'No, Not the pedal steel guitar, I hate that instrument'

[Mike Perlowin]

GO Mike! I'm sure you can "Bach" 'em into a corner!

Seriously, Forum members should be aware of the real excellence of your work.

With all due respect to Buddy Emmons (and he is due all respect) his version of the Pachobel always sounded to me like a valiant attempt to make an "inappropriate" instrument work in that setting. Interesting, but a mere curiosity. (I was coming from the point of view of a classical guitar player who has struggled with a similar perception for much of classical material converted to guitar.)

The performances of yours I've heard thoroughly integrate the pedal steel into the timbre and style of the music.

Hey, try Gaspar Sans on an old Silver National. I have...it sounds eerily authentic!

Bob, I had been unfamiliar with the name Gasper Sans, till I heard some of his music and realized that it the basis of Joaquin Rodrigo’s "Fantasia Para Un Gentlehombre" guitar concerto, and you're right. He wrote some great stuff that probably would sound great on a Dobro or national (neither of which I own.)

Your comment comparing my recordings with Buddy is the most flattering that that’s ever been said to or about me in my entire life, but I’m not fit to scrape the you-know-what off the soles of Buddy’s shoes. And while I want all my fellow steel players to appreciate my CDs, they are really intended for the classical music audience. My goal is not to introduce classical music to the steel guitar community but to introduce the steel to the classical music community.

My ultimate goal is to become the first pedal steel guitarist to become a concert artist playing for that community. Everything I’ve done for the last 20 years has been with that goal in mind, and the next step in the process is to perform with symphony orchestras. I have spent most of last year, and will probably spend most of this one, writing music for pedal steel guitar and orchestra. So far I’ve written 13 such pieces, 12 arrangements of existing material and an original composition based on a theme by Brahms.

But I think it’s going to be very difficult for me to get into the position where I will be able to do this. It’s an insular community, and I’m going to have to really work hard to be accepted by them. This audition is my first time around at getting my foot in the door. If by some chance, I get past the guy’s bigotry, I will jump at the chance to perform with him. If I do get a slot on one of his programs, I can use that as a steppingstone to more performances with other orchestras and conductors. And if I don’t get the gig, as I expect, given his attitude, doping the audition is still worthwhile for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

[Tony Prior]

So ask him, is the string section is 'Sawin' Fiddles or playing Violins" ?


Play one single note , a LOW E...

ask him if that is a Country note, a Jazz note, a Pop note or a Classical note...


have at it Mike give em' Hell..

t

[Bill Myrick]

'Remembering "Ruggsy's" run with the Bill Walker Orchestra ----- hmmmm -

[Larry Miller]

b0b wrote

Maybe you could double on banjo.

..kinda like Rusty Young did on "Crazy Eyes?"

[Tom Wolverton]

Too bad about this conductor. You need to hook up with someone like Adrian Spence. I've played clawhammer banjo in several settings, including a large 4th of July concert with the SF symphony in the bay area. Giles Apap was the featured soloist and we were backing him up. It was different for them but we all had a blast doing it.

[Bob Hoffnar]

Mike,
You may want to look into other ways to get at your dream. There are composers forums that are based on giving opportunities to new musical ideas. Write a piece for a chamber orchestra and steel and present it to schools and arts organizations. There are so many ways to get your music out there. Reduce your score to a chamber group and put on your own concerts. If they go well build from there.

I know its popular to bash the conductor around here but there is a possibility that he knows exactly what he is doing and what Mike is offering has nothing to do with what he wants. The classical world is a very different place with different objectives and skill sets.

Whatever you do don't let one guy stand in your way. Its a big world.

[Ronnie Boettcher]

I say go for it with your head as high as you can get it. When I was in school, during the warm-ups, I would warm up on country tunes with my trumpet, and french horn. The director would just shake his head, but inside, I knew he liked the versatility of different styles of music. That was when Ray Price got the boo's at the GOO, when he brought horns on stage. Go there and knock them off their feet!!!

[Roger Rettig]

Bob's second paragraph echoes my thoughts on this exactly (see my earlier post).

This conductor inhabits a different world than most of us here, and one with much more rigid disciplines.

[Brint Hannay]

The conductor is known for bringing in and featuring people who play new and unusual instruments

I'm curious--What "new and unusual" instruments has he brought in?

What would be the nature of the "audition"? Are you to play music of your choosing or his?

[Storm Rosson]

Go for it Mike you're gonna kik a*s no matter where or whom you play for imho,,,,Stormy

[Stu Schulman]

Mike,Either run him over in your Toyota or buy some bowling balls at a thrift store and fill his car with em"

[Tom Wolverton]

Stu - Raw fish, entire bodies, fill a car better than bowling balls, in my experience. : )

Often these conductors are under heavy pressure from rich benefactors, that give to the orchestra. If he brings in anything that they don't like, he hears about it and is threatened with funding cut-offs. It can get quite political at times. It might not be him, but some rich old sow that hates country music. (I'm thinking of Mrs Teasdale from the Marx Brother's movie "Duck Soup".) : )

[Stu Schulman]

Tom,I have a freezer filled with salmon!The Dallas symphony hired that guy who played the saw a few times and he brought the house down,What's the problem??

