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Posted: 7 Nov 2008 5:55 pm
by Matt Hughes
I wanted to jump in here and give my praise to Don E. Curtis. He has not only been my steel teacher for almost 5 years but also a good friend. With the help from Don, I went straight from a GFI student model to a GFI Universal and never looked back.

The transition was a lot easier than I thought. Don’s “C6 on E9” book is a must for anyone going from E9 to a Universal. Actually, all of Don’s material is a must. (I’m a little biased.) Here’s my take on the advantages of “One Big Tuning”. Today, Don and I went over pentatonic scales and it all made complete sense in both E9 and B6. From no pedals, two frets back with pedals AB is a pentatonic scale. Then one fret forward with the E lowering knee lever with pedal 7 is another. Knowing I can go from pedal 7 slurs right into A pedal slurs opens up so many different styles of playing. The example was, pedals AB are similar to a Chuck Berry sound and Pedal 7 with the knee lever is similar to that Day/Emmons sound from the 60’s. (I say similar because no matter how hard I try I will never sound like them.) Those are two sounds most people wouldn’t want to play these days but I do. I can go from B6 Boo Wah pedal, straight to A6 with AB, straight to Nashville E9 in the same lick. (I never would do that but it is possible with a Universal.)

Being fairly new to the steel guitar I still do not understand all the technical issues that go along with these machines. All I know is mine works and I finally can incorporate every knee lever and pedal in my playing.

One more thing, if it was not for Don and Scotty’s Music I would have never dared to play a pedal steel. I still remember my first lesson with my GFI student model. I brought in a Willie Nelson song with Jimmy Day playing all over it. Don just looked at me like I was crazy but he still tabbed it out. After that lesson we stuck with learning scales and what all the pedals do. Thanks Don, for humoring me that day.