Testimonial on Austin and pedal steel course with Neil Flanz

[Tom Ensink]

I have bumped the thread on pedal steel lessons in Austin, but I want to share it with you so I copied the text in this new thread:

Last week me and my buddy finally went for our long-awaited Austin pilgrimage, which was a huge success! (although it appeared that Dale Watson AND Redd Volkaert were gigging in our country right that week, but nevertheless...)

One thing I did was taking two days of training with Neil Flanz. That was outstanding as well and I can recommend it to anybody visiting Austin.

(trust me, I am a real training junkie and I have taken lessons from Jeff Newman and Doug Jernigan before!)

Because I am (supposed to be) an advanced (E9) player, we did not have to go through the basic stuff. But I was amazed by all the beginner and advanced material he had available and I am sure that will be helpful to anyone, be it novice, intermediate or advanced. I got his standard E9 course because it had some interesting licks included in there (which I never heard before). I also got his C6 chord and note finder book, which is going to be very useful for my future C6 reconnaissance activities (ahum....).

I had Neil criticize my play style and he came up with some very useful and honest tips (which for obvious reasons I will not share with you).

He gave me thorough and decent advice about the way to tune and handle a push pull (that I just got, so forgive me for not knowing that!).
He has given me a dozen home work assignments for learning to palm block (I am a pick blocker myself, and really would like to do both).

And of course, we talked a lot about licks. After having discovered my interest in ' simple but yet surprising licks' he unveiled many of those off the top of his head. The next day he obviously thought about my interest, and came up with dozens of other surprising licks he thought I might enjoy (and did so too!). All of it while quoting the big steel player who said: "It's all there, you just gotta find it" (Emmons or Day? forgive me).

Other than that, and of course being an outstanding player, Neil is really good company and a really funny guy. Also, he has some great stories to tell about his days with Gram Parsons and Nashville in the 60s and 70s (I could not get enough of that).

(BTW Later that day, Neil took us to see Justin Trevino gig at Buddy's Place with Jim Loesberg on steel. That was of the best shows we saw in Austin that week. JL was smoking!)

Anyway, thanks Neil and thanks Austin for a great week!

I am back in the Netherlands now, and I already miss my Lonestar Longneck!!!!!

Best,

Tom