The Steel Guitar Forum

It kinda reminds me of the old saying: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Someone can hand me some tablature for the solo to "Together Again" and I can practice it until it sounds very nice, but I haven't really learned very much. Mr. Steiner made a good analogy with learning a foreign language, but I'd go a step further - it'd take an eternity to learn every possible phrase in another language, so you're better off taking the time in the beginning to decline your nouns, conjugate your verbs and sort out your ablatives.

Is it just the jargon that strikes you as daunting or off-putting for the beginner? I can understand that, and if someone seeks clarification, they should post a follow-up. I just think it might be a bit counter-productive to dance around concepts as a way of protecting some who might be predisposed to throwing in the towel. Determination and perseverance is the key to success in anything.

Someone can hand me some tablature for the solo to "Together Again" and I can practice it until it sounds very nice, but I haven't really learned very much.

i totally agree with that statement
just as tabs are a tool so is theory
i simply think that if you answer a simple question in such a way that the one asking the question can't understand the answer what did you accomplish? maybe just maybe, you made the guy feel real stupid and you feel real good about yourself because you proved to the world how damn smart you are but you haven't helped anyone

I agree there can sometimes be an element of back-patting in some replies. I guess the main argument I'd make regarding this topic is that a forum question serves two purposes - to get the question answered for the original poster and, maybe more importantly, to have the question answered for anyone who views the thread or searches it in the future. If a response is too gibberishy or self-congratulatory, then the original poster should reply asking for someone to elaborate or clarify. But there's also a good chance that other people with a similar question will read the thread and get more out of an answer loaded with theory jargon than a simpler one.

Calvin Walley wrote:i have no intention of getting bogged down in the theory end of this again, .....
i got into this to play the guitar not spend my time studing music , again don't misunderstand me i do think studing music is a worthwhile endeaver, i had just rather be playing

Calvin.....studying music theory and playing music are not mutually exclusive. If anything, they reinforce each other.

You study theory a little..... then go play steel for a while. At some point, the theory and the playing come together

i simply think that if you answer a simple question in such a way that the one asking the question can't understand the answer what did you accomplish? maybe just maybe, you made the guy feel real stupid and you feel real good about yourself because you proved to the world how damn smart you are but you haven't helped anyone

Maybe, though, the person who asked the question should forget about thinking in terms of "Am I smart or stupid" and think instead "This person's answer uses words I don't know the meaning of. It would be worthwhile to learn what those words mean".

Music "theory" is nothing more than a collection of words to describe stuff that happens in music. It's truly not all that complicated, it just sounds that way when you don't know the words yet.

If you asked a mechanic to explain what's wrong with your car, he's not putting you down or puffing himself up if he refers to the "cam shaft". That's what it's called--it's not his fault if you don't know that. Yes, if you then say "What's the cam shaft" he should understand that you're unfamiliar with the term and explain it to you. But it makes sense to FIRST say it in the economical way that works between people with similar familiarity with the subject--it's the most efficient way to communicate--rather than start with saying "There's a problem with this funny-shaped thing that..."

Calvin Walley wrote:my favorite Quote from Jeff Newman is found on page 1 of his book " an E9th chord dictionary"
it is as follows

"Many times the music theory and the notes complicate things so badly that players throw up their hands in frustration, it just is not nessary to know the notes if you know where the chord is and how to use it . simple is better is it not ?"

Knowing where the chord is and how to use it is theory. "Theory" is just a word for "how to think about making the right sounds" or "how to organize what I know about making the right sounds". Knowing that a C scale can be transposed to other keys, or that a melody learned in C can be played in another key, is theoretical knowledge.

& yes, simple is better. The most powerful and most useful theories are the most simple.

& also, yes, music can be confusing and scary. That's part of what makes it so compelling.

& finally -- there's nothing wrong with knowing stuff and learning more stuff.

quote

studying music theory and playing music are not mutually exclusive. If anything, they reinforce each other.

while that is true, i think during the 1st year or so it is very easy for the raw beginer to get so lost in the theory that it can complicate learning the basics
remember way back when you had to look down at your foot to see if you were on the right pedal all the while trying not to get your fingers tangled in the strings ..yea we have all been there
this was not the time for theory or complicated answers
it is during this time that i am talking about
many time's the newbie is at this point when he asks a question and get a complicated answer
if the guy/gal has say a couple of years seat time yea then give him the complicated answer
and yea i know some will be ready for the complicated answer in 3 months but most are not

There are two things I want to mention.

