The Steel Guitar Forum

Stefan Robertson wrote:
But I am going for Bebop goals. Arpeggios I am not going to lie but they are a beast to do at speed with string skips and more complex chords. Seems that this is going to take years of hard study.

Stefan, it's not so much about actually playing all the chord arpeggios as arpeggios per se - they are the framework, and from your posts and work on your tuning, I'm certain you know what to do musically!

Those arpeggios are just the bare bones. It would be rare for anyone to actually play them as just an exercise, outside of a practice room.

Side trip: Guy, how are you creating that lovely tablature?

Trying to adapt the work of players on other instruments to the steel is a good
exercise, even if the adaptation isn't quite convincing in translation. There is a lot to be gained by copying.

Here's an idea. Pick a tune you'd like to play. Listen to how other great musicians play it. Try to sing along with your favorite interpreter and internalize their sound. Know the changes, the melody and the words.

Don't worry about labeling the approach. If your models play more linearly, that'll come out in your playing. If they play more horizontally, that'll show up too.

However, if your eventual goal is to sound like someone else, I'm afraid you're headed for disappointment. Why would you want to do that? Don't you want to speak in your own voice? Making a convincing personal statement is the essence of jazz.

Theory always follows practice. Great music is created by human beings with heads and hearts who have something unique to say. If it sounds good, you're probably on the right track. You really have no choice other than following your own instincts, informed of course by internalizing the work of those musicians who speak to the deepest part of you. All dedicated musicians are on a path of personal discovery. Good luck and keep up!

In paragraph three, I meant vertically (arpeggio based), not horizontally (linear).

Joel Meginsky wrote:Trying to adapt the work of players on other instruments to the steel is a good
exercise, even if the adaptation isn't quite convincing in translation. There is a lot to be gained by copying.

Thanks for your input, Joel. Valuable thoughts but the goal here is not adaption of other's work but merely a means to neck familiarity.

John, the program I use is Sibelius. Along with Finale, it is the first choice for professional engravers. The good news is that it is easy to use. It is a standard in music education in highschools in my country. The bad news is the price, but also, while it's great for non-pedal, it is not great for PSG. There wasn't any work done on that by their development team before they sacked by new owner Avid. Well, not that I can see, anyway.

The A6/C6 question is interesting. It is really one of a committment that you must make at some stage if you are hoping for high level improv. The E on top is not as important as the intervals, IMO. I see on one side Byrd and (my man) Murphey, and how many others with the 3rd on top. But on the other side with the 5th on top is Lowell George (where I started), Jerry Douglas et al, Remington, Boggs, Dunn, Sol Bright, Hoopi'i and Nawahi, all the way back to Kolomoku and Kekuku. Interesting to note that Murphey eventually came across.

The value of playing from tablature is to get inside the mind of the player, to see how they're playing their lines, and hopefully get some ideas about positions and approaches. It seems to me that if you're playing in a tuning no one else uses, you get much more bang for your time to play music transcribed from other instruments, like the Charlie Parker Omnibook, and to transcribe music yourself, then finding the patterns and pockets that your tuning lends itself to.

That's really what the OP is doing in this exercise - do the same thing in your tuning, learn how the music lays on your instrument, extrapolate patterns, pockets, various graphics, play in 12 keys, and apply the concepts to improvising over tunes. This is in addition to playing technical things, scales, apreggios, and using them to improvise over tunes.

This is mainly what I do, although I also study other people's tablature, since my tuning (Bb6 12 string Uni) does have much in common with the other tunings, so I'm able to learn from other player's approaches and apply the information to my own improvisation.

It's a lot of work, for sure[/quote]

Thanks guys.

As far as copying note for note countless legends did this in fact there are so many that I can't even remember but to name a few, Buddy Emmons did, Doug, Jernigan stated multiple times - he used to slow the record down and do this, Wes Montgomery did this to name a few.

Whereas players like Andreas Obaerg/Frank Vignola took the studied approach and said they never copied note for note but rather learnt the theory and then were able to reapply faster. They said they would use different methods to come up with lines. Andreas Oberg used Modes like no one else.

