The Steel Guitar Forum

I've written a little blog about this topic and I invite anyone who wishes to join in with a comment, either here or over at the blog. I think maybe I had a little too much coffee today....

Click here to read.

Thanks, Mike

Mike, that is a great blog, I just read it...in your blog you say...
"The goal for me is to always be playing as much as possible, as many different styles of music as possible, with as many different musicians as possible. This is me in a nutshell. A team player,"
...I feel that I could have wrote that myself...it is exactly how I feel...I see myself as a sideman...I play with several bands in the NC area, & I really work hard to fit in and make each band sound better...from blues, to classic rock, motown & beach, I enjoy it all. I really feel lucky & blessed to play music for a living, & want to play as much as I can...as long as I can...That is who I am.

That's pretty much how I feel, too, Mike. I like being a team player, but can't belong to any one team for too long. I wouldn't say that you "knocked off a fairly cheap representation of (Hawaiian music)" but instead that you gave a valid interpretation of it given the circumstances you're in now.

One of the two bands I'm in is playing old time hapa haole, jazz and blues songs. We're the Faux Hawaiians, and there's nothing authentic about us.
The other band is still struggling to come together, but it's saxophone, guitar, bass and steel, all instrumental, a good mix of original tunes and extremely obscure covers. No name on this band yet.

I play a completely different style in either band, but I still sound like myself.

Thanks for sharing.

Interesting thoughts, Mike. I am a bit different in my approach, I guess; I found what I had the best feeling for and went very narrow-focus in my studies. I am a rock player, can't get away from it, and I will never be Joaquin or Sol. I love those guys, but my reference is different and I feel too much like I am swimming upstream when I try to play the traditional stuff- just not enough time spent listening to it to get any real feel for what it should do. The Sacred Steel stuff is very close to what I do so I spent a long time studying it very closely, but in the end a dedicated agnostic is never going to be that good at Gospel stuff. So I am a rock/blues player, and have become comfortable in that. Thanks for the opportunity to share.

Keith, I would also classify myself in the Rock/Blues/Soul categories, because it is where I come from. Everything else is icing. Frankly, any gig I can get playing steel is a blessing and as always, a challenge. I am attempting to interpret Country (sideways through my skewed vision), but fortunately for me, it is not a pure country environment--more of Alt Country, with a nod to the traditional.

Mike: I think we are pretty much on the same page. Music as an activity has always been somthing of a mystery to me. Until my youngest was born, I was the only person in any direction in my extended family who actually played music. My earliest memories are of wanting to play with the band that I could hear on the radio or on records. This must go back to when I was three or four years old at the latest. By accident, I got four months of Hawaiian steel lessons when I was nine (my folks thought it was some sort of "cowboy" guitar when they signed me up), but no other instruction.

For me, the goal of any music playing with others is in the song itself, i.e. how can I contribute to making it better. Sometimes my best conribution is to hardly play at all. But there is a place, something like Zen I think, when the music all comes together and creates an aesthetic feeling or response. That response seems stronger for me in harmony vocals, but I think we all practice and play in order to get to that place where conscious effort retreats and becomes an observer to some other level of the mind where music just takes over.

Do others feel this way, that you are compelled to perform music in some way? That it is not just something (for example, a hobby) that you like to do, but rather something you frequently must do.

Hope this is not too far off into the ozone.

Dennis

This is a great topic indeed, as writing can help us focus our thoughts and intentions.
As for my own playing, I seem to be coming from two different places. The first is based upon listening to and trying to grasp the musical lexicons and tonal approaches of the many players-- Noel Boggs, David Lindley, Bud Charleton, and Tom Brumley are particular personal benchmarks--I admire. This also entails attention to the art of accompanying singers: doing my best to breathe with them; to augment the atmosphere and emotion of the song, whether recording at home, or performing on stage with my band. All this is an endless source of adventure and discovery.
The other aspect is ambient and experimental--I think of it as sound art. I find that steel guitar, with its harmonic richness and the expressive possibilities of the bar in motion, is a powerful vehicle for creating sonic landscapes and abstractions.
When I practice steel, It never feels like practice. It pretty much always takes me to a different place. And eventually, no matter what I do, the music seems to comes out the way it wants or needs to.

