Why isn't PSG catching on with the youth?

[Dwayne Reed]

IMHO you have to actually touch something before you spend thousands of dollars on it. People do not seem to have any access to PSGs
I have been in music stores all over the mid-west and some southern states and how many steel guitars were on the sales floor??
NONE.
You can try out all the 6 strings you want to but not pedal steels.
I also get several catalogs and the only PSG I've seen is a beginners Carter in MF.
Yes you can order one but how many young people in our high speed, instant ,now society want wait weeks or months for their instrument.

[Bo Legg]

Great point. More like waiting years!
Dwayne the last time I played in Nebraska it was cold wet foggy and the roads were washed out and that was in the summer. I can only imagine what it's been like up there this winter.

[Kevin Bergdorf]

I am a youthful convert… Nobody preached to me the good news of pedal steel; I simply found that the emotional gravity of a lot of songs I listened to was found in the voice of this instrument. It says things that a 6 string guitar can not say.

And it possesses that singular quality that keeps one's interest for a lifetime- infinite possibility.

I could not have been talked into or out of the aesthetic choice I made to learn how to play pedal steel.

[Nick Reed]

simple . . . . it's only for us OLD MEN

[Bob Simons]

Around here (Kansas City) pedal steel is catching on with youth! It is traditional country music that is no longer relevant to the young. Every new band I've seen in the last 6 months has some form of steel guitar in it, but they are by no means C&W.

[Alan Brookes]

...I have been in music stores all over the mid-west and some southern states and how many steel guitars were on the sales floor??
NONE...

In the 34 years I lived in England I only ever saw one steel guitar in a music shop, and that was a cheapo lap steel that they wanted a fortune for. I used to have to build my own, and still do.
By the way, my inlaws live on a ranch between Atkinson and O'Neill, Nebraska. I don't think there's any sort of music shop anywhere near them.

[Ray Montee]

The one dominate reason I purchased a triple-8 FENDER steel guitar from Burke-Arnez Music Co., at the age of about fourteen, was because a beautiful unit was prominently displayed in the store front window. I'd heard about this display from a close friend.

I tried for a couple of years to get the local GIBSON Dealer to sell me a double-8 GIBSON, like Roy Wiggins was playing with the popular Eddy Arnold.

They kept trying to push me into one of their early day pedal guitars...'the rage of the future'.

[Jim Bob Sedgwick]

The one dominate reason I purchased a triple-8 FENDER steel guitar from Burke-Arnez Music Co., at the age of about fourteen, was because a beautiful unit was prominently displayed in the store front window. I'd heard about this display from a close friend.

I tried for a couple of years to get the local GIBSON Dealer to sell me a double-8 GIBSON, like Roy Wiggins was playing with the popular Eddy Arnold.

They kept trying to push me into one of their early day pedal guitars...'the rage of the future'.

Damn gimmicky pedals. They will never last!!!

[Roual Ranes]

Recently, I have had four interested in pedal steel and the price of equipment always turns them off.

[Jim Bob Sedgwick]

Recently, I have had four interested in pedal steel and the price of equipment always turns them off.

These same young people will dig up $4000 for a Les Paul though. For less than $1500, they can buy a quality steel, volume pedal and amp to get them started.

[Brett Day]

I've only seen two or three pedal steels in music stores in Greenville, South Carolina. In 1996, before I really got interested in playing steel, I went to a music store called Dixieland Music and there were two Fender pedal steels in there, I think. Then, in 1998, right when I really started getting interested in steel, I went to a shop in Mauldin, SC called Phil's Music-they mainly specialized in guitars, basses, and drums, but they did have a few mandolins and dobros, but right in the back of the store was a Sierra Artist S-10 pedal steel with three pedals and one knee. It was the steel I'd kinda experimented with before getting a steel of my own, then in 2003, I went to a shop in Greenville, SC called Palmetto Music and they had a Sho-Bud Pro I, and one of its' pedals was broken off, but the steel itself looked amazing. The guy working at Phil's Music kinda played around on the Sierra, but I don't think he was a steel player.

[Tony Prior]

Recently, I have had four interested in pedal steel and the price of equipment always turns them off.

