The Steel Guitar Forum

A recent thread on the forum got me thinking that I may be learning my slants wrong. Is ok to lift your wrist some on slants. It doesn't seem possible to not do it, as I need to get the rest of my hand out of the way. But then I watch videos of the great Rick Alexander and it's like he had a secret compartment in his hand that the bar slips into! I don't notice any lift at all.
I had a bit of a breakthrough last night when I figured out just how important good blocking is to making slants sound clean. I was so focused on my left hand that I wasn't blocking as clean as I should.
Any advice? I really want to learn this right.

James, I'm no slant expert by any means, but I too, when starting out, used my wrist to do the slant. After watching vids and lessons from John Ely, the left thumb pushes the near end of the bar back into that 'secret compartment' under your palm/fingers... all thumb, fingers... no wrist.

Frank James Pracher wrote:A recent thread on the forum got me thinking that I may be learning my slants wrong.

Think of the tip of your index finger on the top of the bar as a pivot point, and use your thumb to push the bar either forwards or backwards. There should be no wrist movement.

When I do a a reverse slant, the tip of my index finger slips to the thumb side of the bar and the pivot point is between the first and second fingers.

You definitely want to try and get comfortable with letting your fingers do all the work in slanting. If you get started using this technique, I becomes very natural after a while.

Yes, it is extremely important to have accuracy with your right hand picking and blocking. When those stray notes creep in there, yikes! But again, it is something that requires a lot of work. I do a lot of slanting and I'm always amazed with some of the new chords I find, even still.

I just finished a video for a tune that I dubbed the "ultimate slant workout" and it was interesting to check out my own bar technique from a certain angle. I was ready to hit my hand with a ruler if I wasn't doing it correctly!

Yes, it's only likely to be referred to as the definitive primer on the technique for many years to come. No pressure.

Scott Thomas wrote:Yes, it's only likely to be referred to as the definitive primer on the technique for many years to come. No pressure.

I highly doubt that!

I know I am not supposed to turn my wrist. I lift it slightly to make room as my thumb pushes the bar over. I have no problem with reverse slants.

Frank James Pracher wrote:I know I am not supposed to turn my wrist. I lift it slightly to make room as my thumb pushes the bar over. I have no problem with reverse slants.

You really shouldn't need to lift your wrist at all.

I also am no slant expert but when I started learning slants I found my bar to be too long and heavy and I had to rely on my wrist alot. I got a lighter shorter bar and it made it much easier to let my fingers do the work and find that "secret compartment".

Thanks for the advice everybody. I think part of my problem is I play with too much tension in my left hand. I am putting so much pressure down on the bar that when it comes time too push it under my fingers it has no were to go without me lifting my wrist. I will keep working on it.

I had a lesson with a local guy, But his advice on slants was to avoid them.

Frank James Pracher wrote:I had a lesson with a local guy, But his advice on slants was to avoid them.

Slants are a pain in the ass but they are well worth the effort. HOWEVER, if you don't have your intonation and blocking down to the level where it no longer sounds like you're stepping on a cat's tail all the time when using a straight bar, they can wait.

Best advice for slant practice ...

1. You need to use them all the time to be good at them
2. Once you get good at them, you'll want to use them all the time
3. First, play the notes you want to hit so you have them in your metaphorical "inner" ear
3. Use your ear to match the notes. Really, really listen; don't accept "almost" in tune.
4. Don't cock your wrist - use only your fingers.
5. Counterintuitively, some slants require a little extra downward bar pressure to be in tune.
6. Pay attention to scale length and string spacing. Slants on longer scale (above 22.5") instruments are inherently more difficult. It may be a losing battle to try to get slants in tune on the lowest frets of a guitar like the longest-scale Stringmasters. Bar width and length also comes into play as factors.
7. The best advice is to keep practicing your slants but remember, some very fine players largely avoid slant playing (Douglas, Cashdollar) so there are may ways to make music on a steel guitar and while slant playing is a cool technique to have in one's quiver it's not the only way.

WE have 11,000+ SGF Members........and each likely has a sincere opinion of his/her own on how to perform slants on the steel guitar.

JERRY BYRD from 1939 until his passing several years ago, was 'recognized' as one of the foremost authorities on playing the Hawaiian steel guitar. He declined to use pedals and thus, was compelled to use slants in all of his playing regardless of which tuning he might choose to use; or, how many strings he had; whether accoustic or electrified.

