The Steel Guitar Forum

Freudian slip...

If you have a plethora of pedals and knee levers you can play anything without ever using the left hand. It seems to me that you have two opposite ends of the spectrum, someone with no pedals who plays everything by moving the bar, and someone with pedals up the Ying-Yang, who can play everything without the bar. At some stage we have to ask ourselves what sound we're trying to produce, and I feel that we should be looking at something in between. Yes, if you have the standard E9 tuning, you CAN reach the subdominant by pushing pedals A and B, but you can also do it by moving the bar up five frets. The talent comes in deciding which you want to do.

All of them.

Ken Williams wrote:bOb, if you're tuned basically to E9th, couldn't you get a C note on the 5th and 10th playing a half "A" pedal or using split tuning and playing the A pedal and Bb lever at the same time?
Or did I misunderstand?

I don't have a Bb lever, and I've never been able to nail a note with a half-pedal. That's why I say that I don't have a C note without using the bar.

Amazing Grace,is an easy one to play this way,If I can do it,ANYONE can,don't you know.

Interesting thread. I tried some of the tunes mentioned. It does give you a new perspective on use of the pedal, and knee lever combinations.

John

I once played the old Jim Reeves song 'Missing You' without a bar. The only problem encountered was that I had to do the chorus one octave lower.
When playing Amazing Grace try adding 12th-fret chimes over the top of what you're picking...very effective!!
PRR

Also place your bar at the 12th fret without out muting,pick BEHIND the bar,neat effect don't you know.

this is some great stuff,
Ken, thanks for showing us that

I like to play "Amazing Grace" by placing the bar underneath the strings at the 12th fret picking the string below the bar at about the 3rd fret. You get a real eerie sound. Technically I'm not using a bar. It is now a Capo. The pedals and Knees will be somewhat out of pitch but that just adds to the eerie sound.

Chuck Campbell tells a great story about going to the Sho Bud store in Nashville as a young man. Jimmy Day was there hanging around, and upon hearing that that Chuck (and his father Bishop Campbell of the Keith Dominion) played gospel music, he proceeded to play Amazing Grace with his left hand on the bottle of Jack Daniels (imbibing from time to time) and playing the entire song bar-less.

His takeaways:

-I've got to get one of those pedal steels.
-The Holy Ghost doesn't just work through those from his faith.

Heres a pic of a Wisconsin steeler (anybody know him?)picking the break on the job with no bar. He came to a country music club jam. In Wi. we work our steelers real hard. Several hours into the jam, the 2 scheduled bands had finished, it was time for the jam band to play. I asked this guy to sit in. He had ordered a hamberger somewere along the line. We didn't give him time to eat it. I was singing the "Just because Polka". He figured it was the perfect time to eat his berger. We got to the break in the song and I looked in his direction to have him pic. He grinned ear-to-ear......I said go ....he played the break with bar. I don't know how many songs he can play without a bar, but knowing him, I bet he can do a bunch
[img]
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/userpix/ ... ckin_1.jpg[/img

I think i messed up the up load of the pic....I will try again.

Does this work?