First, while I strongly advocate learning music theory, I agree that it’s better to learn to play first and learn the theory later. That way when you learn about something that you can already play, it becomes easier to understand. The section in the steel guitar supplement I give out that describes how the pedal changes relate to the concepts in the book, talks about things we all have played since the day we took up the instrument.

The second thing is that you can’t read without being able to recognize letters, or learn arithmetic without being able to recognize numbers. Likewise, you need to be able to read music well enough to recognize what the notes are. That doesn’t mean you have to be able to look at piece of sheet music and play it, but you will need to be able to look at something like this;



and say “that’s a C”. This is the equivalent of learning the alphabet. The entire first lesson in my book is all about teaching people how to recognize these kinds of symbols.

It's not hard, merely foreign to many of us, and a little scary to some. And certainly few, if any of us will ever be required to read on a gig. But knowing theory, knowing the relationships between the notes in scales and chords and how they function, (and what they sound like) will ultimately make you a better player, and in order to understand this stuff, you have to be able to read the symbols it's written in.

Calvin, just because you are playing and ignoring the practical theory of it all doesn't mean you are not playing within the boundaries of theory, you are, but you are ignoring it. As soon as you ask "What key" you are now into the basics of theory.

We are mostly not theory experts here, we are practitioners of basics. TAB is like a road map, it tells you how to play a song but doesn't actually tell you anything about the music. It's like a road map from your home to the grocery store. Take a left, then a right, drive 1/4 mile, take a left , another right and there you are. To get home reverse the directions.It doesn't give you street names.

A very small amount of understanding (consciousness) and connecting the dots allows you to make a few changes and find a new way home, or a few new ways to the store and then home. You learn the street names and remember them. You don't need the map anymore.

You may very well be playing a 3 or 4 chord Country song and ignoring the theory of it all,maybe even saying you are not using any theory, but that doesn't mean the theory doesn't exist. It's right there in front of you, basic and simple,if you choose to recognize it and unlock the power of the basics then that's a different issue.

The problem with most music teachers is that they don't teach music, they teach an Instrument. Drum teachers have it right, they teach rudiments and para diddles first.

I suspect you have run into a very lazy teacher along the way, come to my house, I will unlock the power in less than an hour. No charge.
t

PS, with regard to Jeff Newman and what he said..

he also said

"Give me the key to the song and I don't need anything else, I'm there ". Meaning apply all the basic theory concepts to the Pedal Steel. I suspect that's where most of us are.

I've been going through Ted Greene's guitar chord books lately. What he shows you, in TAB, is that an A7b5 chord moved up ONE fret becomes an Eb7b5 chord. What he doesn't tell you is that in the notes of the A chord, the root becomes the new b5, the b5 becomes the new root, the 3rd becomes the new 7th.... without knowing the theory, I wouldn't know how to also apply it to a steel guitar*. Since I can figure out what's happening, I can use that knowledge in other places.

Ted Greene delights in these sneaky voice-leading position "tricks" - except they're only tricks if you don't understand them - applying the theory makes them applicable all over the place. There are dozens of these things in his books.... I'd rather read "The Jazz Theory Book" by Mark Levine or "Thinking in Jazz" by Paul Berliner than watch TV or smoke crack or something similar, and it's just ducky when something unexpected connects. [insert duck emoticon/]

*(it's a dirt-simple tritone substitution that can be tied with a whole-tone scale, but then - how would anyone know that?!? )

Calvin Walley wrote:
i simply think that if you answer a simple question in such a way that the one asking the question can't understand the answer what did you accomplish? maybe just maybe, you made the guy feel real stupid and you feel real good about yourself because you proved to the world how damn smart you are but you haven't helped anyone

What you have seemed to have described here is a pretty incompetant teacher, Calvin.

A teacher should be able to break down the subject at hand so the raw beginner can absorb the information well enough to develope a "foundation" with which to continue to build upon, thus advancing. Stupid or smart, everyone advances at their own speed(ability).

Now someone who is always challenging the teacher raises another question.
1) are they challenging the validity of the material being taught, such as the teacher's credentials to explain? What the teacher's not worth listening to and believing??
2) or meeting the challenging the material presents because of a hunger to learn more and more, and trying to learn what the teacher has to say.