[Jake Hoffman]

You will do us all proud. May father was a classical violinist and oboe player. He was stationed in Mississippi during WW II and grew to detest so-called country music. I started playing 5-string banjo in high school, which caused some dischord (pardon the pun). He was OK with that (sort of) but asked me to please stay away from that gawd-awful whiny steel guitar. I didn't listen. He later changed his tune (again, sorry for the play on words), and became quite impressed by the range and timbre of this incredibly versatile instrument.

Carry on!

[John Haspert]

Mike, Do your very best and remember it is what it is and if they don't accept it, it is clearly their loss. My Experience has been that many of the "Classically trained" musicians do live in a different world and have absolutely no idea of what an instrument like the PS guitar is capable of or can add in the correct hands and setting. I have seen many that view it as a "Hillbilly" Instrument or has too much "Twang" etc. Consider it a very myopic opinion and move on.

As an aside, I have listened to BE's Pacabel's Canon many times. As great as it is, I would love to hear what the Master would do with it today. Don't break my bubble too quickly, I can dream for a while!

I do remember Paul Franklin and Jeff Newmann did a tune at the ISGC so years back....Jeff made a joke about the name being "Oh Ship" referring to Paul as he was perfecting it. It was beautiful classical setting. If Paul sees this, maybe he can refresh my memory of the correct title and if he ever recorded it! If no recording....."Oh Ship!"

[Jim Cohen]

As wonderful as E's Pachelbel's Canon was for it's time, it really isn't a good parallel with Mike's situation, because the Canon was multi-tracked, with Buddy playing all the parts separately. Classical music demands a very high level of real-time performance and the ultimate goal is a "flawless" performance. Even if Mike's audition performance is flawless, there's still the issue of the conductor not being familiar with the "voice"/timbre of a steel guitar and knowing what to do with it, when 100% of all the music he has trained on has used traditional classical instruments, and he has no role model for the use of a steel in classical music. Hence, he must have a greatly opened mind, great imagination and a boldness to go where very few conductors have ever gone before. Alas, he doesn't sound like the right candidate to meet that description.

[Roger Rettig]

I can't imagine he'd like the idea of what amounts to a kind of electric guitar in his orchestra either. I don't suppose he's accustomed to seeing many amplifiers from his rostrum.

Aside from that, I think that a conventionally-trained musician could be thrown by the way that pedal steel can bend a note within a chord; it's one of the instrument's main attractions to my ears, but that's just me (and a few thousand others); that sound will be anathema to a legitimately schooled classical musician.

[Don Drummer]

Gotta give the conductor some credit. He actually knew what a pedal steel guitar was. Don D

[Jim Cohen]

In fact, I would scrupulously avoid bending any notes at all during the audition. That is the one thing they definitely do not want to hear (unless, by some freak accident, it happens to be written into the score). If people hate steel guitar, that's usually the reason.

[Brint Hannay]

As I see it, the challenge is to bring something to the table that stands on pure merit, not "Well I'll be, I didn't know a steel guitar could play that."

Meaning no disrespect (quite the absolute contrary!!!) to Buddy Emmons, my feeling about his Pachelbel recording is this: (first off, I was going to say what Jim said about the multi-tracking) If I were not a person who attempts to make music on the pedal steel, and therefore is hyper-attuned to the process of playing that particular instrument--if I were just a music lover who likes classical music--and I wanted to purchase a recording of the Pachelbel Canon to enjoy, and listened to a variety of recordings looking for the one that I most valued and enjoyed, it would not be the BE version I'd choose. Minus the "Gee, it's a pedal steel he's doing that on!" factor, it's a perfectly okay rendition but not exceptionally moving.

Bob Simons's comparison to classical guitar transcriptions seems apt. I've heard classical guitarists do transcriptions of piano pieces, and while the timbre of the instrument is enjoyed by many people, and there is the "wow" factor of impressive feats of execution (impressive to anyone who has a sense of the skill level required), a player on a six-string classical guitar simply can't sound as many notes simultaneously as, sustain notes as long as, or achieve anything like the dynamic range of, a piano, and of course lacks the extensive pitch range of the piano, so as a vehicle for conveying a piece as the composer intended it when he composed it for piano, the performance is inevitably compromised. So the classical guitarist must select compositions, and achieve performance characteristics, that will survive the translation, and allow the music to shine in itself without an "asterisk" ("note: this is being played on a guitar"). The classical guitar, in other words, like any other instrument, has strengths and weaknesses.