These same young people will dig up $4000 for a Les Paul though. For less than $1500, they can buy a quality steel, volume pedal and amp to get them started.

really ? Young entry level players are spending $4000 on a new Les Paul ?

A brand new Les Paul standard is $1800 at ZZ Sounds...Gibson also sells the new model with a Bender for $900.

[Bo Legg]

Standard won't do it has to be a Les Paul Custom I know because when i first started out I had to have one of those and I got one paid more for it than my car, clothes and furniture was worth.
I passed it on to my son (Cody)and he always holds the Les Paul up and at a gig says "I bring it" theres nothing greater than strutting across the stage with your body pumped showing mean tattoos and your hair hanging down over your Les Paul Custom and that look on your face of the world can kiss my......wonder what the poor folks are doing today?!!!

[Alan Brookes]

I guess everyone to his own, or, as the French say, <Chaqu'un a son goût>. I have a plethora of electric guitars, but the Les Paul Custom never appealed to me. I don't like the shape. My favorite has always been the Burns Bison, with the Fender Coronado coming a close second.

[Les Cargill]

wonder what the poor folks are doing today?!!!

Quite well. I have two sub-$200 guitars - an Affinity Tele and an Epiphone Special w/ P90s that both work extremely well. My main guitar is *also* an Epiphone - one of their '90s ( '96 ) sparkle-top Standard guitars. Gibsun cheated themselves outta a sale with that one. "Me, not spend $1000 more for that headstock on a guitar that sounds better than the +$1000 one? Sold!"

[Stephen Kuester]

Pedal steel seems as popular as ever. Other cats swoon when you pull it out and start setting it up. It's such a mystery to everyone and they seem to think you need to be a musical genius to play it. The most simple ab pedal swell brings people to their knees. I say we keep it that way! Besides, with players being so sparse, that just means more work for the rest of us! : )

[Matt Downs]

I'm 34 and have been wanting a PSG for about a year but the initial cost was very discouraging. I recently found a smokin deal on a Sho-Bud and pulled the trigger. If I hadn't found such a deal I wouldn't have bought one. I had never touched one before and don't know anyone that plays so the chance that I might not like it would have kept me from investing. I've bought several instruments but a $300 risk is a lot easier to swallow than $1000 plus to test the waters. If someone wants something bad enough they will find a way to get it regardless of age, but how are we supposed to want it bad enough if we aren't exposed to it?

[Bo Legg]

Let me start off by saying you are very lucky!
But I have to add:
For anyone else out there don't wait around for a professional Sho-Bud guitar for around $300 no matter how bad you want it. You have about as much chance as finding buried treasure in you back yard at the same time you get struck by lightning.

[Mike Eisler]

Here is my observation and I hope I don't offend anyone. Being a fairly new PSG player I have attended two conventions. Being surrounded by so many good players makes it intimidating to go to a hospitality room or manufacturers room and play anything. I can imagine someone who is interested but doesn't play at all. The atmosphere is not conducive to bringing new players into the fold. Many good players in these rooms are self absorbed and are not easily approachable. If I had been interested in sitting behind a PSG and trying some basic pedals up, pedal down playing I would not have had the opportunity. I think the manufacturers are missing out on many sales because folks that are a little shy walk out the door.

[Herb Steiner]

Here is my observation and I hope I don't offend anyone. Being a fairly new PSG player I have attended two conventions. Being surrounded by so many good players makes it intimidating to go to a hospitality room or manufacturers room and play anything. I can imagine someone who is interested but doesn't play at all. The atmosphere is not conducive to bringing new players into the fold. Many good players in these rooms are self absorbed and are not easily approachable. If I had been interested in sitting behind a PSG and trying some basic pedals up, pedal down playing I would not have had the opportunity. I think the manufacturers are missing out on many sales because folks that are a little shy walk out the door.

A vendor can't be all things to all people. Most vendors are ecstatic when a good player sits behind one of his guitars and works out.

Not ALL new players feel that intimidated or there wouldn't be anyone in the demonstration rooms except advanced players. But undoubtedly some do.