You can't teach anybody anything, if they do not want to open their mind and learn. They will always be making excuses why it's not presented perfect enough for them to "get it". You can learn from anybody if you have an open mind. If you have a closed mind, Buddy Emmons himself couldn't teach you.

This topic kinda reminds me of a little kid who won't eat his broccoli and throws a tantrum. He eventually does eat his veggies(assuming he doesn't train his parents by getting THEM to give in first!!) so he can go out and play(gratification), but it will be a long, long while before he understands the VALUE of a balanced nutritional diet and it's benefits to the human body. Meanwhile, he spends years eating his broccoli, so he can achieve the (realistic goal to him at his level) of getting done with it so he can go out and play. He didn't have to totally learn everything about broccoli, and yet he actually DOES survive!! Imagine that.

We didn't learn a bunch of music theory, and then by chance, happen to decide to go learn pedal steel guitar so we could EXPRESS all that musical theory. No way. We all heard some cool riffs(Together Again, Teach Your Children, ect) played on the pedal steel that captured our interest, that challenged us to go figure it out. Most of us have started that way, and have eventually come to the point of actually "saying the word THEORY", and maybe start investigating the posibilities that become available by LEARNING a little theory here and there.

The best way to keep your music sounding beginner basic and simple sounding the rest of your life, is to ignore theory, and ignore and continually challenge the advice of those who have figured it out. Guys like Prior, Steiner, Davis, Green, Emmons, Carp, Hinson, b0b, and a horde more.

Where do YOU want to be 5 years from now? Still sounding like the beginner you were when you started and dream about playing competantly and with much depth and musical texture like your steel guitar heros? Or do you want to BE the competant player in those dreams, helping beginners.

If you STILL don't get it, I'll break it down to you further yet if you need. "Shut up and eat your broccoli!!"

James Morehead wrote:

This topic kinda reminds me of a little kid who won't eat his broccoli and throws a tantrum. He eventually does eat his veggies(assuming he doesn't train his parents by getting THEM to give in first!!) so he can go out and play(gratification), but it will be a long, long while before he understands the VALUE of a balanced nutritional diet and it's benefits to the human body. Meanwhile, he spends years eating his broccoli, so he can achieve the (realistic goal to him at his level) of getting done with it so he can go out and play. He didn't have to totally learn everything about broccoli, and yet he actually DOES survive!! Imagine that.

In other words, eating Broccolli is A WAY TO SURVIVE.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I don't like broccoli and I don't eat broccoli and I have made it this far ! So far so good !

t

"Waiter...."

The architect Mies van der Hohe was the champion of 'Less is more.' He learned it all, and then learned what to leave out to let the building express its simplicity.

I've never just played the melody; the melody note was in there somewhere, I just started leaving out things. I think 'less is more' is leaving out all but the essentials.

But I could never live on broccoli alone

Calvin Walley wrote:... then i started asking what note this or that was that he had just played his answer ....

Now that's music, how you communicate it.
Anything else is dancing about architecture.

Children---CHILDRENNNN!! Class is in session!! Now, don't make me set you in the corner and feed you with a slingshot, now!!
You KNOW how you hate green-teeth!!

I'm sorry, that's Mies van der Rohe.
He wouldn't take kindly to me calling him a Hohe.

but, before you can come to the conclusion of what to leave out, don't you have to learn it all ?

Tony, Sometimes it's like trying to chase wild cows through a new gate.

A guy was asked by a kid, "What ya draggin' that log chain for? That looks heavey and hard to do." The guy says, "Hey Kid, you ever try pushing one?"

As the old saying goes,there are two sides to every coin.At about 9 years of age when i started studying piano i had a female teacher who had grauduated from a conservatory of music.I learned to read music and of course,music chord theory.Later i took up violin (fiddle)and had a teacher.
My violin teacher once asked me if i was reading what ever song i was on at the time or playing by ear? I was playing by ear but didn't admit it to her.It was much faster for me to learn a song by ear if i had heard it.This was years befor i learned i had been born with perfect pitch ear and what it was.
So now,a few years later i was trying to learn country steel.Knowing theory did help me learn chords on the C6th.
When i was on the E 9th,one night Tommy Morrell asked me what strings the 9th was tuned to.I had no idea.I got busy and learned.lol.
He told me many steel players that were very good didn't know either.
So IMO the bottom line is what style of music one wants to play.If country,forget the goobley gop about theory and play the thing.If heavy stuff on the C6th learn theory so as to figure out what makes chords.
As any musicians who were born with perfect pitch ear know it can be a curse.One does not have to know chords to play a fiddle,only the notes.Here comes the catch.For instance,when i play Color My world or any pop,classical piece,i have to remember the chords which slows me down until i can remember them.This was some what a mystery to me until i was once told by a teacher i thought in chords,not notes.
If i had it to do over and was going to play country i would either learn to play by ear and throw all the tabs,ect away if i had any.
The fact is a person is born with an ear to play music or they are not.Sure a violinist in an orchestra is reading and playing by written music,but how can they play on key if they have no ear for music?
I sure hope i am not confusing any one as i do not know how to explain it any better.Just get your steel out and pick,if you are fortunate enough to know a good steel player who will help you,you are on your way.Tracy
I gotta go take some asprin.
I could also use some typing lessons.

