The Steel Guitar Forum

I pretty much gave up guitar back in the 70's when I stumbled into steel. Now I rarely pick up a 6-string because my tastes have evolved way past my guitar abilities and so it's really depressing for me to hear myself play guitar. For instance, I love jazz, but can't play a lick of it on guitar.

As for 'needing' to play guitar before steel, let's remember that back in the 1930's the Oahu company had legions of door-to-door salesmen selling lap steels to every household, not just to those who already knew how to play guitar! It was all the rage at the time.

When I started playing E9th I associated it more to the piano than the guitar...except for the bending.

I took lesson for guitar and practiced a lot before I started steel. I took a college level beginning music and steel lesson, from a couple of fellows. One of them had extensive musical knowledge. I would get curious and ask questions and I would read about music theory when the internet beecam available. I had and still have no preconceived ideas. Plenty of bad habits to form. I don't play well. I sit with a group in church. very little solo. I was a late blommer. I decided early on that smoky old bars and lots of drunks and late nights wasn't for me. So here I set amazed I can play anything. My mistake was to become reliant on tab. I'm trying to correct that now. Oh yeah. I have to work for a living so I will never be an Emmons, Franklin, Seymour, or one of the regulars that post on the forum.

Curiousity has always been my down fall. If I were a cat, I would need a lotta lives. As it is, the Lord has picked me out of a lot of troubles and helped me get out of a lota things I have learned the hard way. Thing is. I have failed at neary everyting I try and at 58 I still try

Bo

from not having any music background the thing that hurt me the most was not knowing what difference it made if you followed an E with a C ( just for example) in other words i had no idea what a chord progression even was. i just thought that music was a jumble of mixed up notes . i had no idea there was an order to any of it, and as far as a chromatic scale ....you might as well been talking about a fish scale for all i knew about it.
it took time, but believe it or not little by little i'm getting there.

it is an awful lot to comprehend from ground zero

but it just goes to show that you can teach an old dog new tricks

"I once bought a guitar from Stu to learn, but it just hurt my fingers and my brain. "

my ankles were sore when I first started tryin to play steel and it definety hurts my brain still. like you said, everyone's different, thank goodness.
The fingers stop hurting after a month or so, just like the ankles did for me...the brain...well, thats another story

I'm with Stu in that i cannot relate this psg to guitar at all. The psg , however, has made me a better guitar player in that it forced me to finally learn a small amount of theory

I can't play a six string. I have often thought that I should as I see all the other steel players that I associate with do play something else with strings. They alternate instruments at the jams. I am having a difficult time learning. I am seriously thinking about taking 6 months off from the steel and learning some basic guitar. I own a six string and a bass so I wouldn't have to worry about how to get one to learn on.

This has been a good thread. Lots of food for thought. Thanks.

Tamara,

You can learn 6 string with out taking time off from your steel. I would hate to see you park your steel for 6 months, just think about how much you would miss out on!

JMO of course.

Larry

I was a 15 yr old guitar player wannabe, but didn't own one; friends had guitars, and I knew E & A form barre chords, couldn't play in time...I wanted a guitar really badly...

then I heard a steel guitar and it was all over for me. THAT was the sound I was compelled to try and make... I bought a 2 pedal 8 string Emmons student model and never looked back

The only thing I've ever played professionally has been steel. I have played with some of the finest guitarists ever, and have a guitaristic approach to steel at times, but until recently I haven't had the urge I had as a kid when the Beatles arrived

now 35 some yrs later I've bought a Telecaster (Don Rich on the Ranch shows "got"to me), but I still don't "play"... I'm with Dan T- it hurts! my left hand after atrophying horizontally on the steel bar for decades just doesn't want to cooperate in the digital dexterity department...

Maybe if I was 16 again and could practice myself to sleep like I did when I took up steel...

"I can't play a six string. I have often thought that I should as I see all the other steel players that I associate with do play something else with strings. They alternate instruments at the jams. I am having a difficult time learning. I am seriously thinking about taking 6 months off from the steel and learning some basic guitar. I own a six string and a bass so I wouldn't have to worry about how to get one to learn on."

-yeah dont take the time off, do em together. Its amazing how learning a couple unstruments simultaneously can lead to insights you wouldnt normally get on BOTH instruments. you start to see relationships and even the differences make you think about it in a way yu might not have before.

Im currently working on mando, dobro and steel (tho not working very hard I admit). Just dont take too many lessons simulatneously..that can be stressful, and expensive.

Larry Strawn wrote:Tamara,

You can learn 6 string with out taking time off from your steel. I would hate to see you park your steel for 6 months, just think about how much you would miss out on!

JMO of course.

Larry

Your so very nice to me. I would send you a hug if I could. A hug for Ben too.

I have so little time to practice. I do have a day job to feed my steel habit. To try to carve out time to learn the six-string and the steel at the same time would be a real challange. I play a mountain dulcimer and belong to a group. We have some gigs, so we get together and practice at least once a month. I have a mandolin layed away right now, I should get that in January. You are right. I would not want to give up my steel for that long. I would go into withdrawal after a week or so. Maybe I just need someone to help me organize my time better so I can do both. I would love to find a practice partner.

same boat here, no time for practice...I'm progressing at a glacial pace because of it. at one point I was driving home from work n my lunch hour just to get in 15 minutes on the steel and drive back, but I've moved farther away from work and thats no longer possible. Enjoy that mando when it comes, they are fun and beautiful sounding and hugs back to you.

