The Steel Guitar Forum

Wow, what a thread!

Rational Formal verses Subjective Expressive.

Gotta love and go with the emotional side friends!

Speedy West and Julian THarpe shared those,not to mention The Big E.

Don't play just in the dirge mode, let er Rip.

Don't stone me, I'm just a steel man.

Terry

I have showed Sarah vids to most of my musican friends and they love what she does...me on the other hand play stone faced and my wife says only when I smile or grimse she knows I have screwed up in some way

To me,passion and emotion are what the steel guitar is all about.The music must always come first,but to get work it's best to have some kind of stage presence,as long as you don't overdo it.

Dave - I like how you put that: "help the listener feel". Because there's a lot of thin lines between that and showing the listener what YOU feel. We've all seen scads of performers go too far in that! I don't know about Mr. Wilburn.... but I heard that a performer is supposed to supply the music that makes the audience feel something - not do the feeling for them. That said, "helping the listener feel" can be done with subtle cues - facial expressions, etc. As far as playing the steel - it's hard to convey those "cues" while trying to do all the things we have to do to NOT SUCK. On a recent gig, I found A WAY TO CONVEY feeling to the audience and I felt like I connected. What I did was, I kept the bar locked on a fret and forced myself NOT TO MOVE IT. So I played a whole chorus of "End Of The World" never looking at my hand but rather, looking directly at the audience, and emoting with my face, as if I were singing. Ten strings gives you alot of room to go high and low and I started my solo on ten and gradually worked my way across to the higher strings, getting up high for a nice build at the end. It was a GAS!! Not only did limiting myself to one fret make for a coherent solo musically, but it let me engage the crowd with eye contact, which makes a huge difference in how they experience the steel solo. Try it sometime!

If it does not come naturally, don't do it. Same advice for a woman faking an orgasm. It isn't worth the effort/

I had to fake one last night. Not fun, but women are so sensitive about that sort of thing.....

It's been my experience when playing with a lot of emotion, everything you play feels like it's coming out of the end of your FINGERS. You don't need any actions to describe how you feel, it would sound so good to you, that your audience will recognize your playing with a lot of emotion.

It has been my experience when playing with a lot of emotion, it feel like everything you are playing is coming right out of the end of your fingers. It is sounding so good to you, your audience will see how you feel about what your playing. Even if you do not make any movements are facial expressions. Some of you may disagree with this, but I know from experience. Willie Sims.

The elder statesman and icon of the steel guitar, Buddy Emmons, always presents the image of enjoying what you do for a living. He never makes the difficulty of doing what he does as being just a job.

It might also be worthy of note that a still photo taken out of context - such as the photo of Sarah accompanying this thread - can make a moment appear as a frozen caricature rather than the tiny slice of reality that it actually is. I've seen some horrid photos of myself - on and off the stage - that manage to capture an odd expression that only lasted a split-second, yet that's the only image that everybody sees after the fact...

Ray Walker, good friend of mine, many of you knew (deceased now) once told me, steel playing is transferring whats in your heart to your arms and hands.

I'd sure hate to hear music without it on ANY instrument.

Jim in Missouri

I think some of you have to realize that not only is Sara a fantastic musician, she is also an entertainer. Sara is mostly playing to the general public which are probably none or very few steel players. When playing to public, they want entertainment which Sara does very well. I remember Speedy West once said, Sara doesn't play the steel guitar, she makes love to it. Like some said above, if it comes natural, then by all means, show your emotion and compassion or what ever else you want to show, just keep it legal. Sara is very good at it and I think her emotions are real. Been watching her play since she was just a kid.
When I think of emotion in playing, the first person I think of is Mack Magaha who was the fiddler for Porter Wagner. Now that's also natural emotion, not with facial expressions but body language.

Hard not to like this guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdNFnLQu ... e=youtu.be

If you are playing with emotion............you are not playing.