what every pedal steel player should practice
Posted: 25 Jun 2009 7:57 pm
I have been teaching myself to play pedal steel since 1972. I've been playing guitar since '64, started giving a few private lessons in '77, and for the last 20 years have been giving private lessons full time -- mostly guitar, some bass, keyboard, banjo, etc. I've only had 2 pedal steel students in 32 years, but hundreds of guitar students...
And, sure enough, it occurred to me that the things I do when watching a student play, trying to decide what advice is helpful and appropriate, could be turned on myself! What should I be practicing to become a better steel player? So I made this list, and I thought I would share it. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong -- as I said, I'm self-taught. Have a degree in music, but never took a steel lesson...)
Left Hand: Intonation -- the center of the bar should be over the fret. Problem is you can't see the center of the bar, and you can't see the fret underneath it. And it gets worse the further up the neck you go -- the frets get narrower, and the accuracy of the bar placement must increase. This is particularly tricky with back slides, when the bar has to move down, to the left, to frets that are covered with your left hand. For years I slid down past the fret I wanted, so that I could see it, and then I would slide back up to it. Obviously a terrible habit... The bar should always be parallel to the fret lines. (Unless you are doing a slant, and avoiding slants is the whole reason they invented pedal steel in the first place, right?) Vibrato should be a smooth subtle rolling back and forth, not the jerky shake that we guitar players master. The bar should have enough pressure so nothing buzzes, but don't press so hard that the notes go sharp. Muting behind (to the left of the bar, between the bar and the roller nuts) is very tricky -- you have to mute every string, but it is easy to press some so hard that they move away from the bar and buzz...
Right Hand: We have to learn to grip the strings we want without looking at them (I'm so old now I can't even see the strings with my glasses on -- have to do it by feel) and we have to learn grips besides the standard strings 3, 4, 5, and 6. (Talking E9 here.) Lots of juicy chords are on strings 1, 2, and 5, or 4, 5, and 7. This was something I was in denial about for years -- I avoided the first two strings, and strings 7 and 9, like the plague. Another terrible habit! Every string is useful! We have to learn to pick with three fingers, not just two, and it has to be fast, and we have to be able to change the strings we are picking much more often than guitar players do. Another frightful problem on steel is muting or blocking with the right hand. Most of the time when you change strings the old ones have to be muted so they don't clutter up the sound. I use the tips of my fingers, the side of my thumb, and the heel of my palm. Sometimes I even use my left thumb in front of the bar to mute the thick strings... We have to learn to control tone by moving the picking hand (treble tone near the bridge, mellow bass tone in the center of the string) and by changing how we pick. (The angle, the intensity, the plane we get the string vibrating in, etc.) We have to be able to control volume with the right hand, without changing the volume pedal. (!) And we have to be able to play harmonics, usually 12 frets above the bar. (Many is the time that I looked at my right hand to position it for harmonics, only to find that my left hand had wandered off the fret!)
Left Foot: We have to be able to change pedals without looking at our feet. We have to be able to press two at once and then roll off one smoothly, and the reverse -- pressing one and then rolling on to an adjacent one as well -- without moving the left knee. And we have to learn to press pedals gently and smoothly, even when in a hurry, with no stomping!
Right Foot: You can't keep the beat on the volume pedal! We have to learn not to overuse it, not to use it to cover up hand mistakes, not to lose notes because the pedal hasn't been pressed yet. (For years the first note I played of every run would be lost in the mix, as I gradually pressed the VP!) We have to learn to be smooth with the right foot, and to not move it just because we are moving the right knee. We have to practice how to press it slowly to get swells and sustain. And we have to avoid spasms of enthusiasm, where certain notes suddenly get way too loud because we are having too much fun!
Knees: Once again, the movements have to be smooth, not sudden, not jerky, not too hard. And (my current nightmare) one can eventually learn to engage two knee levers at the same time with one knee, or so I'm told. I'm still lifting the left side of the steel right off the floor when I try that one!
Brain: We need to learn, understand, and practice chord scales as well as note scales. We need to get comfortable with diads (two strings at once), especially in the intervals called thirds and sixths. (Music theory really helps!) We need to be able to modify chords with scale tones, in effect playing chords and melodies at the same time. It really helps to understand blues theory and the different types of blues scales. Harmonic minor theory, including the special kinds of chords that only occur in harmonic minor, also helps a lot... We have to think about chord layers -- the idea that the third fret can be a C and an Am and a D7 and a Bm and an E (or an Em!) and an F (etc. etc. -- this is endless!) as well as a G. And we have to train our ears so we know what chord the band is playing without having to look, and so we play in tune, and so we know how we can modify the current chord without wandering out of the scale...
Performing: We need to learn how to deal with stage fright, and how to calm down when things go wrong in a performance. We need to be able to think enough but not too much, using both sides of the brain at high speed without letting either interfere with muscle memory or rhythm. We need to be able to truly improvise and not just replay pre-prepared licks. And, last but not least, we need to be able to do all this without making weird faces! (Check out my avatar picture on the left and tell me how I'm doing on that one! Not so good, right?)
