How to practice...
Moderator: Shoshanah Marohn
- Virgil Franklin
- Posts: 28
- Joined: 7 Jun 2021 10:03 am
- Location: Indiana, USA
- Contact:
How to practice...
So..
I'm an old band director and I know a few things about
practice BUT.. new to the steel..
What methods or madness do you all use to practice?
I'm an old band director and I know a few things about
practice BUT.. new to the steel..
What methods or madness do you all use to practice?
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- Posts: 1192
- Joined: 4 Aug 1998 11:00 pm
- Location: London,Ont,Canada
- Fred Treece
- Posts: 3920
- Joined: 29 Dec 2015 3:15 pm
- Location: California, USA
If I were just starting I would get the Paul Franklin Foundation course.
https://www.modernmusicmasters.com/paul ... oundations
What I do going on 5 years in now, on a day when I sit down to some serious practice:
-About an hour with Joe Wright’s “My Approach†book, split between RH & LH exercises
-Maybe 10 minutes of pedal and lever exercise, plus tuning check
-Another hour working with Ted Greene’s single-note jazz books
-Whatever time I have left playing tunes I thought I knew (including bits from that Winnie book)
-If I am learning a new song, sometimes the whole 3 hours might be devoted to little exercises within the piece, just to get the inside out of how and where I want to play it.
Within each of those chunks is a certain amount of time management. I don’t obsess over it, though. Just enough to keep from overdoing stuff and risking hand injury or back pain. Taking breaks also allows time to re-focus.
That’s about it. Wish I could do it every day. But, you know, life...
https://www.modernmusicmasters.com/paul ... oundations
What I do going on 5 years in now, on a day when I sit down to some serious practice:
-About an hour with Joe Wright’s “My Approach†book, split between RH & LH exercises
-Maybe 10 minutes of pedal and lever exercise, plus tuning check
-Another hour working with Ted Greene’s single-note jazz books
-Whatever time I have left playing tunes I thought I knew (including bits from that Winnie book)
-If I am learning a new song, sometimes the whole 3 hours might be devoted to little exercises within the piece, just to get the inside out of how and where I want to play it.
Within each of those chunks is a certain amount of time management. I don’t obsess over it, though. Just enough to keep from overdoing stuff and risking hand injury or back pain. Taking breaks also allows time to re-focus.
That’s about it. Wish I could do it every day. But, you know, life...
- Dennis Detweiler
- Posts: 3488
- Joined: 8 Dec 1998 1:01 am
- Location: Solon, Iowa, US
You likely have a keen ear if you're a band director. After you get the basics down you can also pick out licks, intros and endings from CD's and work at duplicating them. There's also a lot of good instruction and dissection on the Tab page of the Forum.
1976 Birdseye U-12 MSA with Telonics 427 pickup, 1975 Birdseye U-12 MSA with Telonics X-12 pickup, Boss 59 Fender pedal for preamp, NDR-5 Atlantic Delay & Reverb, two Quilter 201 amps, 2- 12" Eminence EPS-12C speakers, ShoBud Pedal, 1949 Epiphone D-8. Revelation preamp into a Crown XLS 1002 power amp.
- John Spaulding
- Posts: 330
- Joined: 27 Sep 2017 3:53 pm
- Location: Wisconsin, USA
Check out this post and the whole blog: The Eternal Beginner
- James Quillian
- Posts: 497
- Joined: 22 Nov 2011 7:39 pm
- Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA
- Contact:
What I do first is understand clearly what I want to learn.
For me it is E9, C6 and non-pedal Steel.
Then I get tab of of tunes and licks, not of modern steel players but of the folks modern steel players learned from. I start first by learning the concepts that turned the steel sound into what it is today.
I work on technique. There is a little tab written with this in mind. One I like a lot are some technique improvement right hand exercises that William Litaker put together and have found those to be quite helpful.
Find flaws and fix them.
For me it is E9, C6 and non-pedal Steel.