Tamara,,

Good girl!!

Yeah, you have to kind of juggle your time, but it's worth it.

Larry

It's been interesting to read all your responses, and learn where everyone comes from musically. Thanks all.
I don't feel quite as alone now.
-John

I stopped playing guitar about ten minutes ago
click here to hear my strat

No 6 string guitar in this house. Playing brass instruments through school gave me at least some basic musical knowledge.

Then 30 years of drumming has helped with limb independence and timing.

Like many of you have mentioned, finding practice time for us working stiffs is tough indeed. I'm currently in a routine of doubling back to the house after dropping the kids off at school to practice an hour before I go to work. My steel playing is improving but it is hurting the bottom line!

I've played accordion,recorder, flute, harmonica, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar,dobro,lap steel , and now I'm 7 months into learning PSG. I've made quite a few bucks over the years in bars, playing lead guitar in the blues/slide and rock venue. I've always had a love for that PSG sound, and I'm gonna get it right if it kills me !!! (sometimes those who listen wish I was dead) ha ha ha
Self taught on theory and all instruments, only these days there just ain't enough time in a measley 24 hours, to get things done the way I want !!

Tamara,A couple of years ago I was visting my Ex's folks in Salt Lake City and her Dad told me that there was a guitar channel on the cable T.V. network,I said show me! so he tuned into a station that had a guy with an electric guitar and amp...first he gave you notes to tune to then there was a menu of songs,So my X's Dad said howz about Stevie Ray's "Pride&Joy" so there came this guy showing you how to play note per note like Stevie,Pretty cool stuff,Of course we don't get that up here but maybe you do,It seemed like an easy way to learn,Stu

I started out playing 6 string guitar in high school and it's now been 49 years and counting.
I feel without the guitar background my understanding of chord theory would have been slow when I took up the steel in the mid 70s.
I now split my playing time just about equaly between guitar and steel. I also play bass and mandolin and there again I use my years with guitar as my basis for chord theory.

I find myself using fingerpicking techniques on Dobro and on steel, both pedal and non-pedal, from guitar and banjo learned during the 60s. While picking out the lead I find myself rolling through the chord the same as if I were playing acoustic guitar.

I started out on a lap steel when I was about 10 and picked up bass a couple of years later. I learned a few chords on guitar but never really got good at it. Nowdays I just play pedal and non pedal steel and my bass playing is rusty.

My ineptitude at all things musical is readily and equally apparent on 6 and 12 string guitar, E9 steel, electric bass, banjo, and voice...I can hack up tone,time,taste,tempo,timbre and tune on a few instruments with the best of the bottom dregs of musicianship... bob

As I put a little more thinking time into this topic, I began to realize that many years of playing acoustic guitar, electric, and electric bass guitar has probably given me a five year edge on those new steel guitarists who are starting with no musical background on stringed instruments.

Even before sitting down at my new steel, I knew what a flat string sounded like; I knew what too much drag on the bar meant and sounded like; I knew what a mis-matched guaged set of strings sounded like; I had an ear for the finer edges of being a few pennies flat or sharp on the strings; I knew what mixed and blended well with other musicians around me and, which string intonation pitch fit with the vocalist’s voice. I even feel that playing electric bass for 45 years has given me a huge head start when it came to laying on those bottom strings on the steel. A deeper and bassier sound on the steel goes well with some songs but not others.

I am afraid that I can’t agree with those who say that it makes no difference whether or not one played other styles of guitars before sitting down to learning to play a steel guitar.

I started in music in about 2nd. grade and took lessons for about (3½)-yrs. Then nothing for (2)-yrs. Then began playing Uke when Arthur Godfrey was teaching on TV. Then I got a 6-str. guitar from Sears & Robuck and spent 7-hrs. on Sundays learning to play Rhythm-Guitar after seeing Eddy Arnold on TV, with no CAPO! I never acquired an interest in learning to play Lead-Guitar. It always seemed too complicated, for me! Then in ’48 I began taking steel guitar lessons after listening to Jerry Byrd's fantastic abilities. Then I was hooked for life on steel guitar. Now the only other instrument I use is Baritone~Uke. (Rhythm) on home-recordings. That's more interesting to me than 6-string rhythm! I still never learned any Lead-Guitar!

Played guitar since 1967, classical piano for 6 years before that, studied upright bass for about a year in college in the mid-70s, and started playing b@njo in about '93, all well before I ever touched a PSG. I think they are all complementary, and I still play guitar plenty, even though most of my gigs are now skewed to steel. I still enjoy playing b@njo and electric bass, but there are definitely limits to my time, so that doesn't happen as often.

One nice thing about guitar - it's very portable. I often bring one into work - sometimes during the semester, I put in pretty long hours. If I don't have a guitar with me, I just don't get to play at all. I'm putting together a little 8-string lap steel from a body to do the same. Taking a pedal steel on most trips is very cumbersome, so this will help there also.

I think it's helped me to be multi-instrumental, but there are always tradeoffs. When I first started playing steel, I was mostly interested in doing the "classic" pedal steel moves, and less interested in really exploring the full range of the instrument. It was an "add-on" to the guitar. But in the last few years, I am much more interested in pushing it a lot further. It's all good.