I've been playing guitar since 1978 and was given a lap steel by my best friend in high school in 1983. For many years, I just messed around with lap steel. I started to take it serously around 5 years ago, though, and have made a lot of progress since then. I've been in a lot of bands ranging from big band to hard rock but find that I gravitate towards working with singer/songwriters. In my current band, Bobby Black played on their CD but I got the call to play gigs with them since he wasn't available. This is a situation I've been in many times.

I definitely take a "less is more" approach to music but I'm not afraid to stand out if it's appropriate for the song. With lap steel, I'm completely self taught but have carried over many things from playing guitar. I have always gone for a country/pedal steel-esque vibe with my lap steel playing rather than rock or blues. When I do play rock, I'm told that I sound a bit like David Lindley because of how melodic my playing is. I also really like textural music so it's not uncommon for me to use a volume pedal and some delay for ambient effects.

I like the idea of learning some classic lap steel songs but find that I mostly improvise for long periods of time while working on various techniques. I like being in a few bands at any given time and tend to like to move on to a new project after 2 or 3 years tops. Playing lots of gigs and doing recording sessions has taught me most of what I know about music. That being said, I practice playing lap steel as much as possible and am always trying to improve my playing.

Yes to Dennis's question. The best of us are emoting directly through the instrument without thinking about it. That's why so many books about the Zen of this and the Zen of that. When the tools of your trade become extensions of yourself is when you've got it mastered.

For me, it's never a question of whether I will perform music, it's just in what context and on what instrument. It's something I have to do, there's not much of a choice for me.

For a while I had been thinking of giving up playing steel and just refocussing on playing guitar. Don't think I will ever go back to playing the style I played with the Moonlighters. It's what was needed for that band and that's it. Now I'm moving in a different direction and hopefully there will be opportunities for me. Now I'm retooling....

Well, this is me as a lap steel player:

Technically not very advanced yet (have only been playing for about a year and a half);
not at all interested in Hawaiian-style lap steel playing (don't mind listening to that kind of music once in a while, but it is not what I would want to play myself); I do love old honkytonk & Western Swing lap steel playing (that's what got me interested in this instrument), but I need to learn a lot more before I could play that.
The way I use my lap steel is as a kind of textural instrument, providing chord pads (kinda like a keyboard), with faded-in chords, doing fills behind the singer, and taking the occasional bluesy pentatonics-based solo (often with sweet, singing overdrive sounds); lap steelers whose styles are very inspiring to me: Bill Elm (Friends Of Dean Martinez) - my all-time favorite, Greg Leisz, Ben Harper.

Mike - from what I have seen and heard from your playing, you have two things working that will ensure success for you, regardless of the instrument and genre of song.

You have a great sense of melody/harmony and rhythm/timing.

I think that's why you were so good in the Moonlighters. You were playing what each song needed, not what the genre maybe called for. I think it made the songs stronger than if someone went in and tried to play "Hawaiian".

Just my two cents anyway. I'm looking forward to hearing your future ventures.

On a different note, is it just me, or is it weird to hear the songs on the Moonlighters website now. It sounds like a Moonlighters cover band.

Thanks, Les. How's the Tricone?

Roman Sonnleitner, have you heard Don Rooke play a Weissenborn, Tricone, or lap steel style guitar? Give this video a complete listen. You may envision more possibilities/depth to the lap steels capabilities. With the resurgence in interest over the lap steel and other lap guitars, the revolution has only just begun.

VF61 by The Henrys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K3PKplB8Rc



Don Rooke............Goodbye Porkpie Hat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ao86rfc ... ed&search=