His slants were perfection; always accurate and true.

If you're at all sincere about wanting to learn to play the steel guitar, you owe it to YOURSELF to acquire a copy of JERRY BYRDS' Instructional Manual for Serious Minded Students. It's one of the finest instruction manuals on the market. You can purchase one from Scotty's Music in St.Louis, Missouri.

To do anything else, is merely a wild run thro' the woods and I can guarantee you when you get to the other side of all the trees, you're gonna be so confused, you won't know which way is up. You get what you pay for.

There's some very sincere and fine people on the Forum, no doubt about it. However, if I wanted to learn to fly a P-51 Mustang, I'd go ask Bobbe Seymour and not the guy that fuels the airplane.

Go to the undisputed MASTER of TOUCH & TONE if you want to save yourself time and FRUSTRATION. Just the opinion of one aging olde man.

I second Ray's advise.

Jerry's COMMAND of the bar has yet to be equaled...all other demos of how to slant PALE in comparison. I'm being kind.

Get his instruction course and get the video. Is it out in DVD yet?

Enjoy!

Well said Dave ... !!!

I "third" Ray's advice ....

I'll fourth Ray's advice. That JB video is as clear an explanation of slants as anyone could want. If you want to be sure you're starting out with good basic technique in general, I don't think you could do better.

I agree that JB is the epitome of mastery of slants.

I could never hold my bar the way he does, though; for some reason I cannot arch my forefinger on the bar in same way, so my forefinger ends up slightly on the right side of the bar. It hasn't been a problem for me, though.

I agree with others about JB's mastery of slants. He played them with such authority and confidence! ... forward, reverse, split (3 string) slants... no problem. His command of the instrument is evident in This Video

Some of the posts appear to refer to slanting the bar as a "trick" or "Special on occasion technique"rather than accepting the fact that bar movement, slants and the like, are all an essential, expect to do it all of the time, element in playing the Hawaiian Steel Guitar PROPERLY!

To me, it's sorta like someone that's 'lazy' and figures they can learn the alphabet's VOWELs ONLY! When the rest of the world realizes that you must learn the entire alphabet if you have any intentions of communicating effectively.

This has nothing to do with pedal, regular or accoustic models. A steel guitar IS just that, a steel guitar and that's what makes the music, like a vocalists' voice.

A year ago I could not even hold a round bar due to problems with the muscles and nerves in my left hand (I'd always used a Stevens or JS bar). I finally figured out one way I could hold a round bar: between the top joint of my middle finger and the "crotch" of my thumb. After reading the other posts here I guess that is against all of the rules but it is what works for me. With the base of my thumb and the top joint of my middle finger I can do forward and reverse slants just fine although I am working on getting my intonation better. I do best with 2 string slants at least 2 strings apart. I try to harmonize many of the notes I play and if they are not available in straight across positions then I need to slant to get them (or skip the harmony).

Steve Ahola

P.S. My index fingers have always been kinda useless playing guitar- I never could hold a flatpick between my thumb and index finger, and on my fretting hand it was my "dumb" finger, to be used for bar chords or to anchor a position. My ring fingers are much longer than my index fingers which evidently means something:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 34251.html

Check out HOF'er Billy Robinson!
Rick

I agree with Ray, but I also agree with Steve

There's always more than one way to skin a cat, but 90% of the people will do it the same general way.

Rick Winfield wrote:Check out HOF'er Billy Robinson!
Rick

He is amazing!

i bought a big pile of old '30-40's Oahu courses on ebay a while back which had all levels of music and i was both surprised and enthused to see slant work starting right off the bat - like lesson #3 (i.e. > hold the bar > pick the strings > slant the bar) - like Ray says, its essential, and the sooner you start to tackle it, the better.

oh, get a bar with an indented end, that helps

Jerome Hawkes wrote:i bought a big pile of old '30-40's Oahu courses on ebay a while back which had all levels of music and i was both surprised and enthused to see slant work starting right off the bat - like lesson #3 (i.e. > hold the bar > pick the strings > slant the bar) - like Ray says, its essential, and the sooner you start to tackle it, the better.

oh, get a bar with an indented end, that helps

If you intend to get everything you can get out of a non-pedal guitar, slants are an necessary item, not a "trick", so it's not surprising that they started 'em out slanting.