The Steel Guitar Forum

Ron Whitfield said:

This is the best piece of diplomacy I've seen to date on this forum. Way to go Ron! I couldn't agree more.
Note: This is a serious post. No tongue in cheek or sarcasm is intended or implied. My praise is wholehearted, serious and honest.

Well, as for the apples/oranges thing there seems to be users of left hand blocking on both sides of the aisle.

Certainly one of the great all time pedal players (country, blues, pop, and even heavy metal rock) is Joe Wright and he uses left hand blocking a lot. In his "dissertation" on steel guitar, a 300+ page manual entitled "My Approach", he describes in detail the technique of LH Blocking, pointing out that once you learn it you concentrate on lifting the bar only a tiny distance off the strings by slightly rocking the hand to the left while holding the bar with the thumb. He states, " this technique will make your playing a lot smoother and quieter. I use it a lot for chord work"......."this makes the harder picking grips easier because my right hand is only responsible for one thing. The block is being taken care of by the left hand. This also works well when you have to move the bar up and down the fretboard....." He goes on to point out that the lifting movement is very subtle and you don't come off the strings very much and it takes a lot of practice to master.


Over on the non-pedal side, one of my favorite players is John Ely, the Grammy Award winning player with Asleep at the Wheel. In an interview back in 1991 with (the now defunct) Steel Guitar World magazine John was asked questions on many steel aspects. Here's part of the interview........
" Q. Do you pick block or palm block?
A. I either block with my right palm or my left hand. A lot of Hawaiian players block with the left hand by going in and out of the tilt poistion, catching vibrating strings just before others are picked. It's a very hard technique to master but very smooth sounding. As time goes on I'm letting this method slowly take over"........

Thank you, Edward!

No disrepect meant to anyone.

Bill, thanx for the post above. I'll be looking into what more they have to offer on the matter.

Ron Whitfield wrote:\

Your rage over my ultra liberalness may be blinding you from reading my posts in total, so as to grasp that I concur with much that you say.
Yep, I'm liberal to the max, as well as equally conservative. I merely seek the truth, rather than be blinded by liars of any color. As any good American should.

Ron.....

If you're reading "rage" into what I wrote, you're reading something that's not there. I simply disagree with your unbending position on left hand blocking. As for the mention of your website promotion, I'm simply stating what a lot of others on here have pointed out from time to time..... this Forum is not a political forum and politics should not be part of it.

For that matter, you don't know me and you don't know my politics. I only feel that this forum is not the place for promoting or discussing it.

You know me and my political views a bit better now that I posted about it to a slight degree more, and maybe don't consider me as totally one sided now as you earlier exclaimed.
There's only one truth to the truth, however.

But there are more than one ways to play the steel as I've also said here, and am willing to check out and learn more of what's out there, as I again said just prior to your last post. I'm open minded and flexable. I learned to be so the hard way, and this thread may be yet another lesson. We'll see. I doubt I'll be taking the bar off the strings a bunch in the future, but some more left hand blocking techniques is something I might find worthwhile.

The ultimate gist to my opinion is that many (mostly younger/unschooled) players do way to much lifting of the bar, and it can be detrimental and limiting to their playing and progressing.

Unless theres even more pertainent steel discussion on the matter, let's call an end to the (or at least our) debate and do what John Dahms said.

edit

George...

Good points. Joe Wright goes into a detailed descrition of what you just described in his book. It's one of several LH tecniques that can be helpful.

I may be wrong here, but I suspect that a lot of the opposition to left hand blocking is based on seeing some inexperienced players pick the bar up totally off the strings without leaving the trailing fingers on the strings. As Joe points out, you should barely get the bar off the strings by just rotating the left hand ever so slightly. You can also tip the bar for single string work and use the trailng fingers to block the unpicked strings.

Wow, seems like this topic is more interesting to debate than I thought.

Anyway, my story is that I started out playing slide on guitar and my teacher taught me to block with my fingertips. And of course by lifting the slide, not just for blocking but for fretting with the remaining three fingers.

I took the same technique with me when I started to slide on balalajka. Then I started using fingerpicks and thought that with them on I couldn't block with my fingers anymore. For a few weeks my playing sucked worse than it had in years. Then I read about pick blocking, tried it and was "saved".

Now as I'm learning to play lapsteel I have a very heavy bar, which I do like for the tone, and it is teaching me not to lift so often, if at all. This is great for my palm blocking and it's rubbing off on my balalajka playing as well.

In the end I think I will try to use another bar, one that has a good enough tone but that I can lift too. I see nothing wrong in lifting the bar really, but that's because it's where I come from in the first place.

Not so good in the intonation department ( .. The head wasn't so good that day) but a good angle to see the various bar and picking techniques.


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Bas, after watching only the first two vids, the few times I saw you lift the bar completely off the strings, I'm left wondering what was accomplished that couldn't have been by right hand muting?

And, what is the term for the behind the bar strums, and the extrodinary sound it provides, at 4:44 and 4:49 of LHGirl?
This is what I was trying to describe about a year ago on a different thread, without much success.

Spent some time last night trying the 'Joe Wright' left hand damping technigue, and have yet to see the necessity for it, unless playing at warp speed, of which most people don't, and I certainly can't.
Is that where the real 'need' comes into place for this technique?

And, what is the method used to re-place the bar on the strings without ANY noise, other than picking at the point of full impact to hide it? It's said to be a quiet way of muting, but I hadn't mastered that aspect of it before falling asleep.

