Why I am unhappy with my steel playing..

Bob Smith · Post by **Bob Smith** » 6 Nov 2005 3:08 pm

Any guitar player from the 70s that has played the same licks ,tricks etc. for the last 25 yrs would be a lost puppy trying to just "turn on the songs and learn the licks and move on to the next song" in this day and age. The standards for a good legit country picker are light years from what it was 25 yrs ago. The envelope( i think) is being pushed to the limit by the new crop of Nashville( and other) players and it continues to get more complex with time.I guess if you dont try to keep up with the cutting edge, you really dont get any better. My 2 cents. Im a newbie on steel so i cant comment on this instrument, but i imagine its the same deal. ( Im not a believer of old style playng being better than the present day scene but think much the opposite.) bob

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 6 Nov 2005 3:13 pm

I'm with Mike on this completely. My current band plays exactly four outright country tunes - Brand New Heartache, Honkytonk Blues, Sing Me Back Home, and an original honkytonk country shuffle. Most of the original stuff has rock, funk-groove, and Americana feels. We do some electrified Dylan, Phish, Petty, Dead, CCR, and so on. Some is outright blues.

I could play guitar on every single tune we do, but I play 90% steel. We have a full-time guitar player, and I join in on a few tunes. I often rotate which tunes I play guitar on - there's only one where I'm expected to play guitar. When AB pedal mashing works, fine. When sliding around works, fine. I make pretty full use of at least ABC + 5 levers, and do work in B6 mode from time to time. I try to slip in and out between major and minor, and pentatonic tonalities a lot, that's what works for this. The low strings on the universal work great for that, IMO. That's just the way it's always been for me - if I played only country or country-rock licks, I'd have to pick up the guitar every other tune, which is what I did when I started.

I've been playing guitar a lot longer than steel. One thing I have found is that I tend to play less on steel. This is not necessarily bad at all, and translates back to my guitar playing. Playing both can be very complementary to each other. But I don't necessarily try to emulate what I do on one, on the other. I'm trying to come up with my own way to play this stuff.

Let me also say that our audience, mostly college and graduate students, loves the steel. Nobody snickers when we pull out a real old country chestnut. We do it all in the context of a band that does American music of many styles. I've played with lots of keyboard players, and sometimes it's the way to go. But for this, the steel and guitars works better, IMO. It's guitar-based American music, and the steel is just one of the guitars.

I'll say that I'm lucky to know a lot of musicians who like steel intrinsically. They mostly play other styles, but haven't got the anti-real-country bias, so they've been willing to give things a try. I live 3 hours from Bob C.

Chris Lasher · Post by **Chris Lasher** » 7 Nov 2005 7:51 pm

Jim, even though you have to change up your note selection for another genre, you don't have to change the sound of the pedal steel to sound like anything other than a pedal steel. Take Paul Franklin's work with the Dire Straits, or Greg Leisz with the Intercontinentals, or BJ Cole with Shania Twain. Their accomplishments were not in expanding the tonal pallette of the pedal steel, but in broadening the musical vocabulary of the steel.

I love the sound of clean steel, and can't say I've heard a distorted steel sound that I love (and probably won't ever until there's an Eric Johnson of pedal steel). Those players above show that you can still use that sound that made us fall in love with the steel in contexts beyond Country music.

Billy Carr · Post by **Billy Carr** » 8 Nov 2005 12:11 am

I've been fooling with Psg since 71'. What I've come to realize is that as long it's used as a extra income then it's seems to workout. I'm 48 now and enjoy playing more than I ever have now. Be yourself and just have fun playing. Out there somewhere in a crowd you'll find someone that admires you and what your doing. I listen to as many players as I can, just looking for a little something extra I can pick up. I imagine if I listened to you play, I would probably pick up a few things there to.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 8 Nov 2005 4:44 am

Play that funky steel, white boy.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 8 Nov 2005 9:10 am

*<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 13 November 2005 at 12:02 PM.]</p></FONT>

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 8 Nov 2005 9:55 am

We can argue about the validity of playing rock on the steel forever, but Bob wants to expand his knowlege of the instrument. I merely suggest this is one way to do it.

Ron Sodos · Post by **Ron Sodos** » 10 Nov 2005 2:09 pm

I stopped wanting to play like Buddy when I heard Terry Bethel. Now I want to play like Terry. I too have played 30 years and my love and dedication continues to increase!!