The Steel Guitar Forum

Tim Sergent plays steel, banjo, and dobro with Dierks Bentley

i play 5st banjo n steel for 40 yrs or so......use the same thumb..different finger picks .....totally different line of attack .....your tone comes from your tone ring.....it might look sorta the same......but the technique is totality different.....playing both have got me a lot of gigs....good luck

Add Winnie Winston and Jerry Garcia to that list. Jerry's banjo playing was better than his steel playing. John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is a great banjo player and also plays non-pedal steel.

Since the 5-string is typically tuned to an open G, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up if you already have some chops with your right hand. (I'm going the other route, banjo player for 40 years—yikes!— and Dobro and non-pedal for maybe 20, I just bought a Stage One and really enjoying it). Give it a shot.

And heavier isn't always better, some companies, such as Deering, make banjos with grenadilla wood tone rings. They sound great and weigh about half of a Gibson Mastertone style banjo.

I think Dave Ristrim, who now plays for Luke Bryan plays steel and banjo and Chad Jeffers plays steel, dobro, guitar, and banjo with Carrie Underwood

I play 5 string banjo and steel guitar in a band. We have a pop repertoire and we twist the songs a bit to come up with some interesting interpretations. I have played banjo for most of my life and took up the steel just in the last 18 years. As previously pointed out, there are few similarities between the two instruments. In fact they are at the extreme opposite of the spectrum among stringed instruments. Nothing that I play on the banjo is readily transferrable to the steel. The banjo is by far the more frustrating instrument to learn if you are coming to the instrument in your later years. The bluegrass idiom, although rather basic sounding and structured on a lot of three chord songs, is a very challenging type of music to play correctly and at speed. The steel guitar allows and encourages you to dwell and caress a note. On the banjo, three finger style, you are moving along at a rather fast clip and unintentional dropped notes or butchered measures are very, very telling. But, once you have it down, it sure is a real kick to play. I encourage you to keep at it and join the ranks. No need to trade off your picks. Your steel guitar picks will be just fine on the 5-string. Good luck and enjoy!

I've been playing banjo and mandolin since the early 60s. If you can play regular guitar it's just a matter of learning new chord shapes and a different picking technique. Or you could go the easy way and get a 6-string banjo.

I have an arsenal of about fifty different instruments, and I can assure you that the hardest of all instruments to play is the pedal steel guitar. If you've mastered pedal steel any other instrument will seem easy by comparison. For instance, you don't have to worry about playing in tune because the frets do that for you. No having to be exact with the tone bar. And you don't have to worry about slants, because your finger positions do that. What's more you don't have to worry about the entire instrument being retuned every time you push a pedal.

I always reckon that playing a pedal steel guitar is a bit like having a typewriter with pedals that move the keys from side to side and up and down. Now try to type something.