What's your main focus...pedal or non-pedal?

Tom Campbell · Post by **Tom Campbell** » 16 Sep 2022 4:22 pm

Don't know what topic this fit under so I'll present it here.

If you play both styles of steel, do to favor one over the other or try to give equal time?

I sometime feel I'm becoming a "Jack of all trades...master of none".

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 16 Sep 2022 4:29 pm

been playing non pedal for 20 years. been playing pedal for less than 2 weeks. My non pedal playing has increased immensely. My pedal playing can't get worse.

Eric Dahlhoff · Post by **Eric Dahlhoff** » 16 Sep 2022 9:50 pm

I started with pedal steel. (wow!!! Can this be real??)

It took a while to get up the courage to try lap steel. (Oh, not as hard as I imagined!)

I'm happy with both and master of neither.
But if I had to make a choice, I could live with pedal steel!

Chris Brooks · Post by **Chris Brooks** » 17 Sep 2022 4:04 am

I came to pedal steel through guitar--not non-pedal. I have 2 non-pedal steels but have never done much with them.

But yesterday I was listening (again) to the great Jerry Byrd and vowing to at least set up my Console Grande!

Jim Pollard · Post by **Jim Pollard** » 17 Sep 2022 7:54 am

I started on non-pedal and did that for a few years. Back in March received my much anticipated Justice pedal steel and haven't touched a lap steel since. BUT. Was listening to the accompanying spotify playlist for Rose Sinclair's podcast appearance and thinking "Hmm. I do miss great big strummed 6th chords" So there's a time and a place for both!

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 17 Sep 2022 11:39 am

I started non-pedal. I tried to copy Speedy's Capitol Records hits and only much later found out he had pedals.
I always gravitated towards Jazz and Swing and loved some Western Swing. But my first PSG was E9th... At first I could not understand that tuning coming from A6th. My next was a D10 and I wen't E9th once I realized the pedals down got me back into A6th. The I met Maurice, and went universal and finally back to non-pedal. After leaving the US for Spain... I got into playing standard guitar... "just" rhythm... Gypsy Jazz.
I only recently came back to PSG and after getting a U12 I stripped it of the E9th part and made it a "big" C6th with 8 levers and 6 pedals. I couldn't be happier.

To me, it's always a STEEL guitar first... the bar is to MOVE.
Single note lines I play without pedals, except for some parts where I keep P7 down over an extended run... mostly in some keys that drive the bar too close to either Hughey-Land or the nut. Pedals for chords.

I rarely listen to steel anymore... mostly I listen to Jazz, Piano, Guitar, Sax... Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans... etc.

Could I go back in time, I would learn either Piano or Bass first. Understand music first. I don't consider the PSG a more difficult to play instrument... it may be more "obscure", especially in times before youtube. But Piano and Bass teach the fundaments of music.

I also feel that (in general) those who started on a non-pedal tuning or C6th (pedaled), are better E9th players. Essentially, it should not be forgotten that PSG is nothing but a STEEL GUITAR with pedals to it.

... J-D.

Brett Day · Post by **Brett Day** » 17 Sep 2022 5:51 pm

I'm a pedal steel player, and tried to play lap steel, but wasn't sure if I could handle a regular lap steel because of cerebral palsy in my left hand, but in December of 2017, I added squareneck dobro, so I play both pedal steel and I use the dobro as an acoustic lap steel. I started out on pedal steel, and have been playing it for almost twenty-three years now. I'm playing dobro as an acoustic steel at jam sessions and in my church's band. With electronics, I focus on pedal steel, while the dobro is an acoustic lap steel for me. When I started playing dobro, I decided that the dobro wouldn't be acoustic/electric, it would be acoustic, since my pedal steel is electric.

Fred · Post by **Fred** » 18 Sep 2022 3:21 am

My main focus is steel guitar. I played without pedals for the first 20 years and got some pedals a couple of years ago. But all I play is steel guitar.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 19 Sep 2022 8:04 am

I started on a single neck lap steel, then I went to a triple neck Stringmaster.
I played that guitar for many years.
But I wanted the ability to get full, three string grips for melody playing and that was the reason I went with pedal steel.
Erv

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 19 Sep 2022 8:26 am

I'm ashamed to say that, for many years and while I was still in the UK where this music is not so prevalent, I saw no potential in a fixed tuning instrument where the bar determined pretty much all you could play.

When pedal steel came to my attention (early-'70s), it's appeal and potential struck me immediately. I soon bought one and began the journey.

Over the years, though, I got to hear just what a master-player could do with 'just a bar': from Joaquin to Jerry Byrd and Tommy Morrell, I was soon eating my words! Master musicians are just that, and know no boundaries.

I still have to favour pedal steel, however, at least for me. I simply adore the way pitches can be shifted within a chord with such accuracy.

That doesn't mean that I don't wish I'd paid more attention to those groundbreaking pioneers, though!

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 19 Sep 2022 9:48 am

I've played 6 string guitar since the late 50's. All through the rock and roll days. In 75' I started on the pedal steel and continued to play both in the 80's. However, since then I just play the pedal steel. And, I'm quite comfortable with that. I'm happy to be " just the steelman".

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 19 Sep 2022 5:34 pm

I’m just starting to get pretty good on the nonpedal steel, so I’m going to stick with that. Don’t want to change horses now.