Pedal Steel records tabs I wish had music.

The best Notation software I've seen for us is Tabledit. It is built and supports Lap Steel Guitar and Pedal Steel guitar. Unlike other music programs and supports custom tunings. Up to 12 strings.

Stefan Robertson wrote:
Whereas players like Andreas Obaerg/Frank Vignola took the studied approach and said they never copied note for note but rather learnt the theory and then were able to reapply faster. They said they would use different methods to come up with lines. Andreas Oberg used Modes like no one else.

That's how I tried to do it years ago because I was afraid of sounding like someone else. I have now come to view that approach as a mistake that slows down the learning process. Think of music as a language. The best way to learn a language is to imitate and converse with native speakers. Not just the words and sentences themselves but the way they are spoken - accents, tempo and inflections etc. This way you become fluent in the dialect of your choice. And no, you will not sound like the players you emulate. Just make sure to listen to a broad spectrum of improvisors. As one of my teachers Sid Jacobs used to say: Steal from the masters but don't just "loot one store". I recommend a 3 step approach of absorbing a solo or a phrase:

1. Listen
2. Sing
3. Play

The actual writing down is optional and should ideally be done last.

Btw I mentioned guide tones and surrounding tones in an earlier post. Here's a quick guide to these concepts if they are unfamiliar:
https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/blog ... d-changes/

David M Brown wrote:
I'm in the A6 camp...and you should add the incomparable Billy Hew Len to the A6 gang.

Thanks, David. I'll add Billy H in but, just for clarity, my list is not of A6ers exclusively. It is the 'Triad with 5th on top' team, be it A, G or, as with late Murphey, C.

Sorry for the topic drift, but honestly, so few of these conversations come up and when they do it's easy to get carried away.

Guy, I've always wondered what Joaquin could sound like playing with a jazz combo of his time. I can already hear it, but I wonder what kind of ideas he might come up with being put way out on a limb.

I've used bebop heads for years to get certain moves under my bar. The Bebop Lap Steel Guitar book was created for the exact purpose, not a means of learning how to play bebop (there's a ton of info already available). One guy was disappointed, saying "I already play Bird heads, what about improvising?"

Despite many attempts to get really serious about playing jazz on this instrument, I could never pass my own test. That is not a problem for me, but a blessing. It made me reach inside for something more personal and focused. But all the hard work that I did in failing is what makes it possible.

Bop on!

Here here Mike.

Bebop is my goal.

Bopping strong!

So much work to do but after watching a video with Andreas Oberg just hearing him explain each mode at rapid speed while playing does show that Bop can be achieved with modal thinking and dare I say if you can apply them like him its hard to be beat.

He far surpasses anyone he has ever played with in technical skill. Clean, articulation, metronome accuracy and speed and connecting lines.

Every time I start transcribing and I think about his videos I say damn. It CAN be done through theory.

Guy Cundell wrote: Thanks, David. I'll add Billy H in but, just for clarity, my list is not of A6ers exclusively. It is the 'Triad with 5th on top' team, be it A, G or, as with late Murphey, C.

That works for me - I am OK with the 5th or the root on top, just not the 3rd like in C6.

Mike Neer wrote:... One guy was disappointed, saying "I already play Bird heads, what about improvising?"

Despite many attempts to get really serious about playing jazz on this instrument, I could never pass my own test.

Stefan Robertson wrote:Here here Mike.

Bebop is my goal.

Bopping strong!

So much work to do but after watching a video with Andreas Oberg just hearing him explain each mode at rapid speed while playing does show that Bop can be achieved with modal thinking and dare I say if you can apply them like him its hard to be beat.

Whatever tool one uses to develop bebop solo skills, whatever method one uses to intellectualize the music, soloing at some point transcends the tools and enters another realm.

This is where LOTS of listening to the best boppers - Bird, Diz, Miles, Monk, the great innovators, and all the rest of the best players - is of paramount importance.

You need to have the style in your head before it comes out in your fingers.