Then I get tab of of tunes and licks, not of modern steel players but of the folks modern steel players learned from. I start first by learning the concepts that turned the steel sound into what it is today.
I work on technique. There is a little tab written with this in mind. One I like a lot are some technique improvement right hand exercises that William Litaker put together and have found those to be quite helpful.
Find flaws and fix them.
Curbside Jimmy's New Act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlzieFLE5no
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlzieFLE5no
The Winston book is a great compendium of knowledge, but it's not a course of instruction - it gets too hard too soon. Buy it, but look elsewhere for progressive basics.
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs
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- Posts: 45
- Joined: 22 Mar 2020 8:09 am
- Location: Texas, USA
Practice
Hi Virgil,
I am a former band director myself, I now teach music education classes at the university level. I started playing steel a little over a year ago, and have worked into a sort of daily practice regimen. I work on my right hand for about an hour a day, working scales and blocking exercises, as well as some challenging classic licks and rides to develop my technique. I try to so some transcribing every day, listening to my favorite steel players and figuring things out by ear (I always write it out in tab, with the rhythm notated above). I also like to practice ear-playing on the fly by putting my iTunes library on shuffle and just playing along with tunes. I bought a bunch of books early on, but hardly used any of them. Once I figured out the basic mechanics of the instrument and typical pockets, string groupings, etc. it became easier to learn new licks and tunes quickly.
I am a former band director myself, I now teach music education classes at the university level. I started playing steel a little over a year ago, and have worked into a sort of daily practice regimen. I work on my right hand for about an hour a day, working scales and blocking exercises, as well as some challenging classic licks and rides to develop my technique. I try to so some transcribing every day, listening to my favorite steel players and figuring things out by ear (I always write it out in tab, with the rhythm notated above). I also like to practice ear-playing on the fly by putting my iTunes library on shuffle and just playing along with tunes. I bought a bunch of books early on, but hardly used any of them. Once I figured out the basic mechanics of the instrument and typical pockets, string groupings, etc. it became easier to learn new licks and tunes quickly.
- Dennis Detweiler
- Posts: 3488
- Joined: 8 Dec 1998 1:01 am
- Location: Solon, Iowa, US
I bought a few lesson books and tab along the way, but didn't use most of it. After you learn the neck and pedal/knee combinations you can quickly pick up on what you hear from a recording and dissect it and find it on your guitar. The timbre of the strings can narrow down where on the neck and which strings the lick, intro, ride, ending is being played. Ear training and experience will eventually prevail.
1976 Birdseye U-12 MSA with Telonics 427 pickup, 1975 Birdseye U-12 MSA with Telonics X-12 pickup, Boss 59 Fender pedal for preamp, NDR-5 Atlantic Delay & Reverb, two Quilter 201 amps, 2- 12" Eminence EPS-12C speakers, ShoBud Pedal, 1949 Epiphone D-8. Revelation preamp into a Crown XLS 1002 power amp.
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- Posts: 35
- Joined: 2 Mar 2020 9:16 pm
- Location: Georgia, USA
Jeff Newman's up from the top series and his minor chord connection are very good books and the DVD's are very good one on one teaching along with the cd sound tracks you can play along. Also Joe Wright's my approach can take on to the next level. With your music back ground you should advance very quick. The key is you, how serious you are about learning and how much time are you willing to spend practicing. Learn the neck open and all pedals and levers this knowledge will help greatly. Jeff's teaching series are an excellent source to learn this. Now this is just things I have found that helped me.
72 ShoBud 6153 D10, Encore, Nashville 112, Boss Katana, Spark 40, Quilter TT12, GT001, ProFex II,Jackson Pitch changer (Love this bender)
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- Posts: 1192
- Joined: 4 Aug 1998 11:00 pm
- Location: London,Ont,Canada
- Fred Treece
- Posts: 3920
- Joined: 29 Dec 2015 3:15 pm
- Location: California, USA