Tonight, someone called my pedal steel a sitar.

[Marc Jenkins]

That is all.

[Bruce Hilton]

Marc, I actually own a sitar, and I can see why someone would be confused. After all, they both... er, well.... have a lotta strings.

[Erv Niehaus]

I call mine a combination of a Singer sewing machine and an electric cheese slicer.

[Johan Jansen]

welcome to the club

[baxter vaughan]

i have had mine called everything from a piano to an ironing board. never used it for that, but it has served as a coffee table!

[Dave Grafe]

"...and tonight we have Slim Lovin' on the Electric Knitting Macine!"

[Alan Brookes]

When I built my first lap steel in 1963, the guys I played with started calling it the Electric Barbed Wire Fence.
In retrospect, when I play the old tapes I realize what they meant.

[Skip Edwards]

My favorite quip about strange steel names:

A few years back Mike Johnstone had broken a string while playing a gig here in LA, and on the next break he stayed up on the stage to change the string.
One of the other guys in the band was at the bar and a patron came up to him and, pointing to Mike - sitting up on the stage at his D10 - said,
"You guys are good, but that guy up there in the wheelchair is really good!"

At least, that's how I remember the story...

[Terry Winter]

While playing a couple of weeks ago at a local museum a couple who were traveling through Canada from Switzerland heard the music and came down from the town camp site. They were really interested in my Steel, took pictures and I got from them, their English was very limited, that they never heard of or had seen such an instrument ever. I think the lady asked if it was related to, and she used hand gestures, drums.....I just said yes.
Terry

[Mike Perlowin]

Somebody here once wrote that he heard it called a "Table top string thingy."

[CrowBear Schmitt]

Michael Johnson (i believe) called it : " Appalachian Tone Bender "
i commonly refer to " my wife's recycled knitting machine "

[CrowBear Schmitt]

[Steve Hitsman]

SIT down guitAR=SITAR, understand?

[Alan Brookes]

All Board Zithers are played in the same position, either across the knees or sitting with legs on, which must add further confusion to the audience.

The Board Zither family includes Mountain Dulcimers, Hummels, Zithers, Epionettes, Scheitholdts, etc. Some are even played with tone bars. In fact, one of the main theories is that the lap guitar in Hawaii was derived from the Swedish Hummel.

[Mike Perlowin]

I still think we should call it a TIFKATPSG.

(The Instrument Formerly Known As The Pedal Steel Guitar.)

I've mentioned this several times in the past and nobody else has taken up the cause of making this the official name of our instrument.

I just don't understand.

[Alan Brookes]

I still think we should call it a TIFKATPSG...

It's a little difficult to pronounce.

[Mike Perlowin]

I still think we should call it a TIFKATPSG...

It's a little difficult to pronounce.

I know. It has too many vowels. But what can you do? call it TTFKATPSG? (The THING formerly known... If we do that how will they know it's an instrument and not a chair for them to sit on?

[Roual Ranes]

A Sitar. I am going to tell myself that that is what they said when I thought they said "sick guitar".

[Alan Brookes]

Are you sure they didn't say "Sit here"?

One of the instruments that I play is the Cittern. Everybody thinks it's the same instrument as the Sitar. When I pull it out the usual reaction is, "That's not a sitar," to which I respond, "I never said it was...":roll:

[John Turbeville]

One of the bands I play with still calls it a lap steel......its a old sho-bud sd-10.......whatever, they know the sound and crave it!

[Dan Tyack]

Dave Easley had a gig in New Orleans in an Indian restaurant where he played the steel in a way that sounded exactly like a sitar. He plays with a Sitar bridge instead of a steel. It helps to be able to think like a sitar player, which is one of Dave's many talents.

[Brett Day]

I remember right after I started playin' steel, I was tellin' a girl I went to school with that I play steel guitar, and she looked at the other girl and said "He plays the guitar" and I said "No, not the guitar", the steel guitar. Then one girl told me it was a piano with strings and asked if you play it like a piano, and I told her no. I had to explain to her how playin' steel guitar works and that you use a bar instead of your fingers to fret the strings. On Facebook, a few months back, a lady who used to go to church with me saw a picture of my steel and asked what it was, so I told her it's a steel guitar-she was really amazed! I've had to explain to a lot of people what the steel guitar is and how it works, but I love doin' it.

Brett

[Mike Perlowin]

Whenever my chamber music trio performed, as part of the performance, I gave a 30 second lecture and demonstration. All our performances were for people in the classical music community, including many orchestral musicians, who for the most part had never seen a pedal steel guitar before. I also would invite the musicians to sit down and try it after we finished playing, (which some did.)

These people were always very interested and very receptive to the sound of the steel, combined with the viola and cello.

[Colin Goss]

Our singer has been known to describe it as a knitting machine, and on one occasion I pulled out a sock from behind the fretboard to illustrate the point.

[Alan Brookes]

On one occasion, after playing Wreck of the Old 97 on Dobro, someone came up to me and said, "I know it hurts the fingers, but if you try it, after some practice you'll find you can play the guitar without that stick thing..."