Why Isn't Pedal Steel More Popular?

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 9 Mar 2016 4:37 pm

Alan Brookes wrote: one always thinks of the golden age of the lute as being the 16th-17th centuries..

i did not know that!

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 13 Mar 2016 5:56 pm

For instance, one always thinks of the golden age of the lute as being the 16th-17th centuries, and of the harpsichord as the 18th century, but there are actually more lute and harpsichord players out there now than there have ever been.

Alan, do you think that would be because the world's population during those periods was about a 14th of what it is now?

http://www.fsmitha.com/time/ce16.htm

John Booth · Post by **John Booth** » 14 Mar 2016 3:24 am

It's not more popular because it takes real time and effort to learn which doesn't suit younger players that want instant gratification in this "don't make me wait more than 30 seconds in the Mcdonalde drive thru" mindset.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 14 Mar 2016 2:42 pm

Barry Blackwood wrote:...Alan, do you think that would be because the world's population during those periods was about a 14th of what it is now?
http://www.fsmitha.com/time/ce16.htm

Absolutely right. And that's the point that I'm making. There are so many people in the world now, and people are so mobile, that there's room for every culture and every form of music.
No form of music presently existing, and no instruments currently played, will disappear, unless there be some sort of global catastrophe that reduce the population to the level between the previous ice-ages.
The next ice-age may be on us, or, as some experts say, we are still coming out of the previous, but, we're talking hundreds or thousands of years, which is nothing for you or I to worry about.
(And I'm not talking here about polluting the environment and bringing on global change, which is a different subject, and outside the realms of this group.)

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 15 Mar 2016 9:16 am

Missed it, Alan. My point was there are more lute and harpsichord players out there now than there have ever been simply because there are more people out there now than there have ever been, not because more people are currently taking up the harpsichord or lute...

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 15 Mar 2016 9:36 am

and certainly not because people are clamoring for it!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 15 Mar 2016 11:06 am

chris ivey wrote:and certainly not because people are clamoring for it!

Read my post.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 15 Mar 2016 11:07 am

Barry Blackwood wrote:Missed it, Alan. My point was there are more lute and harpsichord players out there now than there have ever been simply because there are more people out there now than there have ever been, not because more people are currently taking up the harpsichord or lute...

Read my post.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 15 Mar 2016 11:56 am

Read it, didn't change anything...

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 15 Mar 2016 12:22 pm

Kristen Bruno · Post by **Kristen Bruno** » 9 Apr 2016 5:04 pm

fingerpicks....can't live with them...can't live without them.

K

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 11 Apr 2016 2:10 am

nobody ever touches on the other "why" factor. This one is gonna hurt and certainly will cause some flaming arrows. But I have my Aluminum Foil hat on so it's ok...

Just like any other instrument, some of us are out playing live gigs and we shouldn't be. It's not an unfair statement as we all complain about guitar players , singers etc...Maybe, just maybe, some of the local bands are not adding a Steel player from the local pool for other obvious or ..uhh..not so obvious reasons .

Sitting in an audience, did we ever hear an out of tune guitar player or out of tune Steel player playing the same 3 cryin' licks for 2 or 3 hours ?

Aim away...

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 11 Apr 2016 7:09 am

someone had to say it.

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 11 Apr 2016 8:53 am

Tony Prior wrote:nobody ever touches on the other "why" factor. This one is gonna hurt and certainly will cause some flaming arrows. But I have my Aluminum Foil hat on so it's ok...

Just like any other instrument, some of us are out playing live gigs and we shouldn't be. It's not an unfair statement as we all complain about guitar players , singers etc...Maybe, just maybe, some of the local bands are not adding a Steel player from the local pool for other obvious or ..uhh..not so obvious reasons .

Sitting in an audience, did we ever hear an out of tune guitar player or out of tune Steel player playing the same 3 cryin' licks for 2 or 3 hours ?

Aim away...

Tony
The same can be said for posters here in Forumland that are obviously inexperienced and yet state opinions here as "fact" that I profoundly disagree with.

The irony is that players of lesser skill, such as I was back in the day, eventually became steel players by playing gigs that were learning experiences, like 5-niters from 9-2am with only a few late night die-hards and sad-eyed used-to-be's listening while draining their glasses. There was no internet and Jeff Newman was just getting started. But there were hundreds of honky-tonks in LA where sucking really bad until you didn't any more simply didn't matter.

Nowadays the Internet, and courses from everyone, and Youtube, and free downloads to the laptop in your music room has replaced the nightclub as the schoolroom of easiest access. Which is a significant change in the knowledge base of steel guitarists in general, IMHO. I can generally tell by what a poster writes here if he's been in the trenches or simply to a lot of steel shows.

You can read every book on baseball ever written, and own all the equipment, but you won't know how to play baseball until you actually PLAY baseball.

There are unspoken parts about professional steel guitar playing/living... experiential, philosophical... that only come from real time gig experience, some not even directly tied to playing an instrument. And the gigs that offer such experience are diminishing, or are offered to younger players who can sacrifice parts of their lives 110% to music.

Great music is being made in many places by steel players of varying situations of experience. But one of the great instructors of the discipline is now gone. No, not Jeff Newman; I'm discussing the 5-hour, 6 nights a week, honkytonk sit-down gig, where it was okay to suck until you got better.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 11 Apr 2016 9:30 am

herb's right. that's where i learned.
and that's why we give so little credence to the many posters here who have no bar scars!