Bas, after watching only the first two vids, the few times I saw you lift the bar completely off the strings, I'm left wondering what was accomplished that couldn't have been by right hand muting?

Well Ron, at the time I lifted the steel my third and pinky fingers on my bar hand WERE in contact with the strings, dampening them, I was simultaneously pick blocking in preparation for the next notes.

Right hand muting whilst moving a bar that's in contact with the strings would make some noise through the pickup, if the bar was moved at speed, AND, limit what the right hand was doing and delay the placement of the fingers for the next notes.

I've just had another thought regarding right hand muting (Blocking)
For me, it upsets the rhythm of the picking hand.

Well guys, as Joe says, it does take a lot of practice and time to get it where it's comfortable. As little as I play now, I can tell a big difference in the smoothness. After a while your mind just takes over and you don't think about it. I'll have to practice a lot more to get back to that point.

As long as we're talking about damping, blocking, whatever, there is still another method that can have a place in the whole scheme. And that's using the volume pedal to do it. Joe Wright says he does some of this but he gravitated toward some left hand blocking to get away from it. It's a lot harder on a pedal steel if you're doing a lot of right knee lever work. Most pedal players seem to use the volume pedal just to get more sustain.

Almost all pedal players I follow frown on vol ped damping and I find it's very hard for me on songs that use my right knee levers a lot. Of course I have trouble chewing gum and walking at the same time.

One excellent pedal player I like to listen to is Frank Carter and he really uses the volume pedal a lot. Jimmy Day was another. You can really hear it at its best on his classic album "Steel and Strings".

Of course Jerry Byrd did a good bit of it too. I guess the very best sounds come from really great players who use all the methods together.

Yes Bas, I see that you had your fingers on the strings and damping as such, but I'm asking about; what lifting the bar as such accomplishes, that couldn't be done without it, by right hand palm damping.

Why was the pick blocking necessary, if the left fingers were doing the job at that end?

And, would you mind addressing the question of the strums, please?

And again, anyone, how do you return the bar to the strings in total silence?

Thanx!

Bill, how do you hold the bar, per your index finger?
Is it straight, or curved?

For those that don't slant much, a straight finger would probably aid in the lifting of the bar a bit, but it's the re-entry impact sound that I have still to eliminate.

but I'm asking about; what lifting the bar as such accomplishes, that couldn't be done without it, by right hand palm damping.

FASTER TRANSITIONS

Ron I said "Right hand muting whilst moving a bar that's in contact with the strings would make some noise through the pickup, if the bar was moved at speed, AND, limit what the right hand was doing and delay the placement of the fingers for the next notes.
For me, it upsets the rhythm of the picking hand."

In other words, I feel that whilst right hand dampening or blocking kills the sound of notes ringing, it doesn't prevent the movement of the bar in contact with the strings creating undesirable sounds. (For me)

The artificial sympathetic harmonics created behind the bar don't have a definitive name AFAIK.

And whilst I appreciate your analysis of my lack of right hand dampening, I feel that after playing that way for over 50 years, I can't change to what would (THEORETICALLY) appear to be the more correct (But Slower) way.

I just love this! I stated on another thread that I have been sliding since 1962 and didn't even know what blocking was until I joined this forum. I did it,of course but I never conciously thought about it.
I never use fingers! I can't conceive of anything more awkward! I block with my left hand by lifting on covered strings and sometimes with my right palm (heel of my hand actually)after striking an open string or strings. And sometimes on an open string or strings by putting the bar back down on the strings after the open string has been struck. Sometimes I'm just so glad I am self taught! For every disadvantage, and there are many, there is a dozen advantages! Mainly, nobody telling me I can't do something or something is wrong!

I lift the bar off the strings all the time, the reason being the one stated by Baz... faster transitions.

I hadn't really paid attention to how I blocked/muted strings until last night after reading all this stuff. I realized that I use only my left hand behind the bar. Lots of comments here about that way of doing it, but it seems natural to me. I can't recollect how I got into that method, because it started around 1945
When running across the strings with the bar tip to get a note, all the others are muted, which works fine (for me)

This is a GREAT thread!! I tried getting one like this started a while back. But I failed. I feel like I have a much better understanding of damping/blocking than at the beginning. And best of all, I'm doing better than I thought!

Edward Meisse wrote:This is a GREAT thread!! I tried getting one like this started a while back. But I failed.

And I didn't even try to get this kind of thread started

But I'm enjoying it too. I'm getting more answeres than I asked for but that's great.

When you lift the bar off the strings, there is a small noise called "bar kiss". Whether that noise is acceptable or not is a subjective matter of taste.

I lift the bar a lot when playing blues, and very little when playing country ballads. I think that everything you can do with your hands is acceptable if it has the desired result. If it sounds bad, find another way to do it!

The goal is to have total control of the strings. I sometimes block individual strings with my left thumb or right pinkie. I sometimes block with a right fingernail when switching grips in a pick-blocked passage. Sometimes I nose the bar or pull it back to block. And of course sometimes I block in the traditional right hand style.

Everything is acceptable. The more techniques you learn, the more control you have over the strings. That's my philosophy, anyway.

Very valid, bOb, as are all the other comments.
But your's and my agreed upon favorite player had full command of the strings, and He didn't take the bar off the strings, minus the very rare exception.
So, for me, the jury is still out on all this. If I can find ways to incorporate some it into a workable method, great.

Terje, it irritated me that (all too typicaly) your worthwhile original post was fairly ignored, as I knew there was gold in them thar hills, and if it took the mine's train to wreck to get the town folk abuzzin', so be it.
Now, were all a bit richer.