The Steel Guitar Forum

People have been sliding smooth objects over strings since the beginning of time (or at least for the past 500 years )

Example: The Brazilian instrument, the Berinbau looks like a bow and arrow with a gourd attached. It's played by sliding a piece of metal over the single string of the bow.

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Gerald Ross
'Northwest Ann Arbor, Michigan's King Of The Hawaiian Steel Guitar'

Gerald's Fingerstyle Guitar Website

<SMALL>Yes, there are accounts of African one-stringed instruments being played with hard objects, etc., but that's not the same as bottleneck guitar.</SMALL>

True, they are more like a mountain dulcimer than a guitar in terms of tone and single melody string.

W.C. Handy does talk about hearing a man playing a guitar with a knife in Tutwiler, Mississippi in 1903, and that's when he(W.C. Handy) claims to have discovered and invented the blues.

Know one really knows for sure when people started playing bottleneck style on a six string guitar, but accounts of blues players(even before WC Handy invented it) in the south were playing with knifes and other objects around the same time frame(late 1800's) that Kekuku was using a bolt on his guitar in Hawaii.

I'm sure that someone somewhere slid something over the strings way before any of them. It's just that guitars back then had gut strings and they just don't lend themselves to sliding on.

Well, I'm definitely no musicologist or ethnomusicologist (although with the size of my record collection I could be mistaken for one), or purist, for that matter. All I know is, if it sounds good it is good.

Some of the things I've read here on this forum about guitarists, vocalists, etc. have made me realize that I don't have alot in common with many steel guitarists here. I dunno, maybe because I'm a guitarist at heart? If I'm not making music, I'm not happy, no matter what instrument it is.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>If I'm not making music, I'm not happy, no matter what instrument it is.
</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Same here Mike !

It's just part of our culture I guess. Who's better than who, who plays faster, prettier, what guitar sounds better than which other? Compete compete compete. Little league parents beating up umpires and embarrassing their kids in public. Win win.
We were all going to die after Elvis came along and we didn't. Then it was the Beatles, and we survived.

If there was some sort of way to remove the competition from music, and just listen to it, if it doesn't move you, move on. It's not proprietary. Once you play the note, it floats out to space and continues forever, at least that what the physics teachers say. There are some genres of music I really can't tolerate personally, but do I have the right to denigrate them and say they're less than they are? I don't think so. I don't want that job. I'm not qualified. All I know is if it sounds good to me at that place and time, it's good music. I don't care about labels.

Slide guitar in the right hands sounds good to me, so does steel guitar. So does standard guitar. Even a banjo in the right hands can make good music, and an accordian. Even a harmonica.

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Minds work like parachutes. It's best when they're open.

One of the things I find facinating is the aspect of horizontal development and parallel evolution related to instruments and music. Perhaps not the technically correct definitions - but here's what I mean:

horizontal development := instead of growth in a vertical path, like moving up in your job - you step off the track and do something completely different with what you have. Step around limitations and then move up. Step outside the box if you will.

1) Rap music and the concept of scratching. They took a record player and turned it into a musical instrument! - brilliant! aka 'scratching'. The art of the turntablist.
2) steel guitar - someone (Hawaiians, bottleneckers, etc.) took an instrument meant to be fretted, and developed a completely different way of playing it.
3) digital sampling, digital manipulation and playback of sound
4) artwork that is a musical instrument

Parallel evolution := something splits off from a population and develops in a different way, but retains similarities.

1) pedal steel from lap steel
2) altered tunings on guitar (and steel)
3) electric guitars
3) player pianos, MIDI
4) blues, jazz, rock, country

In the last 10 years.....

What was the last new instrument invented that is widely in use to make music?

What's the last major shift that took music in a new direction?

What's next!?


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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon"
www.book-em-danno.com

You have some good points, Chris. But I just can't accept that "Scratching a turntable" is music or that it has "evolved" into a musical instrument.

Nor is the practice of "sampling" (another word for stealing just a little bit) is really music.

To put these activities into the same class as the other two evoltions" is quite a stretch!

<SMALL>But I just can't accept that "Scratching a turntable" is music or that it has "evolved" into a musical instrument.</SMALL>

While this style isn't exactly my cup of tea, I have to say that I've heard some of these "turntablists" do rhythmic stuff that's right up there with the best percussionists.

<SMALL>Nor is the practice of "sampling" (another word for stealing just a little bit) is really music.</SMALL>

Sampling is a lot more than just lifting (or stealing, if you like) stuff off records. It can be used in a very creative way to make sounds and 'soundscapes' that would have been impossible to create otherwise.

Remember that beneath all the superficial stuff heard on MTV and elsewhere on TV and radio, there's always a whole lot of interesting, serious artistry going on. Including everything from steel guitars to turntables......

("Minds work like parachutes. It's best when they're open." - I loved that one! )

Steinar



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www.gregertsen.com

I just have to mention Sonny Landreth when it comes to doing interesting things with slide. His "behind the slide" technique on 'slide guitar' (as in the usage we have in this thread) opened up a lot of doors for me in open E tuning. I agree with everyone who feels slide spanish style and lap style steel (and of course pedal steel) are all >>>very<<< different animals, each with its own particular beauty and inherent strengths and weaknesses.