Western Swing Instruction Material?

[Brennan Mangan]

I realize my best bet is to pony up for some lessons but I'm curious if there's anything out there that picks up where the Cindy Cashdollar dvds leave off (steel guitar rag). I'm playing with a band (or making some steel guitar-like sounds, at least) so while songbooks are helpful, is there anything covering a more general approach to pockets/scales/chords?

Also, I've been watching the Eddie Rivers "Western Swing Rules" videos on youtube—any other recommend channels/performers? Or perhaps concert footage/dvd's with good steel guitar coverage?

[Guy Cundell]

Those Eddie Rivers videos really are excellent!

The book of Joaquín Murphey solos transcribed by John McGann and published by Andy Volk must be the most valuable resource for deep study currently available. It is for C6 and is mainly single note solos.

There must be more here and there. Mike Neer has some transcriptions and there may be material by Herb Remington available.

[Jim Newberry]

Herb Remington has instructional materials available in A6 and C6 tunings. Check out http://www.remingtonsteelguitars.com/.

[Paul Seager]

I started with Cindy's videos and return to them about every 6 months. There are nuances there that you miss first time around. However, after those and Eddie River's valuable advice, I've not seen anything for the steel player on Western Swing music specifically.

I will say that listening to the other "Western Swing Rules" videos taught me things, particularly the guitar player from Hot Club of Cowtown. He talks about comping technique, inversions and so on.

Please share if you find something new!

[Brennan Mangan]

Thanks for the tips and leads so far! Makes me wonder if it's worth delving into traditional six-string jazz/swing material which must be more widely available.

That said, I learn best by ear and find YouTube's half- and quarter-speed playback settings a godsend for working out stuff from recordings, especially on some of those older "telescription" clips of Leon and the like.

[Norman Markowitz]

You might enjoy checking out some of the videos of Patti Maxine. She was inducted into The Western Swing Hall Of Fame in October of 2011. We are lucky to have her swinging her various steel guitars in the Santa Cruz, California area. She plays across many genres and can sit in with just about anybody.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgxG9u5Ig2g Panhandle Rag/What'sThe Matter With You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVcT81ZYcPY Steelin Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCvpatO7WDw Freight Train

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpN9G30TklM White Freightliner

[Michael Lester]

All of the suggestions offered here are correct...and they can be useful kickstarters...however, in my opinion, Western Swing is accurately called 'Cowboy Jazz'...it's quite free-form and fairly sophisticated. Chord structures, changes and melody lines often lean to 6ths and 9ths. I've found that concentrating my 'listening' on players that I respect taught me a lot about how others use the fretboard - and how they make tunes their own.

If I had a student that I was helping, I'd advise them to learn every scale they can memorize in their chosen tuning and then use those scales to walk around common melodies like Panhandle Rag, Steel Guitar Rag and Steelin' Home.

It's a lot of fun to make a version of a melody your own. Some of mine are really wacky - but they're still mine.

I'd suggest acquiring a fretboard scale map from one of the sources on this forum - search youtube - acquire a youtube audio capture to mp3 player (there's a lot of free versions out there) and build a file of tunes from other players that you can listen to over and over. There's also several 'slow downers' available that you can use with the tunes you capture to help understand exactly how the licks were played. Sorry this got so windy...just thinking about what I wished I'd had when I started...

[Bill Leff]

Thanks for the tips and leads so far! Makes me wonder if it's worth delving into traditional six-string jazz/swing material which must be more widely available.

That said, I learn best by ear and find YouTube's half- and quarter-speed playback settings a godsend for working out stuff from recordings, especially on some of those older "telescription" clips of Leon and the like.

Try downloading the demo of an app called Slowhand. It downloads Youtube videos and lets you set up loop points, slow down etc. It has a panning function that really lets you zoom in. Demo available for Mac and Windows. By far the best app I have used, and i am a longtime Transcribe user, which is great, but I like Slowhand much better. Simple to use and elegant design.

They are are running a Kickstarter to enhnce the product that i have contributed to and ends in 15 days so check that out too.

I have no affilition with the product. Just wanted to share this with my fellow players. Go to slowhand.com to check it out. Thank me later!