The Steel Guitar Forum

Okay, please don't laugh... well at least not too much. I've been all other my steel trying to figure out how the steel accents on some of Hank Thompson's hits go... such as Humpty Dumpty Heart, Wild Side of Life. Here's the don't laugh part... I can only describe it as it is often echoed by the background singers on the songs as "woop-woop-walho"! It songs like a 2 note accented by the volume pedal and either pulled or slide up a half note on one string.
I hear this done on many videos I've seen on YouTube, but I can't make out how the steel player is doing it as none have shown the steel player up close when its done. Someone out there can help me, please?
I know it's got to be a simple technique and I'm making it too hard for my Bubba brain to figure out.

No pedals are used on this move.

It's a harmonic chord over an octave. That is, in the key of "A" do a quick flash palm harmonic on 5th fret (strings 4, 5, 6), then do the same thing on 12th fret, and then the same thing on the 17th fret...with a little slide "back up" to the 16th fret, and then slide back up to the 17th fret.

Trickiest part for most players is the volume pedal "flashes" and the speed that you must make both long moves.

Of course, if you're doing it on C6th, the 5th fret would be an "F", and you'd probably use strings2,3,4, OR 3,4,5.

(When you first learn, it may be helpful to do the palm harmonic at all 3 locations. But when you get good at it, you'll be doing it with only one palm harmonic, and then just sliding up and working the volume pedal for the other two sounds. That's the "proper way")

Are you talking about this at 26 seconds and again at 1:06?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot4FzlE-aXA

I believe he is doing a harmonic and then pumping the volume pedal with a 1/2 step slide.

I am a big Hank Thompson fan and I do this once in a great while, joking around on stage and I just know that no one else has ever heard of it before.

m.

In my opinion, the trick is that the harmonic needs to be struck ahead of time with the volume pedal off, then two quick pumps and the one fret slide. The lick itself is played just from the ring of the strings. You don't pick anything with the volume pedal on. I think I got the one I do off something from Jeff Newman and it is done with the A pedal down on strings 4 & 5? It's a timing thing.

If you can do the Hank Thompson wah wah wa-ah and the Billy Byrd lick you is alreet by me

Key of C: with the bar on fret 6, strike strings 4-5-6 with the A pedal and E raise lever engaged, volume pedal OFF. Pump the volume pedal 3 times; after the third pump, slide up to fret 8.

I'm sure harmonics would sound better. I have enough trouble with single note harmonics...

The thing I see missing in most of the posts is that it's a C6th tuning kind of thing, four strings are involved. It has been correctly pointed out that you strike the harmonic an octave above the bar with
the volume pedal off. You start a fret flat of where you want to end up. Pump the pedal thee times (hard) and slide up a fret. If you want to do it on the E9th tuning in the key of A, you must use strings
4,5,6 and 7 with your E's dropped and sliding from fret 9 to 10 OR with A & B pedals down, strings 5,6,7 and 8 from fret 11 to 12 (same notes).

In the C6th tuning, it IS the E-C-A-G (hi to lo), as said, with the palm harmonic picked with the volume off then rapidly pumped 3-times with the foot volume pedal. Slide into the ending fret.......

I have more than a dozen tunings of the various steel players that used to travel thro' this area. Not a single one was a tuning that I could recognize.
THEY ALL had a special sound that was a signature sound of Thompson's band. BUT the C6th described herein, it will work very well.

Work at it. As one of the contributors mentioned, Speedy West used a variant of this 'sound'.

There's another great visual example there on You Tube with Thompson's "GREEN LIGHT".

Thanks for all the help... and Matthew, yes that's the "lick" I was referring too.