The Steel Guitar Forum

Hot licks abound at a jam session. They are coming at you in rapid fire, if they were bullets you would be torn to bits. I am guilty as charged too.

But what you really hear after a while is not the hot licks but the sound of the steel and how it fits in the mix with the band. IF that is true then maybe WE might TOUCH people more with our playing if we would slow down and concentrate more on intonation and tone (in that order) and add the hot stuff where we can.

Making intonation and tone our number one priority speaks volumes vs what I call "lick chatter". When people "hear and feel" the emotion you are putting into your playing they too will be moved.

This is the first thing I teach new players, slow down, touch their hearts do not burn their ears with every lick you know.

Hot playing is great, I love it too, but every now and then......

Larry Behm

Great post.
I am working towards this philosophy. I am learning that it takes alot of skill, experience, and taste, to play that way..as opposed to just regurgitating all the licks i know (all three of em)

if you can't say it w: 4 notes, you're not gonna say it w: 40

I'll take 'tastey' and substance over flash anytime!
Pedal steel is arguably one of the most expressive instruments ever created! Feeling,tone, intonation and phrasing are the qualities I look for in a good steel player. Although good clean speed picking is always impressive, it doesn't move people, as Larry stated, and it tends to come off as self-indulgent

Larry,It's like you're some kinda steel guitar Guru,I couldn't agree with you more.One time in the 70's a bunch of us Austin players made the pilgrimage to San Antonio to hear Maurice Anderson,Curly Chalker,and Julian Tharpe,and Buddy Emmons play ,The most amazing blazing licks that you'll ever want to hear,After about a few hours my friend Josh Dubin said to me,it's starting to sound like "Bird Calls". Jerry Blanton told me a great story about Jimmy Day playing a steel convention in Dallas.It seems that every fast lick known to man was played already by the time Jimmy got ready to play his set,Jerry said that Jimmy started of with a couple of ballads and a few woman sitting in the first couple of rows started crying,It was that heavy,Wish I could have been there for that.

Larry,
I totally agree and this applies to any instrument.
With 6 string guitars I've heard what your talking about reffered to as "frantic flapping of the fingers". It usually means the player has nothing to say and is baffling you with b.s.

No doubt about it, playing with speed requires skill, and using it in proper doses is great, but I think playing sweet is tougher.

Rick

Edit- I'd also like to add that one of the reasons I love pedal steel so much is because the instrument is so expressive.
Nothing sounds prettier then a pedal steel playing a ballad, IMO.

Glad ya'll feel that way,I can't play none of them thar hot licks, But my playing has caused a few to shed a tear here and there if they had paid to hear me. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

I meant no disrespect to the great steel players that I mentioned,I will never be able to reach their level of musicianship,Or technical abilities.

Larry
thats the best advice ive heard on this forum in a long time.....

I love speed pickin as much as anybody
but one must ask this question....

when I play this lick or speed lick does it say
anything? or is it just a bunch of noise...

recording your self often will help you decide
if its good or needs more work or mabe just
dont play it at all..
we never hear ourselves the way other players hear us...so slow down a bit and play smooth and in tune
with something "to say" is my great hope
for myself
IMHO Mike

Used to work with a fiddle player [great big bear of a man] called him [Sweet Georgia Brown] He could play all the hoedowns triple speed and get your toes to tapping. BUT He could also play Stardust,Danny Boy,Misty,etc,And make the hair on your neck stand up and bring tears to ANY bodies eyes. Soul over speed anytime. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

Very, very true, Larry! At the beginning of every solo at every gig I always tell myself, "Slow down!" (And I could never play fast anyway!) Even when I was sixteen I can remember listening to some show-off guitar players and thinking that there were lots of notes but not a lot of music. Great post...

I'm finding that as I learn more I have more places to play that are easy to get to and therefore much more solid with much better tone.

Proper licks go in proper places regardless of the fast/slow or somewhere in between. I prefer ballads.

It's no different than anything else, eating bacon all day gets old, but with a mix of tomatoes and egg's and mixing in some donuts,i'm sure somebody would love that breakfast.

Speed pickin is fine by me , but... Not all the time are you going to be able to, not every song has 160 BPM either, no more than a 'Whole tone' scale sounds real cool all over 'Blue eye's crying in the rain'.

I think it helps to have some 'speed chops' in a club gig, generally one 'blazing song ' per night is enough.
I play in a band where 'Devil went down to Georgia' and 'Orange blossom special' lights the place on fire, so yeah, i like speed chops, eventhough i have limits, there is nothing wrong with some machine gun splatter!

I agree with everything that has been stated. I have always thought you play what the song calls for. I have heard some really hot licks from players, that in another song would have been great, just wrong song. It all boils down to good taste. That is what always impressed me about Emmons, he had such good taste in what to play and knew what the song called for. He may have only played two notes, but they were the right two notes in the right place in the song. Tone, smoothness, and good taste has always been my goals. Maybe someday, I will reach my goals.

Most steel players have probably heard this story, but the way I heard it, Jimmy Day was at a steel jam listening to a guy play that was burning it up with hot licks. Jimmy simply said "I wish I could play like that.......BUT I WOULDN'T" Jimmy knew what the song called for. It is all about the song. Period. Our primary job is to make the song and the singer sound as good as we possibly can. Only secondary is the limelight shining on us important. We all have an ego and want people to notice us, and they will if we just do what the song calls for and we will keep our job in the band. All of this, of course, is MHO.

Larry,

That's what I've been trying to tell you for years.

Dale G.

Good thought Larry but i think each has their place!

At jams i sometimes hear a ballad played for 2 hours even though they play different tunes they all have similar progressions!

When i play shows and or work for artist, i mix the two in some cases! Every steel show i play seems everybody wants me to play all the fast stuff! I think it's because not many play it live much or at least the show i play!

Working for and artist out of Nashville seems they save a break for the steel player that 90 miles an hour so i have to be able to bust it off when ask!

Anyways, everything can be over cooked so mix it up!

Here's a clip of some swing i made up with some speed picken mixed in! Fun stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOyq3GwXelU

thx

I had this conversation with Weldon Myrick back in the 70's. I was like, why do some of these guys play at Mach 2 all the time and why are some people so impressed by it? Weldon wisely said, "Because everybody can't do it."

It's your job to make the melody interesting. There are all sorts of ways to do that. Different voicings, phrasing it a certain way, to name a couple.