The Steel Guitar Forum

I'm flabbesrghasted. In fact, my flabber has never been more ghasted, I always assumed that every steel guitarist started out on the guitar. How could anyone master the pedal steel guitar, the most complex instrument ever invented, without first mastering the guitar ? It's like going into brain surgery without ever having done routine appendicectomies. If you can't master a simple instrument like the guitar, there's no way you will ever master the pedal steel guitar.

I started out on guitar then dobro, lap steel and now pedal steel. Playing guitar gave me a good basic understanding of chords, some scales and how to figure out song keys. I'm sure I wouldn't be where I'm at without my guitar background.

I started out with a Marine Band harmonica at age six, started playing ukulele at age 13, was given a small acoustic at age 16. I bought a 48 reed bass harmonica at age 21 then two months later started playing a stand up bass for a small town country band. I still tinker around with an electric guitar but would never call myself a lead guitarist. I didn’t buy my first steel guitar until I was 63 years old.

One is never to old to learn to play new instruments.

I've played mostly electric bass for the last 40 years. Played an old Sho-Bud permanent and Dobro in a Poco/PPL cover band in the early '70s. Had a fretless bass for a few years in the late '80s. Didn't get the PSG bug again until about a year ago. Picked up a Carter S12-U a few months back and have the opportunity build my technique up from scratch again with no bad habits to forget. Forgot them years ago. Almost daily I am amazed at the amount and quality of support available now vs. my near total isolation in the early '70s.

I started taking lessons on the Hawaiian guitar in 1961 and did not learn to play a "real guitar" until 8 years later. (before that I tried tuning a guitar to open E and played using my thumb as a bar)
http://www.freewebs.com/steelman777/lapsteelguitars.htm
Dom

I find a 6-string guitar so much easier to strum casually while leaning back on the couch watching Mythbusters - compared to a D10 pedal steel...

From what I have read, I don't think Lloyd ever played 6 string guitar.

I played rythm guitar for my father as he was a fiddle player...no lead I did learn some kind of a scale a pentitonic or something. I started in a band playing electric bass and then steel.

I would think it most difficult to learn PSG without some knowledge and experience on a guitar or some instrument. I know it can be done.
I started on flat top when I was 8, then on to banjo and fiddle for a few years, then to dobro for the last 15 years. It does help...a whole lot!!!

Dennis

Add me to the list of non-guitar players. I've tried over the years, but never could maintain any interest in the 6 string. I love the sound of a nice Strat, Tele or Les Paul, but I've always preferred to get any 6 string sounds I need from the Pedal Steel. Probably accounts for my love of effect pedals and over driven tube amps.

I'm one who never played anything but a radio , and I didn't do that very well. Also when I bought my first steel at a farm sale there were not any one around to even show me how to tune it. But after 10 years and nearly driving my wife nut I still not very good but at lest she don' leave the room ever time I play now .It has been a real fun thing to do. Just wished I had started when I was younger instead of waiting until I was 50 some years old to start.

I started guitar in jr high, and steel in high school (class o' '81).

More recently, I didn't touch a 6 string guitar for about 15 years (approx 1990-2005), during my "Steel Craze" years.

I bought a Strat on a whim in 2005 and have since been expieriencing a "renewed love affair" with 6 string electric guitar.

I now own two 7-string electrics (a Carvin DC727 25.5" scale, and a Schecter Omen-7 Ex 26.5" scale).

The seven strings are a slam dunk for S12U players, as you have E & B strings on strings one and two, and six and seven. On S12U you have E & B on 4/5, 8/9, 11/12.

Anyway... the level of difficulty with regard to playing electric guitar is soooo loooowwww, compared to steel, that I find I can effortlessly shred scales, melody lines, arpeggios, chord forms and varients, etc. to the dismay of my long time guitar playing friends.

The amount of music theory related guitar instruction on line is astounding (compared to steel), and it has helped me a ton with reagrd to getting a handle on theory.
Currently I am mostly into Scales & Modes.
I love Mixolydian jams!

What a blast!

I don't.
I did for about four weeks in 73'. My mom made me take lessons. I hated it.
The teacher was an older, crabby German woman in her 50's, and had probably been a nurse for Dr. Mengele in one of Adolph's camps before that.
I was only about 12, and one day I pointed at a S-10 pedal steel that she owned, and had covered up in the corner. I said, "I wanna play that!", only knowing what it even was, from watching Hee-Haw. She said, "Oh no,no!" "You'll have to master the six string for several years before you even try one of those."
After I quit that, I didn't play anything for several years, until I saw an old MSA "Red baron" for sale at a local music store.

I had thought about flipping her the bird from the Opry stage once.

Another drummer turned musician here.

I play so bad that I don't consider myself a guitar player. Does that count? My tele spends most of its time in the closet. Yes, I did start out trying to play one but, I just had to have a pedal steel cause that's where all the coolest sounds come from.
J.C.

Alan said

If you can't master a simple instrument like the guitar, there's no way you will ever naster the pedal steel guitar

People take to instruments in different ways. Guitar seams hard to me (and it makes my fingers hurt). Pedal steel always came easy to me. It was just a natural fit, somehow.

Dan Tyack is the only Steel Guitar player that I know who doesn't play guitar,and it came as a surprise to me because Dan plays certain things that only a guitarist does,and it's hard to put into words what those things are...A lot of rhythmic things,and little grace note noises that come with the territory to guitar players but Dan was the first Steel guitar player that I met who naturally does those things on a Steel Guitar.I just love his playing,Stu

When my brother and I started togather in the 60's I learned ' little brown jug ' on the guitar and our teacher started me on the lap steel and my brother on the guitar . I have picked up the guitar a few times and its not good so I stay slidin' . We both stayed with our original instruments all this time . My brother in Florida still plays for his amusment and I still play regularly .

I used to see Toy Caldwell quite a bit in the late 70's/80's, and noted that Dans steel playing sounded alot like Toys guitar playing, to me, with regard to tone, and emphasis.
Thumbs up!

It's funny, I listen to guitar players more than any other instrument but I don't play a lick. I once bought a guitar from Stu to learn, but it just hurt my fingers and my brain. It's really hard to bend those strings, it's a lot easier on a steel....

This is interesting. I don't know how you can wrap your brain around the E9 without playing guitar first, but I still cannot wrap my brain around the C6. The ONLY way I can manage the E9 is from my guitar training.
I played guitar and sang long before I took up steel. Steel was a total accident.
Truth be known, I really miss playing guitar in a band.

My neighbors tell me that my guitar playing hurts their ears

Alan

some have said that without ever playing any other instrument is in some ways better
one of them being Jeff Newman
.. and if i remember right he said that they (we) can start with a blank slate. having no preset ideas of how to do things might even give us a slight edge
we will do it the way he or any good teacher tells us without question or doubt and this is what makes us easier to teach.
i can see where a little understanding of how music is structured would help.

My musical foray first started with the ojnab, when I was 16. Dabbled with a dobro a little, but then hit pedal steel full time after I moved back to New Braunfels (no bluegrass music to speak of in the area at that time).

Playing 6 string helped me to understand the steel but knowing music theory and having a good ear helped as much or more. I could hear what the pedals did to the notes and chords and understood immediately how it worked. Getting my head into the instrument was something else altogether.

Calvin said "I can see where a little understanding of how music is structured would help."

Now there's an understatement.
Understanding music theory will help any steel player become a musican.