Any College Programs for Pedal Steel Guitar?

Anthony Parish · Post by **Anthony Parish** » 13 Oct 2022 8:29 am

There are many great college programs for music performance with concentrations in various instruments (guitar, bass, piano, voice, etc). Do any programs offer performance training in pedal steel guitar? Haven't seen any.

Tony Parish

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 13 Oct 2022 12:47 pm

I think most people graduated from hardknox.edu.

Berklee had some things going on with lap steel when Bill Leavitt was Chairman of the Guitar Department there. But I haven't heard of anything recent.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 13 Oct 2022 1:13 pm

Been a long time since my college days, but I'd venture that not too many institutions would support a class that would comprise of five or less students. I couldn't imagine getting more than that, even at Julliard, Vanderbilt, or Berkley.

I'll make a guess and say that guitar, bass, piano, violin and voice are all about 1,000 times more popular than pedal steel.

Howard Parker · Post by **Howard Parker** » 13 Oct 2022 1:43 pm

Does Mike Ihde still teach at Berklee (not Berkley).

I think there's also an offering at East TN State Univ but not positive.

There are a number of higher ed. programs for bluegrass instrumentation. In addition to the 2 above I'm also aware of courses in steel guitar offered at South Plains College in TX.

I believe there are others as well.

h

Ian Worley · Post by **Ian Worley** » 13 Oct 2022 2:06 pm

Howard Parker wrote:...I think there's also an offering at East TN State Univ but not positive...

Yes, pedal steeler Tony Dingus used to teach in their program, not sure if he's still there, but he's here on the forum if OP wanted to ask him about it.

Bobby D. Jones · Post by **Bobby D. Jones** » 13 Oct 2022 5:31 pm

Donna Hammit, Bill Anderson's steel player attended some college where she studied steel guitar as her choice of instrument.
She talked backstage about the class at a show about 2002, When she appeared with Bill Anderson at the Sagebrush Roundup.

It may have been East Tenn. University,

Jon Voth · Post by **Jon Voth** » 13 Oct 2022 6:08 pm

Also Henry Johns of Navy Band "Country Current" went there and studied with Mr. Dingus, he's been hired & out of school maybe 5-6 years I'm guessing.

I have all my PSG degrees from Youtube University.

Christopher Woitach · Post by **Christopher Woitach** » 13 Oct 2022 9:52 pm

For a couple years I taught a kid steel guitar at the college where I teach, as a music major. He had a disability with his left side, and could only play on his lap with bottleneck slide on his finger, so he could hold it. He did pretty good for a while (he was able to play a few jazz tunes) but ended up moving. He was the only that ever asked, but as long as the student could meet music requirements they could probably study steel there (Western Oregon University)

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 14 Oct 2022 12:59 am

Belmont College in Nashville maybe.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 14 Oct 2022 4:43 am

It is common for a music program in college to be called jazz studies or studio composition. Your choice of instrument. Pedal steel is quite welcome. There are no big classes with a bunch of oboe players sitting together. College is not structured like that. Classes for Performance degrees are often ensemble based. If you can play jazz or want to learn how to play jazz you can play in the jazz ensembles. Both small daily workshops and the larger performance based ensembles.
Instrumental studies are with a private teacher that is chosen by the student. You could study with a steel player or piano player or who ever would help you reach your goals.

There is a Western swing class in a college in San Antonio run by a steel player/professor. There is also an experimental music dept run by a steel player at Princeton. I’m sure there is more.

I’m also aware of several doctorates given to musicologists bases on the ethnographic studies of the pedalsteel.

I’m actually looking into a structured college program to get my jazz playing to be a little bit better than pathetic. I always get started and then end up chasing gigs around and get distracted.

College is great. I totally enjoyed it. It has opened doors ( and keeps on opening doors )

I think if you want a degree in pedalsteel you would do it through a jazz studies program. Or an instrumental based commercial music program .

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 14 Oct 2022 3:55 pm

I think the OP's question was more along the lines of college training in pedal steel; that is, learning the instrument on an advanced level. Of course there are a gazillion college music courses out there, but they don't teach pedal steel. I see the training that Paul Franklin (and others) do in the "Modern Masters" series as what an on-line, college level pedal steel course would and should be.