Steel Guitar Misinformation

[Brooks Montgomery]

Paddle, steel

[Doug Beaumier]

The hits just keep on coming, every day.

[Jeff Garden]

That's priceless, Doug. You really need to come up with a professional sounding response. Something like, "the mistake I see a lot of beginners make is trying to tune the slide while it's in motion!"

[Doug Beaumier]

I usually reply with a Wikipedia link to "pedal steel guitar", which describes what it is, how it works, and how its tuned. I'm burnt out with lengthy explanations of how the instrument works.

One guy said I was faking because "all that background stuff, drums, piano, can't come from a steel guitar." So I had to explain to him what a backing track is. That's the level of ignorance out there about recording, steel guitar, etc. Another guy said I was faking because he could hear notes changing and I was not sliding the bar. So I had to explain to him how a pedal steel guitar works... step on a foot pedal and it pulls on a string, changing the pitch... dammm, sometimes I feel like a kindergarten teacher!

[Joe Krumel]

on the subject of ignorance about steel guitar brings a memory back to me when I was asked by my cousin if I still played the "IRON" guitar.

[Doug Beaumier]

I too knew a guy who called it the "iron guitar".

[Mike Neer]

The hits just keep on coming, every day.

Very carefully!

[Doug Beaumier]

I should reply and tell him about the tuning offsets and temperament and the detuning when the pedals are pressed. That would blow his mind.

[Donny Hinson]

"Git'cha one of them double-decker table-slides, like a Show-Boat or an Emmison. (Preferably, one with some knee pushers.) Tube amps are more better because they don't have immigrated circuses in 'em. But if it's an old one, you might have to replace the electrodynamic capacitators or rectalfires."

[Johnny Cox]

I know I'll get flamed for this but here goes. Part of this is do to the dumbing down of pedal steel. There are guys making a living playing with major acts now that couldn't even get a dive bar gig 30 years ago. Now these guys that are actually utility players are working.
Flame on.

[Doug Beaumier]

No flames from me, Johnny. For some reason, the role of the pedal steel has changed in recent years. Seems like it's used more for texture, playing simple slides, with lots of effects, and the steel mixed way back. It's almost like it's not a lead instrument in many bands, but a background effect, where playing less is more.

[Donny Hinson]

My feelings sorta echo Johnny's and Doug's. There are people known today as pedal steelers who wouldn't be able to cut it back in the days when pedal steel was more than just a fill or texture instrument. It's sad to see this, but i guess it is rather obvious evidence of the "dumbing down" of the instrument, and our music culture in general. I was never really a great player, but I was lucky enough to have started in the early '60s and to have seen most all the truly great players playing in a live situation.

If you think being able to watch all those videos of them now is wonderful, imagine what it was like to sit six feet away from them when they were young, and watch them play! Imagine hearing them playing on the radio every day. And like everyone else, I just thought it would go on, and on, and on.

Yep, should have taken more pictures, should have made more recordings, should have told them all how special they were.

[Fred Treece]

Donny, you had me at “immigrated circuses”.

If I might join in with the lamentation here, even some of my band mates contribute to the misnomering, calling it a “steel pedal” or “string slide thing” or “petal steel”. And these are people who can name Taiko drum rhythms.

My early steel guitar heroes were the local players in bands I either played in or would go out to see. The SF Bay Area was fertile ground for some fantastic players, including several names everyone here would recognize, but also too many that you wouldn’t. Like Donny, I felt very lucky to have had those experiences in what I know now was a true golden age for live local music, and nobody mistook what pedal steel guitar was.

[Jeff Spencer]

Geesh! I'm not convinced Doug it's not a scam request. If you type in 'peddle steel' it auto corrects or gives options of what it thinks is you are searching 'pedal steel' .....or the levels of dumbness is next level!!

[Roger Rettig]

First Johnny's post, then Donny's, struck a nerve with me. They're exactly right!

[Johnny Cox]

I see this kind of chatter a lot. Guitarists giving "slide guitar" advice about pedal steel guitar. A couple of things... you don't need to learn to play regular guitar before learning pedal steel guitar. And playing with a finger slide is a different technique than holding and using a solid, heavy bar.

Must be the CNN of steel guitar. LOL

[Dave Hopping]

I know I'll get flamed for this but here goes. Part of this is do to the dumbing down of pedal steel. There are guys making a living playing with major acts now that couldn't even get a dive bar gig 30 years ago. Now these guys that are actually utility players are working.
Flame on.

Johnny, no flames here, although I DO have to say that if there actually were such a thing as a dive bar gig in today's live music, a lot more folks would be earning.

And learning!

[Christopher Woitach]

Not exactly misinformation, but my jazz quartet that is me on steel with trombone, fretless electric bass, and drums is often introduced (by me) as “three slidey things and one bangy thing”…

We do try to get the drummer to use a Roto-Tom, no luck so far. Our standard joke is “the drummer’s the one who’s in tune”

[Andrew Goulet]

It's funny to me that someone could know enough to know who Alvino Rey was but still be so wildly misinformed about the evolution of the pedal steel.

I used to correct people when they would call it a "slide", or "steel pedal", or whatever. Nowadays I only do it if I think it's going to be worth it. A few times I've done it I've been met with looks or words like, "That's nit-picking, isn't it, foolish peddle string keyboard man?"

It's all in how you look at it. Aren't we proud to play an instrument that other people can't even recognize? I guess.

[Donny Hinson]

In 1957, Emmons partnered with guitarist/machinist Harold "Shot" Jackson to form the Sho-Bud company, the first company devoted solely to pedal steel guitar manufacture.

- from Wikipedia

Uhh...Jay Harlin? Multi-Kord? Forgotten again, it seems.

[David Mitchell]

Lot of things to learn on the internet especially learning what not to do.

[Robert B Murphy]

Wasn't there a Winsted, Connecticut machinist who had an early patent for a pitch changer mechanism?

[Doug Beaumier]

Yes, John Moore, a machinist from Winsted, CT. The story is a little hazy, depending on who's telling it, but according to Gibson, Moore took his patent to them and they hired him, put him on the Gibson staff and they developed the Gibson Electraharp. Alvino Rey says that he met Moore in CT and asked him to design a pitch changing device. And he (Alvino) convinced him to take it to Gibson.

Either way, the earlier comment about the "genius" of Alvino Rey for inventing the "peddle steel" guitar in his kitchen, is totally bogus.

[Stuart Legg]

Sometimes you get burnt when you go online and do a quick study and come back and try to reply like an expert. Hey no matter, learning Steel is hard anyway so sometime hard lessons are the best lessons.