The Steel Guitar Forum

..everytime I get frustrated and think about giving this up,..I come to the pedal steel guitar forum and magically,.I read a tip or pick up some advice that gets me some encouragement to keep goin!..After reading these posts,.I was steered to the sierra lessons by Joe Wright and I couldnt wait to get practicing again!!.I love the way Joe shows different angles of s playing all at once.which really helped me see the simple things that are often overlooked or taken for granted when good players try to explain EXACTLY what they are doing...Thanks to all the members here who take the time to post both problems and answers to questions that us newbies encounter!!..I definitely would advise anyone new at this to check out the Sierra link with Joe Wright...link is a few postings above this....

One of my very early lessons was a group lesson by Joe Wright on right hand technique and pick blocking.

We must have spent 4 hours straight working on picking a string, blocking it, then moving to a different finger, then doing patterns. Then trying to work out the mechanics of difficult to pick block notes as you moved your hand across the strings. It didn't take much muscle memory training to move from out of control to good solid control. Maybe 10 hours total practice over two weeks. It's a huge jump in finesse.

There's a really good series of youtube videos of a very complete practice series. Look up Stage Volume Entertainment and lookup Steel Lab in the playlist.

Most of my practice time right now (after wayy too many years) is doing scales and melodies and runs with different roots so I can play out of different positions effectively. I switched from Universal to regular E9 to get a better handle on the use of the 9th string, which just so happens to be a pain in the butt string as a beginner, and immensely valuable once you get into reasonably competent technique. So, I'm gap filling at the moment.

I also jam over pro's playing instrumentals. It's a tremendously helpful exercise in both ear, and positional playing. I find it more accessible than tab, which is a reading skill unto itself.

I also think that use of the bar alone to strike a melody is incredibly useful for improvisational and ear training, and breaking with cliche A+B moves.

Some guys use drones to improve bar intonation