b0b,may i ask if you had a teacher when you was learning banjo,or did you do it on your own? Hope this is not a too personal question.Trcy

I can take you fishing. You can ask me where you should cast to catch a fish. I'll tell you "let me tell a a bit about where the fish hang out, when they are there and why they are in those spots". You say "no--just show me where the fish are". I sigh and say "ok, behind that rock, over there in the eddy by the log and probably over by the other bank in the shade of that tree. But let me tell you why because tomorrow it's gonna rain and they will be somewhere else. Also, if you learn when/why/where you will be able to carry that knowledge to other streams and know where the fish are". And you say "no--just point to the fish and leave me alone".

Fine. Just don't drag other beginners into this discussion as if you were doing them a favor. Just the opposite. They should observe your persistent attitude (you went off on this same subject quite some time ago---if you had chosen to study on the basics of music theory all this time then you would know by now how valuable it is instead of continuing to find excuses for not learning it) and they should listen to the wisdom of the working musicians on this forum. Theory doesn't mean learning every upper tension chord substitution in the book. But it does mean knowing what to do when someone tells you that the song is in A and that you will hold the 5 chord for a two bars before the turnaround, then 3-6-2-5 and back to the top------that is all you need to know to know the chords. This stuff is not difficult to learn. If one is frustrated and just can't get it....either the teacher/book/lesson is failing or there's just a mental block. Keep at it. It will come.
Or don't. And chose to NOT talk music language with musicians.

edit---my apologies to Nathan for riffing on his idea without giving credit.

Nathan, Calvin...
I think that the culprit you and others may overlook, is that it is at times difficult to answer a question without going back to the foundations of what one tries to explain. When trying to say something, one needs to build his response up from some kind'a base. Not really knowing the level at which a particular OP is, further complicates things.
Furthermore, most of us are not really teachers and have our limits as to how to express our ideas and opinions in an effective manner in a short written format.
And finally, some of us my strive to respond a little more globally, so that the answer may address questions and opinions which have lingered around... after all, a Forum like this one is read by so many.

Calvin, I have tried to share my opinions and findings with you and I can understand that you may not subscribe to what I proposed to you in the past. There are other opinions, ideas, theories and approaches around which may at least be as correct as mine and in many cases posted by people who will most likely know much more than I do, inclusively be far more successful or better musicians than I ever will.
But, as I do continue to read your posts too, one thing I seem to observe is, that you have not yet settled on ONE "school" and rather tend to jump on "this", "that" and then the "other" as options, opinions, directions and theories keep on being presented to you. Must maybe, this is the root of your confusion?
I could relate, after having lived in a steel guitar vacuum far away from the US and long before the internet, I bought up most every course, literature and tried most every approach proposes and suggested I could get my hands on after finally being able to have access to it all, until I decided to STOP and choose ONE and dedicate my energy to that one only for a good while.
You know or may remember my proposed approach and you have tried tablature, read various theory approaches or toy with the idea to follow the advice of the few who can "read" like our Mike Perlowin... I think all these "methods" do have their validity, even thou I have strong feelings especially against one (no, I won't again here... don't worry ) but you need to settle on ONE route and explore it exclusively and with dedication for a good while, until you master it before thinking about trying something else.
If you follow the musical biography of so many of our greats and idols, you will find that they have changed routes too, even switched over from one to the other, but mostly never until they've gained proficiency on the previous one.
That will, so I predict, also enable you to see thru other theories, approaches and opinions about them more easily.

Well, here you got another over lengthy post.

