Copedent

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 23 Apr 2007 8:14 am

b0b,

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition:

"steel adj 1: Made of steel 2: of or relating to the production of steel 3: resembling steel"

No reference to pedal steel guitar. Now what will we call the Forum?

Dennis Schell · Post by **Dennis Schell** » 23 Apr 2007 8:28 am

Gee, I think I'll switch to the term "setup" now that I'm filled with self doubt and a feeling of P inCness in the PSG world with regard to the annunciatin' of "copedent"......

lol

Dennis

admin · Post by **b0b** » 23 Apr 2007 8:37 am

ed packard wrote:B0b...does your dictionary have Steel Guitar, or Pedal Steel Guitar as an entry?

Yes. I use TheFreeDictionary.com. Here are the entries:

steel guitar
n.
1. An acoustic guitar with a metal resonator built into the body, often played with a slide and producing a twangy, variable tone.
2. See Hawaiian guitar.

pedal steel
n.
An electronically amplified guitar mounted on legs, with up to ten strings whose pitch can be altered by sliding a steel bar across them or by depressing pedals attached to them. Also called pedal steel guitar.

Also, the Hawaiian guitar entry has this nice little graphic:

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 23 Apr 2007 8:45 am

b0b,

Kidding aside, that same Merriam-Webster dictionary does have an entry for "pedal steel"!

But my point is, the dictionary definitions of a lot of words, basically all of them, that we use to discuss steel guitar: "string", "tuning", "tone", "neck", "pedal", "lever", "changer", etc., etc. contain no reference to pedal steel guitar, but that doesn't make them any less applicable.

David D.'s point about "setup" involving other physical factors has some validity. But what about "tuning"? I think it can be readily understood to mean "fixed pitches inherent in the individual instrument", which would include open strings and notes obtained by permanently adjusted mechanisms.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 23 Apr 2007 10:07 am

"Tuning" could have a fuzzy enough meaning to include the pedal and knee changes. But my sense is that when a pedal steeler asks about your "tuning," he means the chord and pitches for the fixed strings. The pedals and lever changes are usually considered a separate and more personal issue, and that's why the terms "setup" and "copedant" came into use.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 23 Apr 2007 10:09 am

What's with the "a"? Who came up with that alternate spelling, and why?

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 23 Apr 2007 10:28 am

David Doggett wrote:"Tuning" could have a fuzzy enough meaning to include the pedal and knee changes. But my sense is that when a pedal steeler asks about your "tuning," he means the chord and pitches for the fixed strings. The pedals and lever changes are usually considered a separate and more personal issue, and that's why the terms "setup" and "copedant" came into use.

Which leads me back to my earlier suggestion that "tuning & setup" was perhaps the most precise term. It's hard to imagine that anyone knowing enough about steel in the first place to even be discussing this subject would think the "setup" part of the phrase referred to pedal height, knee lever resistance, etc.

Dennis Schell · Post by **Dennis Schell** » 23 Apr 2007 10:48 am

Brint Hannay wrote:
David Doggett wrote:"Tuning" could have a fuzzy enough meaning to include the pedal and knee changes. But my sense is that when a pedal steeler asks about your "tuning," he means the chord and pitches for the fixed strings. The pedals and lever changes are usually considered a separate and more personal issue, and that's why the terms "setup" and "copedant" came into use.
Which leads me back to my earlier suggestion that "tuning & setup" was perhaps the most precise term. It's hard to imagine that anyone knowing enough about steel in the first place to even be discussing this subject would think the "setup" part of the phrase referred to pedal height, knee lever resistance, etc.

You guys! Here we go, the "skinny" as I see it:

Tuning: Pertains to the strings pitch only....

Setup: What the pehduls and leevers do....

Copeedunt: Both of the above....

There. All figured out!

Dennis

Oh BTW...The height of the instrument? It's called "my steel's tallness"...

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 23 Apr 2007 11:17 am

I guess I just won't talk about the copedent of my pestegit! (pronounced "pee-stuh-git".)