And so does the PSG. The strengths and weaknesses of the PSG are, of course, far different from what the ignorant majority thinks they are. But to gain acceptance from a very conservatively-minded community, transcending the novelty factor is essential.

[Roger Rettig]

".....if I were just a music lover who likes classical music--and I wanted to purchase a recording of the Pachelbel Canon to enjoy, and listened to a variety of recordings looking for the one that I most valued and enjoyed, it would not be the BE version I'd choose."

I'm glad you said that, Brint! I agree with you, mind, and it's not at the top of my list of Buddy's best tracks. The truth is that the steel guitar's 'voice' - even in those skilled hands - doesn't seem appropriate in that setting.

[Mike Perlowin]

The conductor is known for bringing in and featuring people who play new and unusual instruments

I'm curious--What "new and unusual" instruments has he brought in?

What would be the nature of the "audition"? Are you to play music of your choosing or his?

Brint, I am under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that in the past the instruments featured include a hammer Dulcimer, and a Bouzouki, and at one time he brought in a mandolin quartet.

I get to choose which piece I will perform. (I only get one.) I’m going to play “Reverie” by Claude Debussy, which I played in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. It’ a beautiful tune that lends itself so well to the steel that it’s almost as if Debussy wrote it with the instrument in mind. (Debussy died about 20 years before the pedal steel guitar was invented.)

I have two more pieces prepared on the off chance that the conductor changes his mind and asks me to do another. The Gershwin “Blue Prelude” from my first CD, which you can hear at my web site:
http://www.perlowinmusic.com/GershwinPrelude2.mp3

and the Bourrée that you can hear on Charles Tilly’s wonderful site:

http://www.etsga.org/mikeperlowin_Bourree.mp3

Aside from playing, I’m also required to bring in an arrangement and parts for all the musicians. A different conductor who is far more sympathetic, (and far more successful and important than the guy I will be auditioning for,) once told me that often people approach him about performing, and want him to write their arrangements. He said that’s an instant turn off, and before I make any overtures to anybody, I need to have all my arrangements done. As I mentioned, I spent most of 2010 writing rather than playing.

I need to make this guy my friend. As I said, there’s no fanatic like a convert. I want to convert him and have him enthusiastically introduce me to all his friends, taking the credit for having discovered me.

Wish me luck.

[Bob Simons]

...And of course I forgot to mention, as others have pointed out, that ELECTRIC is anathema to a concert orchestra. It may be no offense intended to pedal steel in particular at all.

The primary mission of most such orchestras to create credible recreations of past musical triumphs. Not necessarily to break new ground in off-beat interpretation.

(Wow! For stodgy adherence to traditional arrangements and techniques this conductor sounds like a Forum member!)

Of course we rarely see crum horns, and we hear listen to the piano ouvre on modern instruments that are vastly more expressive than Chopin played on. THere is of course some experimentation. I've heard our Kansas City Symphony play "modern classical" compositions with Terry Riley twanging rebar and klanking Coca Cola bottles....but I've never seen an electric guitar on a concert stage. THe deep grounding in the sound of naturally produced notes would make electric amplification difficult for the classical ear.

And frankly, the main appeal of playing EXISTING classical rep is the "Gee! What is that instrument?" Otherwise there is little reason to be exotic for the sake of exotic.

I agree you might do better to pursue your new compositions in the classical style. There might be more opportunity from that angle.

[Mike Perlowin]

In fact, I would scrupulously avoid bending any notes at all during the audition. That is the one thing they definitely do not want to hear (unless, by some freak accident, it happens to be written into the score). If people hate steel guitar, that's usually the reason.

Jim, it's not a matter of not bending notes, but rather not bending them inappropriately. It's a question of knowing when and when not to do it. There are two places in Reverie where I pick strings 4,5,and 6 and then stomp on the A and B pedals, and the lick doesn't sound at all out of place in the context of the piece.

Remember, this is my first time playing with an orchestra, but I now have some experience performing with my chamber music trio for classical music audiences who are for the most part unfamiliar with the pedal steel guitar. The audiences at the trio's concerts were overwhelmingly fascinated and enthralled with the sound of the steel, including the pedal bends, and the way it blended with the viola and cello. The mere act of bending and using pedaling sounds is not in itself a turn off. On the contrary, when done sparingly, judiciously, and appropriately, it's a crowd pleaser.

I've giving this A LOT of thought in working out my arrangements. I want to be true to the nature of the music, but also true to the nature of the pedal steel guitar. I think I've found that middle ground where what I'm doing is true to both.

[John Billings]

Mike!
Take your fuzztone and a wah wah pedal! Fur shure! 8^)

I've actually gotten recording gigs because I could play the part of a string trio. And the artist and producer liked the fact that I could "bend" notes. But those gigs weren't Classical Music recordings.