The Steel Guitar Forum

Thank you Paul Franklin, for this bar hand exercise. One is never too old to learn something new. And I will keep learning until I die.
Tommy Shown

Richard Damron wrote:This needs to be bumped to the top.

Here it goes.

I agree

Paul, Thumbs up mister

Great exercise...thanks !!!

I love this forum!

I'm relatively new to steel guitar but I have already figured out who some of my idols are, and to think that they themselves post up advice and thoughts on this forum blows me away.

Thanks Paul and thanks everybody, this forum is wonderful and it's made me love being a steel player!!!

Hi Paul,
Tips you've posted in the past have helped me a lot too. A while ago you said a player's hands will do what his or her brain tells them to do and the key is knowledge. That statement made me study, analize and diasect everything I learn anymore and has been tramendously helpful to my progress. Thanks so much. Don

Thanks,Paul......Can't wait to try these exercises!

Thanks, a lot, Paul. stevet

George; According to my calculations, I think on your C6-Tuning, your Base Note would be (G). I could be wrong, but; according to the E9 exercise starting on the (F#) 2nd.-tone of the [E]-scale, I believe I'm correct! (A) is the 2nd.-tone in the key of [G]-scale.

Back in January 2010 Sonny Jenkins asked if someone could post a sound clip of what this exercise sounds like. After a year I still haven't seen one. Purty please. Anybody??

Yet another bump for this great exercise!

Paul, thank you sir.

A belated thanks from me too, Paul.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think there is a lot more going on in Paul's exercises than meets the eye. Or should I say "ear". First, they are teaching "interval training". Hearing the different intervals between the frets. Second, they are teaching "muscle memory". Feeling the different intervals between the frets. Third, they are teaching strict rhythm or time-keeping. Fourth, playing along with a drone or chord shows you harmony or dissonance (the opposite of harmony).

If you get really good at the exercises, and want to see how muscle memory works, play the exercises with the drone or chord and your eyes closed. It's not as hard as it sounds.

Last, (I know Paul doesn't recommend this) try to play the exercise by picking the steel up between each interval and see how close you cen get to the desired fret with your eyes closed. That's "muscle memory".

Thanks for the recent bump to the top on this one.
I have been doing this drill as a warmup for a while now since originally posted.
Thanks Paul!

One thing I have added to the exercises is not stopping at fret 12.
The upper frets are very hard to get accurate bar position for many new players like me.
I like to do these exercises in increments for variation, going past fret 12.
For instance:
0-3-6-9-12 played ascending (TF)
12-9-6-3-0 played descending (FT)
0-3-6-9-12-15 (TF)
15-12-9-6-3-0 (FT)
0-3-6-9-12-15-18
18-15-12-9-6-3-0
0-3-6-9-12-15-18-21
21-18-15-12-9-6-3-0
0-3-6-9-12-15-18-21-24
24-21-18-15-12-9-6-3-0

This gets me more familiar with the diminishing distance between frets over the entire neck as well as the diminished scale in this instance.
I also practice Pauls exercises just from fret 12 to 24 as well as 0-12.
This has really opened up single line playing for me, since so much relies on adjacent string picking and bar movement.
As a challenge, sometimes I start at fret one (1-4-7-10-13) or two so that all frets are played in the diminished pattern.

Don Ricketson wrote:Back in January 2010 Sonny Jenkins asked if someone could post a sound clip of what this exercise sounds like. After a year I still haven't seen one. Purty please. Anybody??

Don, I posted a short YouTube clip of Paul's exercise plus a few other things added above I need work on. I realized afterwards that the 0-5-10-15 part was played wrong. It was played 0-5-12-17 instead. Tempo was set at 85 BPM, but I obviously need to slow down, or get it right, one or the other.

Clete

I see, it's a old topic but for me the exercise is new - or WAS new. I am happy I got that link. I had a similar experience like JIm - forgot about the time - it's very calming to listen.......
Thanks a lot for sharing

Ruthie darlink, your avatar is rather blurry...and I ain't tipped the bottle just yet. I thought you'd like to know

your avatar is rather for a car Forum -

Ruthy, sweety, my avatar sports a common denominator with this Forum, and that being my license tags....Meanwhile, to avoid topic drift, I haven't attempt said bar hand exercise. Probably explains a lot of things....

Oh, your rosewood is sexy

I was doing pretty good til I seen this..... now I'm gonna go buy me a Saxaphone or a harmonica,maybe a fiddle(at least it's not so heavy I can't hurl it into the Missouri River) & fergit about music.

Bump for all who haven't seen this yet and many thanks to you, Paul, for posting it!!

This may be exactly what I needed to either get me going down the right road or off this road all together. If this doesn't help me, I very well may do just as mentioned above and stick with my harmonicas, bass or drums as it seems I do fairly well with any one of those yet all I really want to play is this beast! Why is that? All I have ever wanted to play is the one instrument that I seem to have absolutely no natural talent for...

Thank you for posting. Now off to practice!

Check out this video of Paul and Vince up close with The Time Jumpers on Together Again - you can really see the bar hand in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAHfcqzhag0

Wow, watching and listening to that just blows me away! If I lived to be 1,000 years old and practiced every day for 12 hours I don't think I could ever even get close!

Thanks Paul for the takeing time to share, We are very Grateful for the lesson. Randy Gilliam.

Thanks Paul for the takeing time to share, We are very Grateful for the lesson. Randy Gilliam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAHfcqzhag0

Oooh! Paul hits a serious nasty at 2:31 - knowing full well how to get out of it, and once again proving that without tension, there can't be release.

If I lived to be 1,000 years old and practiced every day for 12 hours I don't think I could ever even get close!

- Not to beat the point to death, but if you keep running into brick walls in your progress, you may, eventually, wanna ask, "who's the jerk building all these dang brick walls around here?"

“Speed and fluency are a combination of two things. First and foremost, in your imagination, you must hear yourself playing in this way, or it won't happen for you on the fretboard. Secondly, be willing to attack the problem of inarticulation through work and application of exercises.”

- John McLaughlin, who knows a bit about technique. Both he and Steve Morse (my other secret* guitar teacher) consider the final product to be almost secondary to devising the right processes to get there. And then, of course, piling on it for 12 hours a day....


*(Secret, like, I never paid 'em for it... )