And, sure enough, it occurred to me that the things I do when watching a student play, trying to decide what advice is helpful and appropriate, could be turned on myself! What should I be practicing to become a better steel player? So I made this list, and I thought I would share it. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong -- as I said, I'm self-taught. Have a degree in music, but never took a steel lesson...)
Left Hand: Intonation -- the center of the bar should be over the fret. Problem is you can't see the center of the bar, and you can't see the fret underneath it. And it gets worse the further up the neck you go -- the frets get narrower, and the accuracy of the bar placement must increase. This is particularly tricky with back slides, when the bar has to move down, to the left, to frets that are covered with your left hand. For years I slid down past the fret I wanted, so that I could see it, and then I would slide back up to it. Obviously a terrible habit... The bar should always be parallel to the fret lines. (Unless you are doing a slant, and avoiding slants is the whole reason they invented pedal steel in the first place, right?) Vibrato should be a smooth subtle rolling back and forth, not the jerky shake that we guitar players master. The bar should have enough pressure so nothing buzzes, but don't press so hard that the notes go sharp. Muting behind (to the left of the bar, between the bar and the roller nuts) is very tricky -- you have to mute every string, but it is easy to press some so hard that they move away from the bar and buzz...
Right Hand: We have to learn to grip the strings we want without looking at them (I'm so old now I can't even see the strings with my glasses on -- have to do it by feel) and we have to learn grips besides the standard strings 3, 4, 5, and 6. (Talking E9 here.) Lots of juicy chords are on strings 1, 2, and 5, or 4, 5, and 7. This was something I was in denial about for years -- I avoided the first two strings, and strings 7 and 9, like the plague. Another terrible habit! Every string is useful! We have to learn to pick with three fingers, not just two, and it has to be fast, and we have to be able to change the strings we are picking much more often than guitar players do. Another frightful problem on steel is muting or blocking with the right hand. Most of the time when you change strings the old ones have to be muted so they don't clutter up the sound. I use the tips of my fingers, the side of my thumb, and the heel of my palm. Sometimes I even use my left thumb in front of the bar to mute the thick strings... We have to learn to control tone by moving the picking hand (treble tone near the bridge, mellow bass tone in the center of the string) and by changing how we pick. (The angle, the intensity, the plane we get the string vibrating in, etc.) We have to be able to control volume with the right hand, without changing the volume pedal. (!) And we have to be able to play harmonics, usually 12 frets above the bar. (Many is the time that I looked at my right hand to position it for harmonics, only to find that my left hand had wandered off the fret!)
Left Foot: We have to be able to change pedals without looking at our feet. We have to be able to press two at once and then roll off one smoothly, and the reverse -- pressing one and then rolling on to an adjacent one as well -- without moving the left knee. And we have to learn to press pedals gently and smoothly, even when in a hurry, with no stomping!
Right Foot: You can't keep the beat on the volume pedal! We have to learn not to overuse it, not to use it to cover up hand mistakes, not to lose notes because the pedal hasn't been pressed yet. (For years the first note I played of every run would be lost in the mix, as I gradually pressed the VP!) We have to learn to be smooth with the right foot, and to not move it just because we are moving the right knee. We have to practice how to press it slowly to get swells and sustain. And we have to avoid spasms of enthusiasm, where certain notes suddenly get way too loud because we are having too much fun!
Knees: Once again, the movements have to be smooth, not sudden, not jerky, not too hard. And (my current nightmare) one can eventually learn to engage two knee levers at the same time with one knee, or so I'm told. I'm still lifting the left side of the steel right off the floor when I try that one!
Brain: We need to learn, understand, and practice chord scales as well as note scales. We need to get comfortable with diads (two strings at once), especially in the intervals called thirds and sixths. (Music theory really helps!) We need to be able to modify chords with scale tones, in effect playing chords and melodies at the same time. It really helps to understand blues theory and the different types of blues scales. Harmonic minor theory, including the special kinds of chords that only occur in harmonic minor, also helps a lot... We have to think about chord layers -- the idea that the third fret can be a C and an Am and a D7 and a Bm and an E (or an Em!) and an F (etc. etc. -- this is endless!) as well as a G. And we have to train our ears so we know what chord the band is playing without having to look, and so we play in tune, and so we know how we can modify the current chord without wandering out of the scale...
Performing: We need to learn how to deal with stage fright, and how to calm down when things go wrong in a performance. We need to be able to think enough but not too much, using both sides of the brain at high speed without letting either interfere with muscle memory or rhythm. We need to be able to truly improvise and not just replay pre-prepared licks. And, last but not least, we need to be able to do all this without making weird faces! (Check out my avatar picture on the left and tell me how I'm doing on that one! Not so good, right?)
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