Note: PEdal STEel GUITar.

Tom Bradshaw · Post by **Tom Bradshaw** » 23 Apr 2007 12:59 pm

I didn't read all the posts about "copedent", but thought I'd clarify a couple of things. Winnie Winston and I were good friends and corresponded a lot, long before he used the word in his book, "Steel Guitar". He was very familiar with what the word meant. It was simply misspelled in his book. If you will look at the credits in the book you will see that he used a lot of pictures that I supplied him and even printed my "Steel Appeal" article that was first published in Guitar Player magazine. When his book was printed, he sent me an autographed copy, which I still have. He apologized for the misspelling of copedent; in fact in the back of my mind I seem to recall that he said something about the proof readers for the publishing company being responsible for the "a" in the spelling, rather than the "e".

I wrestled with a number of words, trying to find one that had no other meaning than to designate a pedal steel's basic tuning, and the changes to that basic tuning when pedals were pushed and knee levers engaged. I didn't like any of the words I came up with, nor the word I chose. However, what I was after was a word that would be totally devoted to the pedal steel and have no other meaning. Frankly, I don't think I could have come up with a word that anyone would have liked. I always rejected "setup" because it had so many different meanings. Over the years the word copedent has been denigrated because, as someone said, among other condemnations, it sounds too much like codependent (which has become a "bad" word, when it originally wasn't). People have likened the syllable, "pee" in the word, to having a "urine" sound. Heck, it is just a word. And as Emerson once said, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Whenever someone learns what the word stands for, he can't confuse its meaning with anything else. If you simply use the word enough, the meaning is what will be conveyed, and how it rolls off your tongue will be irrelevant. ...Tom

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 23 Apr 2007 1:14 pm

Well...awright then. If even Winnie considered the "a" a mistake, I guess we should all get in line and go with the original "e." But I'm still curious, Tom. Since we say "pehdal" instead of "peedal," why did you choose to pronounce it that way?

Tom Bradshaw · Post by **Tom Bradshaw** » 23 Apr 2007 1:40 pm

Why co-pee-dent instead of co-peh-dent? Hell if I know. That was over 40 years ago. Do you expect me, a guy who is just as addlepated today as he was back then, to remember that? I can't even remember where I left my....whatever it was, I'm supposed to remember.

OK, OK. The "peh" made the word sound too highfalutin. It's like pronouncing "tomato" as "to-mah-to" and "either" as "i-ther". I'm just a country boy; heck I was born in Skiatook (incidentally, pronounced "sky-tuke") Oklahoma. So, pronouncing it as co-ped-ent seemed too much like putting on airs! ...Tom

admin · Post by **b0b** » 23 Apr 2007 1:56 pm

There you have it, from the horse's mouth!

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 23 Apr 2007 5:28 pm

Well, okay then. Guess that's all the 'splainin' we need. Thanks for filling us in on the history, Tom.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 24 Apr 2007 3:58 am

The beauty of coining a word, you get to pronounce it however you want to.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 24 Apr 2007 9:58 am

Now I think I can cope with this...

Everything is now copasetic.

Thanks Tom for the info

Dennis Schell · Post by **Dennis Schell** » 24 Apr 2007 6:31 pm

Tom Bradshaw wrote:

OK, OK. The "peh" made the word sound too highfalutin. It's like pronouncing "tomato" as "to-mah-to" and "either" as "i-ther". I'm just a country boy; heck I was born in Skiatook (incidentally, pronounced "sky-tuke") Oklahoma. So, pronouncing it as co-ped-ent seemed too much like putting on airs! ...Tom

heh heh...

Told you guys I had "the skinny" on this here annunciatin' of copedent....

Thanks Tom!

Dennis

BTW Tom, I met you way back in '86. I was traveling with a "one footed" feller from BC Canada who built a limited number of pedal steels. He used a "lever volume control" on his axe because of his "handicap". (Ha!)
We visited your home with an example of one of his guitars. (An S-13 universal as I remember) Was a pleasure to meet you!