I am losing my chops

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 12 Dec 2013 5:51 pm

After 40 years of playing I have to admit I am losing my ability to play my faster steel chops. I only had a small handful but I feel even these are slowly slipping away.

I put a lot of energy into intonation and tone and leave the licks to fend for themselves, but I hear them fading.

I am going to miss them. They were like a little puppy, always there at the wink of an eye, ready to jump up lift your spirits. Time to say goodbye old friends, we had a good run. BANJO anyone????

Larry Behm

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 12 Dec 2013 6:31 pm

Larry... its called aging and it happens to even the very best.. Stay with it, and push it as hard as you can. Some days, you'll feel like you have lost nothing..All your speed will seem to be back...

in reality, many of us lose something as we age... Its just natural. I often lament "losing it", but I put on some hyper speed music on youtube, and just keep playing along... Some days its there, others not.
You have plenty of great music left... Don't sweat what you've lost. Just get some new stuff to take its place... bob

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 12 Dec 2013 6:50 pm

I've noticed that in my playing, too. I blogged about it.

Douglas Schuch · Post by **Douglas Schuch** » 12 Dec 2013 7:11 pm

Larry,

I assume you attribute this to age, or only to lack of practicing them?

I have just started playing steel 2 years ago, at 54. I particularly like some of the faster styles of pedal steel - not the all-out bluegrass banjo style stuff, but the fairly fast West Coast style of playing. It no doubt would have been much easier to learn when I was 14, but I did not pursue it back then. I barely knew what a pedal steel was! Early on I wondered if I would ever get "up to speed", but it's coming, slowly.

Seems like part of a solution is in what else you say - speed picking is a skill that requires practice, same as intonation - if you WANT to keep those speed chops, you could practice them same as the other skills.

I do contemplate the impact of age on playing. One of my heroes is Doc Watson - one of, if not the greatest speed flat-pickers ever. The last few years of his life I could tell he did not have the same precision and speed he had when he was younger, but he was 89 when he died a few years ago. Even into his 70's, I could not detect any deterioration in his playing. Here he is playing his signature speed-picking tune, Black Mountain Rag, at 68:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdUrg2Cqxdw

Larry, if you mainly attribute your loss of these chops to age, then we get to ask your age! And I'd be curious what other pickers have found about their playing as they get older - at what age did you feel your playing was being impaired by arthritis, etc?

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 12 Dec 2013 7:19 pm

It could be just a case of the older I get the better I used to be.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 12 Dec 2013 7:43 pm

yes indeed!

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 12 Dec 2013 8:12 pm

I can't say that I miss them, because I never had them....

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 12 Dec 2013 10:18 pm

I turned 60 this summer--been playing since I was 19---I can't quite figure it out, but I feel my chops have never been better, speed included...I have been playing a lot the last couple of years...maybe that has a lot to do with it...

Bob Knetzger · Post by **Bob Knetzger** » 12 Dec 2013 10:20 pm

Yeah, maybe fewer or slower notes, Larry, but I 'll bet with your years of experience and playing you can make them count more. Doing more with less. Think Miles Davis.

Jim Priebe · Post by **Jim Priebe** » 13 Dec 2013 12:08 am

Yup! Between old age and nuropathy when my mind says 'Roll quickly' my fingers hear 'Rest easy'!
But not everyone gets to enjoy these life changing experiences - or is that changing life experiences.
I think you got it in one line Earnest.

Dude, where in hell are all the slow songs? (Only a wife would take a picture of you in this state)!

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 13 Dec 2013 5:21 am

play smarter, not faster. Play more music , play less notes...

this is common for us as we get older.

Bob Hickish · Post by **Bob Hickish** » 13 Dec 2013 5:56 am

Larry -- If you can look out your window and still see the green side of the grass -- Your doing just fine -- enjoy

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 13 Dec 2013 7:23 am

Bob Hickish wrote:Larry -- If you can look out your window and still see the green side of the grass -- Your doing just fine -- enjoy

Good Quote! I like that one.

Yeah, I've lost some of it too. Back in my hey day, I got caught up in the speed contest, also. Almost everything I played had to go fast, just like everyone else. It seemed like every steel player was guaged by how fast he could play. It was challenging to perfect the dexterity needed to become lightening fast. We all did it. But, now, I've accepted the fact, that, it ain't gonna happen like it used to, at least for me. Arthritis is starting to attack my hands and of course my reflexes aren't what they used to be. So, I'm playing slower, more complex passages on the steel. They sound prettier anyway. I've still got some speed, but, it's not as important anymore, like it used to be. I get more of a mental "atta boy" out of playing a shuffle, than I do out of playing 64 notes per bar. HA! HA! It's true
Well, that's my story. Others may get more M.P.H. but, I get more mileage.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 13 Dec 2013 8:30 am

I can't play as fast as I used to. But over the years, I have learned a lot more that can be fitted into the space where fast picking would have been.

Nowadays, the only chops I am concerned about losing, are pork chops.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 13 Dec 2013 8:45 am

Great thread. I agree with all of the above replies.

I think I've lost a little speed with age too. But as I get older I'm less interested in hot licks anyway. More interested in swing tunes, standards, Hawaiian, etc. As others have said, "saying more" with fewer notes. Trying to get good tone and feeling. I think that's what most listeners enjoy hearing from a steel guitar anyway.

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 13 Dec 2013 9:32 am

I'm in my prime! I am still much younger than I will be later.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 13 Dec 2013 9:51 am

My sympathy to you Larry, but like many steel guitarists, the truth is, that it doesn't matter to anyone but you. Suck it up and go on with your life.

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 13 Dec 2013 10:01 am

But Gene Gene Gene, ok you are correct, intonation and tone speak louder than hot chops anyway.

Thanks

Larry Behm

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 13 Dec 2013 10:05 am

Yes, and when I played faster I made less money. Now I get paid more per note!

Dale Rottacker · Post by **Dale Rottacker** » 13 Dec 2013 12:50 pm

Larry, I wish I could fully empathize with you, and although I do feel bad for you, let me say this...

Tis better to have had and lost, then never to have had at all...now I feel bad for me!!

Hang in there, don't stop playing, just play slow better!!

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 13 Dec 2013 2:17 pm

Larry, my 72 year old dad (and since I know you like bluegrass, that's Tom Gray of the Seldom Scene and Country Gentlemen) found that his fingers have slowed, he couldn't play Grandfather's Clock on a bet, but 55 years of playing have left him capable of playing with more soul than 40 years ago.
He plays fewer notes, but they're better notes.

Bud Angelotti · Post by **Bud Angelotti** » 13 Dec 2013 3:00 pm

Be glad for every breath you get to take.

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 13 Dec 2013 3:35 pm

I was never really a speed player but now being retired, and with more time to practice, I can play faster than before. So for me, more practice combined with things being relative has made the difference. steve t

Mike Archer · Post by **Mike Archer** » 13 Dec 2013 4:24 pm

me too. I think its the fallout
its affecting our milk as ottis sez.....
my problem is memory loss that sucks too

Joe Casey · Post by **Joe Casey** » 14 Dec 2013 8:14 am

I agree with Dougie B about fast vs feeling. I have had steelers that play with both but what turned the audiences on was when the Steels beautiful tones were carrying the songs.But I learned early you have to give everyone a shot to play. Some of the road musicians out of Nashville use to come in and sit in and their comment was always they had to play the same thing over and over. All charted no the chance to improvise, They were all worried about losing their chops and welcomed the chance to play. I have thanks to Doc Peters who believed that its not always what you play that counts but what you don't.But on the other hand what one plays should count.

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I am losing my chops

I am losing my chops

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