The Steel Guitar Forum

I enjoy playing fiddle also

I came from the University of Bluegrass, where my major was mandolin and my minor was dobro. When I started with Ronstadt and steel guitar and electric instruments, 'grass kinda went by the wayside. Steel was my instrument and I doubled on mando and dobro.

In the mid-70's basically mando went away and my only acoustic instrument, professionally, for the last 40 years has be dobro, and not that much of that, frankly. I last did a few Michael Martin Murphey tours in 2012-2014 in which I played dobro primarily, and in the C6 tuning.

Back in '70-'71 I flirted with tenor saxophone, but not enough to take lessons or get anywhere beyond learning rhythm riffs behind classic R&B tunes.

Around age thirty I realized that the instruments I'd best be learning more about for future success were mutual funds. And that has allowed me to concentrate on steel guitar long into my dotage.

It depends on what your aims are.

Are you wanting to make millions of dollars?
If so, pick the obvious choices that will get you more gigs. When you walk into a bar or an arena what instruments do you most commonly see?

If not, learn an instrument you are really passionate about and love the sound of.

Ideally, if you can find an instrument that fits both of them categories, jackpot.

I'll always say this, learning instruments is hard regardless of what it is. Some people say certain instruments are easier to learn but they all have difficult skills to master. People say to me, "How can you play pedal steel but you can't play guitar or mandolin?"...my answer is..."I struggle at all of them".

Just joined a Modern Country band, not my favorite genre, I’m playing Steel, banjo and a Telecaster, I’ve committed to two or three gigs per month, right now they’re mostly outdoors it’ll be interesting to see what happens to our indoor honky tonk gigs.

Playing guitar will always be an advantage as is singing but if you can add lap steel or Dobro to your options there’s lots of great music using those!

Corbin Pratt wrote:What does everyone think is the best secondary instrument?

A bag fulla these weighs less than your volume pedal:

vintage...

Steel was my"secondary instrument"...

SH

It was my 2nd instrument too. Came from 6 string guitar and later lap steel. Finally pedal steel. Now it's about a 70/30 split with pedal steel getting the Lions share. That's before the Covid19 shutdowns.