If an advanced player not associated with the brand is in a hospitality room, he's personally trying out a guitar, finding out what it can do for him, and not doing a demo at the level of, and for the benefit of, any newer players out there. Hopefully a new player can observe, listen, and decide if the sound or the player's style is appropriate for what he personally would like to sound.

Likewise, a player in a room representing the brand shouldn't be required to dumb down his presentation so that a new player doesn't get intimidated by what he, in his inexperience, isn't yet able to accomplish. If a new player gets intimidated by someone else's playing, he or she needs to examine why a comparison is being made with an obviously more experienced player, and why is his/her ego being threatened... which is intimidation, after all.

Is not the underlying fear that "I don't want to sound bad because somebody will hear me play poorly and will think less of me as a person?"

Obviously, no one wants to sound bad in a public situation like a steel show. So what's the solution? Just like in a private lesson, the new player must realize that he IS inexperienced and shouldn't HAVE to compare himself to a much better player. Believe me, no professional player listens to a newbie and thinks critically of the player; and a teacher generally thinks, "hey, I can help that guy."

Intimidation... like jealousy, envy, and other emotions... is basically "fear." And fear is a very crippling emotion. It keeps people from finding jobs, finding satisfaction in relationships, and finding out just how much they as human beings can accomplish, not just in steel playing, but in all life's endeavors.

Like I said, I don't mean to offend, just making an observation based on many years of playing steel, teaching the instrument, attending steel shows as an listener, a vendor, and a player. And of course living for almost 67 years as an observer of the human condition.

[Johan Jansen]

Herb, you nailed it!
Regards, Johan

[Tony Prior]

+1 more for Herb...

by the way guys and gals it ain't just Steel guitars that the next generations are floating away from...our entire culture is changing, what we did as older folks, the next generation did less of and now the current trends for the younger generations is even further removed from what took place typically 20 years ago. The new generations have moved on to many other things...and as we play in the clubs we should be able to see the absence of them...

[David Mason]

I don't know specifically how the dollars break down, but I do know a LOT of the instrument inventory of a music store is not actually wholly-owned by the music store. If you have “a million dollars” worth of Fenders and Gibsons on the wall, it doesn't make you a millionaire – the manufacturer still owns a pretty piece of all that. I have never heard of a steel maker operating that way, though I wouldn't be surprised if the Baldwin/ShoBud deal had that idea lurking in the shadows, at least.

But what this does is make even a mommy/poppy store far more capable of displaying a wall full of shiny new guitars. It's kind of hard to imagine Jerry Fessenden or Bruce Zumsteg sending out a few dozen or fifty or two hundred instruments on spec terms. How many thousands of Strats are hanging right now?

[Herb Steiner]

I don't know specifically how the dollars break down, but I do know a LOT of the instrument inventory of a music store is not actually wholly-owned by the music store. If you have “a million dollars” worth of Fenders and Gibsons on the wall, it doesn't make you a millionaire – the manufacturer still owns a pretty piece of all that. I have never heard of a steel maker operating that way, though I wouldn't be surprised if the Baldwin/ShoBud deal had that idea lurking in the shadows, at least.

But what this does is make even a mommy/poppy store far more capable of displaying a wall full of shiny new guitars. It's kind of hard to imagine Jerry Fessenden or Bruce Zumsteg sending out a few dozen or fifty or two hundred instruments on spec terms. How many thousands of Strats are hanging right now?

David
That deal, similar to car dealerships, appliance stores, etc. is called a "floor plan," in which the manufacturer loans the instrument to the dealer, who pays a monthly interest back to the manufacturer. That interest eats into the profit the dealer makes at the sale, so it's in his best interests to stock items that move quickly, like inexpensive and mid-price level acoustic and electric guitars.

Steel guitars do not move quickly. Ergo you don't see many on music store showroom floors. When I see a steel at a music store, it's generally a used one owned outright by the store, or a consignment sale.

[Johan Jansen]

Would a musicstore loaded with bagpipes attract more youngsters to play one? I don't thinks so. Someone is in the market for a steelguitar or bagpipe, or not...

But what a good way is, I don't know..... JJ