The Steel Guitar Forum

I don't play a song the same way every time , unless I recorded it that way, and I never said I don't know or understabd the various scales, I just said if you practice and learn only scales, that's all you know, you still don't know any music. I just learned music by feel and figured out the understanding of it afterwards.

I never said I don't know or understabd the various scales, I just said if you practice and learn only scales, that's all you know, you still don't know any music.

When did you say that?
This is what I thought you said

I've never played a scale in my life...I learned by playing the songs, if you learn to play the songs you will already know the scales, so why waste the time. As a result I have been fortunate to play and record with with many of the 'greats' in our industry

I think we actually agree somewhat (for what that's worth). The rubber hits the road on the bandstand or in the studio. Either you can play (which implies understanding the music well enough to do the job) or you can't. Many bandleaders and producers have pretty good BS detectors.

Some guys know what to call what they're playing -- the proper chord name, for example. It's not necessary but makes communicating with others easier. There's no sin in learning some musical terminology and concepts. That's all I'm saying. Learning how to play Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do (a Major scale) is not going to suck out all your soul. Charlie Parker knew music inside out and it didn't hurt his soloing none.

Michael Douchette wrote:FWIW... Pete Drake literally had no clue how to play a scale.

A funny story about Pete,They wanted him to play a certian way in the studio, He said OK but let me try this first,he did they liked it-end of story.

Bill, I related that story here, sometime ago... darned if I can find it now... it was a Pepsi jingle, and the hilarity was in the details...

I spent 1 week with Jeff Newman in Los Angeles in the late 70's that was a major milestone in my learning how to play "music" on a pedal steel guitar instead of just stringing a bunch of memorized, and most likley unrelated licks together over the changes.
Jeff showed me how to play musically within the chord changes in both a horizontal and virtical mode that opened my eyes to new worlds of ways to play. To this day, I'll stumble across something worth while in my practiceing and think to my self, "Oh, that's what Jeff ment!".
So even though I was gigging 4 or 5 nights a week at the time, I'd have to say that the day I met Jeff Newman is the day that I "leared to play".
JE:-)>

Michael, I am sure there are alot of famous musicians who have horrible theory, however they have a good ear for music. Thanks for your reply.

I would go nuts if I was forced to play scales.

Ah, the "Search" is your friend... here again, the Pete story:

Pete, while a Nashville mainstay and one of the busiest guys around, was unable to read a note of music, or even play a scale. He had a tremendous ear, and just knew what to put where to make a “career defining” record. Here is the Pepsi jingle story.

Pete had his own studio, Pete’s Place, just off Music Row. He was notorious for staying up all night working on tracks, and sleeping in, usually dragging in around 1 p.m. or so. The Pepsi bigwigs had a jingle booked at his place years ago, a 10 a.m. session. Of course, Pete didn’t show up. At the end of the gig, around 1 o’clock, here comes Pete. The rest of the guys are finished and packing up, and they need Pete to put on the steel part to give it the final touch.

The Pepsi guy hands him a couple pages of actual notated staff paper with the part they want Pete to play written out. All the other guys are just looking, thinking the old man has just had his a$$ handed to him. Good luck, Pete… let’s see ya get outta this one.

Well, Pete has them turn on the tape, and he studies the music they handed him with great attention, a pro hard at work determining how his part will fit in. The tape stops, Pete says ok, let’s do this, he goes in the room, puts the music on the stand, sits down, puts on the phones and tells the engineer to fire it up. Just as the count off hits his ears…

Pete rakes his picks across the strings, making a sharp scratching noise that stops the tape, and he says, “You know, guys… I’m hearing something. Something in my head… tell you what. Let me just try something, and if you don’t like it, we’ll go back to what’s on the page here. Start it again.”

Well… it starts, and Pete does his typical thing that he does every day. The guy from New York goes bonkers, screaming, “That’s f-ing IT!!! THAT”s what I came to Nashville for!! That’s f-ing PERFECT!!!”

Pete lights up a cigar, walks into the control room, signs the card double scale, winks at the other pickers and goes up to his office… several hundred dollars richer than he was 60 seconds ago. The other pickers, hoping that Pete was gonna get nailed this time, just saw the “Master At Work” yet again. He was smooth, ol’ Pete was…

So what do you do when the melody you are playing contains a scale? Do you lay out, or do you just play wrong notes?

Yep, I just rebel against it and start yelling at the bandleader...


Seriously, IF I recognize a major scale I can play a pentatonic riff around it that sounds somewhat like the melody if I can't find all the notes of the scale immediately, but generally I can play patterns like that by ear - anything outside of a major scale I couldn't name, nor could I tell you what notes I'm playing at all times. But on bass or guitar I could just play - I would "practice" by listening to CD's of songs, and could show up to a gig cold and play without any train wrecks, usually. Complicated parts I would work out, but I still could not explain WHAT I was working out.

There are great disadvantages to being an ear player, for sure. I can somewhat follow a number chart, but throw those little golf-clubs-on-lines in front of me and you'll get a deer-in-the-headlights look (I love the Pete Drake story, and used a similar scheme a few times successfully). OTOH, as an ear player you're not locked into a mindset of "right notes" (see Doug's quote above) and are more apt to create your own style. For better or worse, I never sounded like an imitation of any other player - I just sounded like me. It's getting there on steel, and my steel playing is starting to sound a lot like my guitar playing - a very satisfying thing.

It really helps to have a pig with good relative pitch skills. Come to think of it, those 3 years of music theory EVERY DAY early in the morning when I was in college probably helped a little too. I think if not for that, I'd be nowhere near where I am today - which happens to be nowhere near the skill level I'd like to have. But it sure is fun trying to get there.