Tom Quinn · Post by **Tom Quinn** » 11 Apr 2016 10:26 am

What Herb said so eloquently. And Christopher as well...

And the various honky-tonks, biker bars, harbor gigs (dear old Anchor Inn in Noyo Harbor), and even hippie clubs were not "drunk factories" as one hotshot sniffed. You got to know many of the folks who came to see you if you were there four nights a week for a month. Some even followed you to the next place.

I got the latest Emmons going on 10 months and while I cannot play anywhere near where I left off, what is still under my fingers is a roadmap to the lessons I learned all those years ago between the "lifestyle" and the drives on those late-night roads.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 11 Apr 2016 10:58 am

I recently watched the Jerry Lee Lewis "Last Man Standing" concert on YouTube. The steel guitarist was stuck at the back. You could hear him playing away, but they always zoomed in on the lead guitarist, even during steel guitar breaks. To add insult to injury, in the final credits they listed the musicians but didn't mention who was playing pedal steel.

Other than that, by the way, it was one of his best concerts.

Bill Lowe · Post by **Bill Lowe** » 11 Apr 2016 11:54 am

Maybe Bob could institute different levels of membership, ones that could post and ones that just have reading privileges. Or maybe a written test to see who is worthy to be here.
I have a day job so I guess I'm a reader..................

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 11 Apr 2016 12:09 pm

Bill
There's no way that b0b can make a "rule" that separates the wheat from the chaff. Forums are for dissemination of knowledge but readers must learn for themselves which statements have content and which do not.

So we all learn through some form of natural selection those worthy of our attention and those we can most likely dismiss without fear of losing anything of great substance.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 11 Apr 2016 12:10 pm

no..everyone's welcome. it would just be hoped that those offering help and info would keep it within their honest working knowledge rather than over-anxiously helping beyond their means.

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 11 Apr 2016 12:13 pm

what chris said.

Henry Matthews · Post by **Henry Matthews** » 11 Apr 2016 12:13 pm

Someone may have said this that I missed but I think the real reason is entertainment. That's what country music is about this days, not about real talent. The singers and guitar and bass players can jump and bounce all over the stage and the drummer can cut up but the steel player pretty much has to sit there and just play so it's just not appealing and entertaining to some, especially to the younger crowd. They could care less if the band has a steel or not. Same thing around here, 99.9% of people could care less and most of the time, can't tell what instruments are in the band but they can sure see the guitar player that runs out and jumps on tables during his ride.
My own sister went one night to here a band out of town. I asked if they had a steel player, she didn't know. I asked if they had a fiddle, she didn't know. She said they had drums and guitar. I rest my case.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 11 Apr 2016 1:52 pm

Herb Steiner wrote:
Tony Prior wrote:nobody ever touches on the other "why" factor. This one is gonna hurt and certainly will cause some flaming arrows. But I have my Aluminum Foil hat on so it's ok...

Just like any other instrument, some of us are out playing live gigs and we shouldn't be. It's not an unfair statement as we all complain about guitar players , singers etc...Maybe, just maybe, some of the local bands are not adding a Steel player from the local pool for other obvious or ..uhh..not so obvious reasons .

Sitting in an audience, did we ever hear an out of tune guitar player or out of tune Steel player playing the same 3 cryin' licks for 2 or 3 hours ?

Aim away...
Tony
The same can be said for posters here in Forumland that are obviously inexperienced and yet state opinions here as "fact" that I profoundly disagree with.

The irony is that players of lesser skill, such as I was back in the day, eventually became steel players by playing gigs that were learning experiences you got better.

Herb, I fully agree as thats how I learned my early lessons.

I was fired from the first couple of bands that I played Steel with, went home and studied for a very long time then went back for a second hanging at least a year later which is really when my journey began.

I'm not saying DON'T go out and play I'm just saying maybe some of the bands that are wanting to hire a Steel player don't want to wait a few years for someone to learn how to play.

My answer is directed to the question, why isn't it popular today which is totally different than 40 years ago.

40 years ago, Steel guitars were in demand, we got a call if we owned a Steel and if we could muddle thru a gig ( which I actually could not when I hit the scene) we became part of the band.

Fast forward 40 years and things are 180 degrees the other direction. Music has evolved, singers and guitar players have evolved. Hopefully if we are carrying around a Pedal Steel we have evolved to 2016.

Todays expectations far surpass those of 40 or 45 years ago. Thats all I am saying and maybe thats part of the equation that nobody wants to talk about.

When someone says to me today..well we really don't want a Steel player maybe they are saying they don't want me !

I'll stop here...

I'm still wearing my Aluminum Foil hat so I can still accept criticism .

Jordan Beyer · Post by **Jordan Beyer** » 11 Apr 2016 7:39 pm

Dick Sexton wrote:It is not widely popular because Mr. Johnson, the High School Band teacher, doesn't play pedal steel, he plays piano and the instrument rental place where the school sends their students to get there instruments, don't have any. Besides using one in a marching band is pretty impractical.

The High School Jazz ensemble, does have an electric bass and guitar, but those student already had them and the music teacher just seized on the opportunity. That's what I think...

Heck, my band director would let me play the pedal steel in the jazz ensemble. He say "our jazz group wouldn't benefit from the steel guitar" as he would know because he played one, Not! I think part of the problem is people like him and many others don't want to get their hands into something different and new

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Why Isn't Pedal Steel More Popular?

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