... J-D.

guys

as sometimes happens this has started to focus on me and is not what i intended when i started this post
i started this post only to maybe get some people thinking about how they respond to the guy that is still trying get past the 1st couple of months at this strange contraption and needs the most basic answers to the most basic questions without confusing or scaring the poor guy
if in any way i offended any of you i am truly sorry that was never my intention
i guess being that i'm only 6 years into this i still feel like i understand just how easy it is to get frustrated and i also remember that sometimes in the 1st few months how easy it is to feel overwhellmed with to much well intended information
when you are still at the stage of just trying to figure out how to tune the thing let alone make any sense of it
i did not mean in any way shape form or fashion to imply that at some point theory was not needed and i understand that point comes faster for some than for others
but the poor guy that asks how do i go from a C to a G7th most likley is not ready for a complicated answer that was all this post was supposed to be about

J.D.

don't sell yourself short ,, i did learn a lot from you , i think your a hell of a teacher

Calvin Walley wrote:
i started this post only to maybe get some people thinking about how they respond to the guy that is still trying get past the 1st couple of months at this strange contraption and needs the most basic answers to the most basic questions without confusing or scaring the poor guy

I don't see such a problem, but that's to not say that it could not occasionally be the case. I DO think most folks do well with their instruction and they progress well. I doubt there really IS such a problem. The several who have coached ME were plenty clear in their instruction to me. Those I have helped seemed to do pretty well. Just my opinion.

Calvin Walley wrote:J.D.
don't sell yourself short , i did learn a lot from you , i think your a hell of a teacher

Thanks, I am no doubt flattered by your kind words and happy to know you could find some of what I posted of interest to you, but I am not a teacher, MY TEACHER however IS and I think I have tried to make it a point to refer to him every time I could.

Calvin Walley wrote:....
... but the poor guy that asks how do i go from a C to a G7th most likley is not ready for a complicated answer that was all this post was supposed to be about

Actually, I beg to disagree on this one.
You see, who ever asks how to get from C to G7 may, to many of us, have missed a point which may make us suspect that his next question may be "how do I get from an E to a B7th?"
So, to resolve that question, if I'd choose to try to respond, I would indeed try to go back an build up from the root of the underlining issue, which in my opinion is; how do we get up a 5th, as from a I to a V7 or even from a IV to a I and so forth. The aim being, not to limit myself at handing out a "band-aid" but to help a student into a more universal (not meaning the u-tuning) resolution.

First, I'd try to make the "theory" or better yet the mathematical relationship and repeatability obvious and then try to demonstrate it's multiple basic applicability on PSG.
Sure, this will undoubtedly result in a much longer post than to say:

Play 5&6 with pedals down on the 3rd fret,
while letting it ring slide back to the 2nd fret while releasing A&B
and slide right back up to the 3rd fret (no pedals),
then to the 5th fret to finally end on the 6th fret (pick),
keep on sliding up to the 8th fret,
then the 10th fret adding A&B again (pick)
and (optionally) slide back down to the 8th fret releasing the A pedal only (B stays depressed)
(Later releasing the B pedal resolves back to C).

I just wrote this... and when I look at it, I marvel... it makes no picture!. The reader may print this out and decide to erect a billboard with this phrase in front of his guitar and practice until he hopefully got the phrasing right, and then what? Good luck!

This is a simple little phrase using only A&B, saying nothing, yet it includes so much which is applicable elsewhere and in all 12 keys.
Without explanation and even worse described using fret numbers instead of fret movements, it has little to no educational value. In other words, the writer wasted his and the OP's time just tossing a bone at the reader... a lick, a phrase, in my opinion, nada, zip, zilch.

Just like most who participate on here in a constructive manner, I am not selling myself nor my posts on here. If I'd be selling anything, yes sure, I could print a book titled "100 & 1 ways to get from C to G7" and unload a ton of them @ $9.99 a piece at the the big conventions , but then, I don't.
Why not? Because I am doing this for a selfish reason . For the last years until this past month of March I had quit playing PSG and exiled myself to non pedal, didn't even have a PSG anymore. I do love to help, but I found that the time invested in trying to do so, helped me a great deal not only to keep my PSG map active in my brain -it's brain training- but even to progress on the way. I closed my eyes and wrote. And on the way, I even believe to have progressed in my mastering of the English language. It's true. I am thankful some ask questions which trigger my interest.

So, it's been MY privilege.

... J-D.