Who knows!

Dick Sexton · Post by **Dick Sexton** » 10 Mar 2023 6:25 am

I believe it would be interesting to know just how many steel players read standard notation "Music" and actually play by it. I'm willing to bet, few.

If you do or can, ring in... Thanks!

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 10 Mar 2023 8:07 am

Like this? Adapted to the 10 string E9 neck and adjusted to taste...

https://youtu.be/udo8RgKaJNU

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 10 Mar 2023 8:12 am

I can.

Erv

fraser · Post by **fraser** » 10 Mar 2023 11:54 am

I can and used to but I'm not doing that now.

Fraser

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 10 Mar 2023 12:04 pm

Dave,
That was lovely.

Erv

Duane Becker · Post by **Duane Becker** » 10 Mar 2023 12:16 pm

I did read at one point really well. I started playing steel in 1968. I was a little kid and my dad played steel on the weekends. Around 1972 he arranged for me private lesson from a guy who taught steel guitar by reading only, I did this for about a year and a half. Really intense lessons too. I got pretty good at it. But when I started to play with regular country bands in the mid 1970s, no one read, and just played by ear and chords-learning the licks and fills from records and cassettes. Haven't read a lick since about 1974. Probably can't now, but I've got all my steel guitar music and staff books still-and today I collect anything related to steel guitar sheet music.

I might add, a few guitar players that I play with today read music. Mostly two rock guys in a local variety band that I'm in. I notice they never get the exact phrasing or inflection of the notes correct in comparison to the covers-especially when doing a country song. Watching them trying to read music on something like the standard "Someday Soon" or even a Merle Haggard song that they never listen to is unbearable and is really tuff to play along with.

chuck lemasters · Post by **chuck lemasters** » 10 Mar 2023 12:50 pm

I can’t really read but I know good picking when I hear it. That was great, Dave!

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 10 Mar 2023 12:50 pm

Thanks Erv

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 10 Mar 2023 12:51 pm

Great tone also.

Erv

chuck lemasters · Post by **chuck lemasters** » 10 Mar 2023 1:49 pm

I can’t really read but I know good picking when I hear it. That was great, Dave!

Roy Carroll · Post by **Roy Carroll** » 10 Mar 2023 2:34 pm

I can, but not enough to hurt my playing!

Larry Allen · Post by **Larry Allen** » 10 Mar 2023 5:35 pm

I’ve been reading music since 4th grade.. Steel was just another instrument to learn where the notes are.. piano,accordion, trombone, guitar and organ..

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 11 Mar 2023 8:03 am

Larry,
My feelings exactly.
When I was taking guitar lessons, I was very fortunate.
Besides teaching me the guitar, I was also taught "music".

Erv

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 11 Mar 2023 8:22 am

In the hundreds of sessions I did back in London, I was never handed anything as explicit and nuanced as that chart! The top-line, usually, was all I'd get and, more often than not, not even that.

My reading is questionable. When I've taken pit-band jobs (Broadway musicals, for example), I have asked for (and been given) the guitar-book a week ahead of the first rehearsal. Those brass and woodwind guys just open the page at 10.00 am and play it on sight.

Nice playing, Dave: thanks!

Larry Allen · Post by **Larry Allen** » 11 Mar 2023 12:52 pm

Yes ERV. That’s what we did on the farm in ND.. seems like every other one had a family band and an accordion and a fiddle.

Ben Lawson · Post by **Ben Lawson** » 11 Mar 2023 8:35 pm

In the words of Jeff Foxworthy, "I usta' could. but not so fast any more. I can still read music, but I can't do it in a band situation.

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 12 Mar 2023 10:20 am

I took music in grade school and had a hell of a time associating the notes in a timely fashion. It was discovered that I had a form of dyslexia. That has plagued me all my life.
However, I had a great musical ear and good musical memory. I've been lucky in that sense, but, unlucky with the overall aspect of actually reading music. I could never and still cant sight read enough to save my life.

John Sluszny · Post by **John Sluszny** » 12 Mar 2023 10:58 am

Dave Graff, your interpretation of Schumann's Träumerei is superb and your arrangement (adjustment to taste as you said) is fabulous.
Thank you.

John Sluszny · Post by **John Sluszny** » 12 Mar 2023 11:00 am

Oops !

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 12 Mar 2023 1:39 pm

Gosh, thanks guys. It all starts with the V>I, and the E9 is made for that.

Darrell Criswell · Post by **Darrell Criswell** » 18 Mar 2023 8:33 am

Erv Niehaus wrote:I can.
Erv

Era: Did you learn from piano or another instrument before steel?

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 18 Mar 2023 8:48 am

Darrell,
I never played another instrument before the steel guitar.
Of course, back then it was called the "Hawaiian" guitar.
I was very lucky, my guitar instructor was a graduate of the Chicago Conservatory of Music.
So besides teaching me the guitar, he also taught me "music".
He would set up a piece of sheet music and if I needed help in playing it he would add some fret locations to it.
He called it a "scratchogram" and that's how I learned.
When I was playing non-pedal guitar, I could usually play off sheet music, but now with all the chord positions available with a pedal steel, it is harder to do that.
The only reason I went with the pedal steel was to have the various chord positions made possible with the foot pedals and knee levers.
I am a "chordal" player, I like to play with full, three string grips.
I'm not a lick player, I like to work up an arrangement and play straight melody and all my tabs are written that way also.
Erv

Ron Funk · Post by **Ron Funk** » 25 Mar 2023 2:51 pm

Some very old - and still pertinent - info

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