The Steel Guitar Forum

Your at a jam session with your non pedal guitar and the inevitable happens....the drummer and bass player start a one chord funk vamp in the key of A. You find a rhythm pattern and play every lick you can muster be it funk or country or whatever. When in doubt, you fall back into the funky little #9 rhythm pattern and try to come up with something. It goes on much longer than you want it to. You quote some songs, play some outside stuff. It builds and subsides and you wonder how your going to end it.

Anybody been there???

Here is a fun recreation of such an event.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?dhjmmewzonz

Hi Bill, Love your playing on the jam. I have been this situation more than once. I never came close to sounding as good you do. Was this accomplished with the Levitt tuning?

Regards

Bill, you're one bad motherfather. Nice stuff.

Tom Keller wrote:Hi Bill, Love your playing on the jam. I have been this situation more than once. I never came close to sounding as good you do. Was this accomplished with the Levitt tuning?

Regards

Yo'...Leavitt be funky.

I dropped it down a step and a half to fatten up the tone a little. I like the sound of it down a bit. Tuning from low to high on the jam is:

E A C# E G A B C D E F F#

I always tune the lowest strings to whatever will help me the most in the tune I am trying to play. This song needed the low A for the sharp 9 chord. The low E just came along for the ride.

Mike Neer wrote:Bill, you're one bad motherfather. Nice stuff.

Thanks Mike and also for the "ath"!

You got soul brother! Great stuff!

Bill Hatcher wrote:

Mike Neer wrote:Bill, you're one bad motherfather. Nice stuff.

Thanks Mike and also for the "ath"!

Of course, Bill. This is a family forum.

Bill, what kind of thumbpick were you using?
Seriously, man, you OWN that tuning!

Stephen Gambrell wrote:Bill, what kind of thumbpick were you using?
Seriously, man, you OWN that tuning!

SG. Hope all is well!
You know I don't usually a thumbpick so I have no favs that I am attached to. I wanted to use one on this to fight the drum/bass track more easily and get the low notes to speak a little more. I have a drawer in one of my little parts boxes that has a bunch of picks in it. Things that I find at music stores or left in recording studios or in old guitar cases and such. When I need a Tpick I just grab one and use it until it wears out or breaks. Before I recorded this ditty I broke the hot pink Earnie Ball tpick that I had been working on it with...drag! On my recording console was a Herco heavy Tpick. You know the one that looks like a guitar pick with a thumb loop on it. I just picked it up and used it. Worked out pretty nice even though a little thick.

I guess I could get by using the Herco medium Tpick if I had to use one all the time.

thanks for listening.

That was great Bill ... and if you need another hot pink Ernie Ball pick, I've got a couple here you can have

Now that's funky - loved it!!

Is it just me, or did everyone else get a message from that site saying they had to sign up for an account to download the file? I tried both Firefox and IE, same deal.

If this is so, may I humbly suggest box.net for sharing files. Users can stream from the url you give them, or download.

Thanks Tom. I might take you up on that offer one day.

Steiner. I know you know funky! TOP

Rich. Thank you man.

Leff. Send me you email address...DON'T post it here. I will send you the MP3.

SWP is now a funky site. The Pedal Steel section is so far behind us.

Bill,

Your playing is always so good, and interesting.

Why you don't have a CD out - I don't understand...I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

That was some funky, butt shakin' grooving going on there, something you don't hear on the lap every day. That was really kicking.

Thanks for forwarding me the mp3.

Funk also, eh? Well, that's it ... I'm gonna put the Leavitt tuning on the "other neck" (for me, the E9) on my Fulawka D-10, and start using it for real.

Thanks for the inspiration, Bill!

-- Jan

You sure funked up that one! Love it!

ive got everything that bill has offered up saved on my disk. hes my fav by far. and i also got his bass solo cd from shefrin. where do i send the money

ebb wrote:ive got everything that bill has offered up saved on my disk. hes my fav by far. and i also got his bass solo cd from shefrin. where do i send the money

ebb.

I thank you for your encouragement. It means a lot to me and it keeps my enthusiasm up to continue working on music and posting. I have only wanted to contribute to the potential of the non pedal guitar with trying to come up with some interesting and hopefully challenging things to share here. That is what a forum should be, an exchange of ideas. I have never wanted anything for them except some feedback that someone might be enjoying them and hopefully getting something out of them.

I am amazed that you have all of them. I don't even have some of them anymore, as all these were sort of ideas that I worked out on the spot and recorded at the same time. I have never even played any of them again after recording them. I would have to go back and actually learn them myself!

If you would like to, post a list here of all the tunes you have. If there are some that you might have missed, maybe someone could share them with you.

I have to say that I really thought about going back though all my ADAT tapes and trying to find all these and putting them on a master CD and then pressing up maybe 20 or 30 and give them to b0b and let him send them out to interested parties for maybe a $5 or so donation to the forum.

Thanks again.