The Steel Guitar Forum

What kind of musical education did Buddy Emmons have, did he study under some people, self study music theory, or was most of his knowledge from experimentation? I saw in his estate sale he had a lot of bass guitars.

I'm pretty sure it was self study and familiarity with Intervals.

But music training I would be surprised as he consulted others on what tuning to use for jazz chords.

I'm also sure if he were trained he would approach the neck based on musical notation and not intervals and tab.

What I hear in the solo is P7, with P6 added when it repeats two measures later to give a IV13b5.

Stefan Robertson wrote:I'm pretty sure it was self study and familiarity with intervals

I agree. The impression I get from Buddy's Basic C6 course is that he understood theory completely, although I don't believe he read notation. But then why would he? Most steel players don't, for the simple reason that most people who hire them don't write it. But it's a great achievement to nail theory without a visual reference, although I can attest that playing bass certainly helps.

From listening to his playing for so long, even well before I'd ever picked up a steel guitar, I can hear that Buddy had a deep understanding of the Blues and many of the variations of it that make up about 50% of jazz, as well as other song forms.

He knew the foundation of harmony, understanding the functions of chords and where they were going. In knowing this, you can cut to the chase and use a simplified method of thinking. Buddy simplified things down to his "pockets", which are like the equivalent of the way a guitarist might pentatonic scale shapes. Most of all, he knew which pockets to connect and how to connect them, and this could only come from much time spent playing and experimenting.

I am not even saying this is the only method he used, but he didn't just put his bar on the strings and go. He was hearing the stuff in his head. He knew where a dominant chord was used and how to substitute other chords for it. Knowing a limited number of useful extensions is the secret sauce. Of course, this all boiled down for brevity here, but it's taken me many years to even come to my own understanding of it.

I know that Pat Martino was an influence on him, and as someone who has also studied Martino and his concepts, I think that Buddy utilized a tool of simplifying things down to minor scales. This is really a common thing today, but when Martino wrote about it, he used his own approach to it in his book Linear Expressions.

Jazz is based primarily on reharmonization of the Blues, I Got Rhythm, and a few other tunes. If one masters these forms and all the variations, you're already in the door.

Mike Neer wrote:From listening ...
Jazz is based primarily on reharmonization of the Blues, I Got Rhythm, and a few other tunes. If one masters these forms and all the variations, you're already in the door.

Really great nugget of advice.

Mike you are lucky that we don't live nearby. I would be jamming and analysing the theory every second I could with you.

You'd have a spare couch with my name on it.

Big E!!!

Maybe Emmons did the intro on his E9 neck, and the solo on C6?

Buddy switched necks mid-song a lot

https://www.facebook.com/RonaldCid/vide ... 167159083/