I'm not sure if I consider Trane a boppers, he could play bop, but his music went beyond bop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bebop_musicians

recommended listening list

Mike Neer wrote:Sorry for the topic drift,

“Call that a thread drift? Now this… is a thread drift!”

This has been an interesting discussion that has meandered here and there. I am glad that my original intention of putting up a method of gaining neck familiarity has been seen to be useful. My description of improv as a marriage of technique and attitude is not a new one but is sums up what is, to me, an uncomfortable union of thought and feeling.

I have conflicting opinions on improv and music theory, depending what hat I am wearing. As a classroom music educator (ret.) I see the need for analytical systems that can be taught within a limited period but realize that may be undesirable consequences of the ‘music factory’ (homogeny of language, conformity of development, accelerated rather than organic development). These were not present in the development of so many of the masters. As a musicologist, I need to know the histiography of music theory and analysis and to be able to choose tools from anywhere in that toolbox for the task at hand. But as a player I don’t really want to know about any of that s**t! I don’t even want to know what key we are in. I just want to fly!

I would love to have heard Murphey in a true swing/bop band in the mid to late 40s. There are a few enticing examples of him being able to stretch out but mostly he was filling the role his employers assigned him. We have to be content with nuggets of greatness. What is so astounding is how consistently he kept fresh innovative material coming. The alternative takes that exist show how easily it flowed from him. If only he had the same command over his own destiny that Django had.

Django is actually someone to consider in this discussion. Even though he is revered as a genius, he still put his pants in the morning on one leg at a time and when he went fishing he took a pole. The longer I am departed from the classroom, the more I think he is someone to be emulated. So, not only could he not read music but he couldn’t even read a newspaper. But his ear was unbelievable! A gift? Maybe initially, but something to be continually developed. His playing style employed arpeggios predominately. For me, non-pedal steel lends itself to arpeggios more easily than scalar playing so I think his stuff provides useful inspiration for lap steel. (However, I don’t hold with the proposition that Murphey copied him extensively. There are only a few examples of that of which I am aware.)

Django played the changes often but employed various strategies. It is good to keep the broadest analysis of improv in the back of the mind: either an embellishment of the original melody or something completely new. Django used both approaches. It is also fascinating to see how his playing evolved from the mid 1930s, through swing to bop on electric. It evolves but maintains a consistency of expression, if that makes sense. It is always unmistakably him. All this with no music literacy. However, his deep understanding of sounds and their interrelationships is clear at every point. His mastery of light and shade, dissonance and consonance, intensity and relaxation are all on display, internalized and rolled out seemingly effortlessly. That’s what I want, especially the effortlessly. (‘Effortless Mastery’ by Kenny Werner is a good read and is more about meditation than technique.’)

Where am I going with this?? Ah, yes. The position exercises, while they are framed in a harmonic context, are a way of combining shapes and sound within a psychological schema which can be absorbed and learned which is can be easily divorced from the theory when accessed by the brain in the heat and fire of the improvisation process. When you enter the zone (cue Twilight Zone theme) your creative thought can access sounds more quickly, bypassing the cognitive stage of ‘what scale/arpeggio do I need’. (I think that this is what most people do when they get over the ‘cobble together licks’ stage.) This is a conscious strategy is behind my practice regimen. It is not the only method but it is beginning to work for me in my regular playing situation which is gypsy jazz. I have been at this for about three years. I stuck with dobro tuning on a 6 string for about a year and have been using A6 on 8 string since then. There are no compromises made on tempos or repertoire so you just had to jump on and try to keep up. (not unlike bluegrass but with different keys and chord progressions and no capos.) The boys didn’t expect much of me as a steel player initially but they seem to be accepting now. I feel like I am making some progress.

Onwards and upwards!

As a musicologist, I need to know the historiography of music theory and analysis... But as a player I don’t really want to know about any of that s**t! ...I just want to fly!

I like that! Reminds me of what Buddy Emmons said when he was asked "What do you think about during your solos?" He said "Nothing in particular".