The Steel Guitar Forum

Drop it into the relative minor chord and play it there in waltz time. It will be the saddest Steel Guitar Rag ever. Might not be good, but at least it will be unique (sort of).

Here is a version of mine I call the "Steel Guitar Reggae" I left the melody out in the middle so you could get the full feel of the Reggae before I went into the Grand Finale.
Click Here
I wrote Steel tab for it. I'm sure everyone will want a copy

Let me see now.................perfectly would be just as Leon played it..........right?

Joe! Wow...ha. That's about as funny as it gets...now I'm thinking I WOULD like to hear that version!

Dave,

Yeah... It might be kind of tough to keep the 3/4 time going though, huh?

JOE

A few years back I was watching an "Austin City Limits" show which featured Chet Atkins. At one point he said "Here's a song that the steel players won't play anymore, but I will!"...Then he proceeded to play "Steel Guitar Rag"... I guess I'm odd but I still like to play it and do it everytime it's asked for. I've changed it some with a different chord in the first line. Years ago I played lead guitar in a band in Huntington Beach, Ca. which had the late great Art Sanchez on pedal steel. In the first line ol' Art used a C chord instead of the A that a lot of folks use. It went like this: I---I---#V---#V---I---V---I--- ....I always liked the way it sounds with that C in there. Also after the last chorus I slide up a fret and play the chorus again in F (also courtesy of Art Sanchez)........JH in Va.

Periodically asking yourself "Why am I doing what I am doing?" is something that some people never do, and many people just stop asking after a while, because they never have a good answer. I get kinda creeped by the people who say they're "doing everything for my children", because even amoebas and trees can breed.

I know these folks and they have great hidden potential to do something worthwhile but we are wasting a couple of hours in an endeavor that would have to be rated pretty low on the scale of things necessary for existence.
I personally have trouble concentrating on whether I should use an Em7 instead of A9 and practice so the Band can be as good or better the Joe Blowhard’s Band when folks in my community are suffering and lives are falling apart all around me in these hard times.

If it's bothering you enough to post about, you probably ought to stick with it until some sort of answer pops up, but that's the kind of thing that only you'll know what to do and what is possible within your own sphere of influence. If there's a food bank in your community, they need help - can you request donations from the audience? When things are going well, there's a natural though that become entrenched that "poor people are poor because they're lazy" and things went well for a very long time in this country, so it runs deep.

Just as the Peter Gun Theme was good for my learning to play the guitar, the Steel Guitar Rag was helpful for me, playing the little steel I can play. Especialy on E9, it's good for learning how to use the open strings.
In a way I'm thankful that someone put them out.

Band practice? What's that?