/006392.html
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=131204
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=694934
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=1325242
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=82184
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum15/HTML/001879.html
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=680718
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/009337.html
There are many thousands of pedal steels with owners out there. So it really comes down to what one means by (emphasis mine):
1. PEDAL steel players
2. Gigging professionally (not people that just own a pedal steel and play in their bedrooms)
We've had numerous discussions about what constitutes a pedal steel player vs. a pedal steel owner, and especially what constitutes gigging "professionally", but very little agreement.
If you insist that "professionally" means working with a fairly well-known singer or band, you get one fairly small number - I'd guess maybe on the order of hundreds. If you open up to players who play steel (and perhaps other instruments) as their primary occupation, you'd get a bigger number, probably thousands, but it would be harder to estimate. If you simply mean "gigging for money", it's a helluvalotta players, worldwide. Certainly many thousands, I'll bet a significant chunk of all players.
Getting good estimates is hard, a lot of players ride under the radar. I keep on meeting PSG players who aren't on the forum and aren't well known, but definitely gig. The other thing is that it's a changing target, as older players retire or die and younger players start up. A lot of younger players I run into really do fly under the radar, but they're out there, often doing non-traditional things, as compared to what most people think about when they talk about "pedal steel guitar".
My take. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 22 Aug 2013 7:39 am
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| John RJ Wilson wrote: |
| I would say 500 was way too low, There are 13000 members here... |
No, there aren't 13,000 members - because the membership roll includes all those who were once members, but have passed away. It also includes those who were once active pros, but no longer play regularly. And from personal experience, that's a considerable number, taking into account the median age of the members, and the longevity of this forum.
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Joe Casey
From:
Weeki Wachee .Springs FL (population.9)
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Posted 22 Aug 2013 7:48 am
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Best way to break it down would be. Steel owners---Steel Players.   |
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Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 22 Aug 2013 10:02 am
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Yea... when I'm talking about professional players I'm talking about guys actively taking/playing gigs...
And paying gigs.. not your brothers 50th bday party.
And guys that could play the whole set on steel if they wanted/were asked to... not guys that bring out their pedal steel as a novelty to play on one 3 chord song.
pros-whether semi, or full...
okay 500 is probaby too low... but yea.. measuring Texas is probably not the best quantifier, and there are more steel players there than anywhere in the world I would say.
There seems to be a bunch of Australian Steel players but would we guess that 85-90% of steel players are in the US? I'm pretty sure there's not a lot of gigging steel players in Guatamala.. but maybe I'm wrong? |
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Sid Hudson
From:
Virginia, USA
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Posted 22 Aug 2013 10:50 am
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It's more than 500.
I got over 500 different customers. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 22 Aug 2013 1:33 pm
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| Yes, I'd say a few thousand, easily. Over half of the gigging players around here aren't members, or simply do not post on the forum (though most all have heard about it). |
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Glenn Uhler
From:
Trenton, New Jersey, USA
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Posted 22 Aug 2013 8:37 pm Original Post!
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Clinton Damron posted the original post, asking how many steel guitar players in Texas. Perhaps you can do the same for your location!
Clinton,
You had 104 responses before mine, but some of them mentioned several steelers in addition to themselves. There were about 400 members listed as just "Texas, USA". I understand that not every member is a player but there might be 400 or more players in Texas.
Using that number and with Texas being 268,820 square miles in size, there is about one steeler for each 675 square miles of land in Texas.
675 square miles would be a square of land about 26 miles on a side.
_________________
1974 Marlen S-12 1968 Tele 1969 Martin D-35H |
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Dick Wood
From:
Springtown Texas, USA
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 8:13 am
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I don't know about steel players but I do know there are 1352 Gitar pickers in Nashville. I heard on the radio.
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Cops aren't paid much so I steel at night. |
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Dick Wood
From:
Springtown Texas, USA
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 8:13 am
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I don't know about steel players but I do know there are 1352 Gitar pickers in Nashville. I heard on the radio.
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Cops aren't paid much so I steel at night. |
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Joe Goldmark
From:
San Francisco, CA 94131
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 8:29 am
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Hi Josh,
Hope you're doing well. There's way more than you think. If there's 13,000 forumites (even if some are dead, like voters in Chicago), and as Dave M. mentions, he keeps meeting players who aren't on the Forum, my guess is that there's easily 10,000+ steelers in the world who at least play the occasional gig. And, there's probably that many more guys who own a pedal steel. Think of all the steel companies and all the steels they've sold over the years. Even with a lot of guys owning more than one steel, that adds up to a lot.
Joe |
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Gene Jones
From:
Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 8:48 am
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Probably, the ones who own a steel rather than those who actually play one, is comparative to those who wear a guitar when out front at the mic, rather than those who can actually play one.
But, who knows, .....and does it really matter?
I could care less!
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"FROM THEN TIL' NOW" |
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Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 9:56 am
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Hey Joe, Doing great here thanks!
10,000... wow thats way over my estimate...
I'm sort of thinking how many people are in the bay area? quite a few million..7.5 they say.... and I only really know about 12 people that I would say are real steel players... but there may be a few more
but interesting...
I think a lot of the forum is people that signed up but then gave up after a while, and also a lot of lap steel, dobro players etc.... and I would say the majority of pedal steel players on the forum are probably not gigging professionally... but maybe I'm wrong.
And Gene... no it doesn't really matter... its just small talk to talk... and it was an interesting question that came up to me the other night...
And obviously you COULD care less since you clicked the link, then reply, then wrote a post.
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 10:47 am
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| i imagine there are 1000 really, really scary good players...and another 5000 that would make me think i'd better start practicing more! |
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Joe Goldmark
From:
San Francisco, CA 94131
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 10:48 am
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Josh, I know about 30 players in the Bay Area and I'm sure I'm omitting a few, and this isn't even a very good area for country music anymore...
Chris, I totally agree with your statement above.
Joe |
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Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 11:00 am
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yea.. I like Chris answer too!
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Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 23 Aug 2013 11:07 am
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but Joe what is a "good area for pedal steel players?
I'm not sure this area is worse than most.. actually think its prob a bit better...
Texas
Nashville... those are good ones.
Atlanta? I dont know...
I know LA isn't, NY really isnt, Paris isn't, London sure aint.... Lisbon.. nope.
Those are some big towns I've actively searched out steel shows etc... maybe I was just missing but I think I can almost always find a show with a steel player in the Bay area almost any weekend night... but I couldn't in all those other places. |
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