Latest weird name for a pedal steel guitar

Lynn Kasdorf · Post by **Lynn Kasdorf** » 26 Apr 2012 6:18 am

I just got in the mail a CD on which I played PSG on one song. It came out well, but bizarrely, I was credited with playing "steel string guitar".

While it technically does have steel strings, you would think that somebody would ask somebody what the proper name is rather than making something up!

The album has instruments like viola, flugelhorn, harp, etc. and they got those right...

I'm used to hearing/seeing "slide guitar", "steel pedal" or even "steel peddle", but steel string guitar is a new one. I think that they knew the word "steel" was in there somewhere, and this is the best they could come up with. Especially weird since they had my business card which specifically says pedal steel guitar.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 26 Apr 2012 9:00 am

Normaly the term is used to point out the difference between a nylon- string or classical guitar to a steel string. But I guess we all knew this already. $:\$

Dave Alfstad · Post by **Dave Alfstad** » 26 Apr 2012 9:22 am

Consider yourself lucky they didn't call it a keyboard. $:\$

Ben Lawson · Post by **Ben Lawson** » 26 Apr 2012 10:17 am

I usually get "what is that?". My first response is cheese slicer.

Lynn Kasdorf · Post by **Lynn Kasdorf** » 26 Apr 2012 10:21 am

I must say- on my recent trip to Texas, it was very refreshing to have not a single person ask what that weird instrument is.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 26 Apr 2012 10:49 am

I was installing new pickups in mine the other day, and you DO NOT want to hear the new names I came up for it.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 26 Apr 2012 11:18 am

Lynn Kasdorf wrote:I must say- on my recent trip to Texas, it was very refreshing to have not a single person ask what that weird instrument is.

In Texas, when you say that you play guitar in a band, people ask "Lead, rhythm or steel?"

Roger Francis · Post by **Roger Francis** » 26 Apr 2012 11:44 am

mine has been refured to as a "Slide Piano" before

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 26 Apr 2012 12:01 pm

My favorite I saw in a music review somewhere referred to it as lap steel pedal.

While at the physical therapist for an ankle injury this week, they were going over the exercises, I mentioned that I did some of these type movements while playing my guitar. I began explaining that I played a guitar that used pedals on the floor....etc.

She interrupted, "Oh, you play a pedal steel guitar, I know those, how nice."

So, not everybody is clueless.

Once in a local newspaper interview with Loretta Lynn re: a performance, the writer quoted Lynn as saying she wasn't real happy with her show because she didn't have a "still" guitar on stage.

Paddy Long · Post by **Paddy Long** » 26 Apr 2012 12:54 pm

Knitting machine !!!

Lynn Kasdorf · Post by **Lynn Kasdorf** » 26 Apr 2012 5:10 pm

Electric table...

And I love Loretta's pronunciation of various words.. "...a mill that's called fist city"...

Fred Glave · Post by **Fred Glave** » 26 Apr 2012 7:08 pm

I've decided that when someone comes up to me again and asks me what that thing is I'm playing, I'm just going to shake my head and say with a big smile, "I have no idea". In reality I couldn't do that, but I can dream can't I?

Wally Moyers · Post by **Wally Moyers** » 26 Apr 2012 8:52 pm

When I played in Puerto Rico a few years ago, I had more of the crowd on my side of the stage than the artist did.. They said that they loved the sound and had heard it on records but had never seen one... After the show I had a crowd of fans and musicians wanting me to show them how it all worked... Nice folks over there...

Marco Schouten · Post by **Marco Schouten** » 27 Apr 2012 7:44 am

A long time ago

, when I was still at school, I wrote an essay about the pedal steel guitar. The teacher thought I did great, but asked why I didn't mention that it was also called a string ensemble

Did he actually read it????

Marc Orleans · Post by **Marc Orleans** » 27 Apr 2012 7:53 am

Hank Williams called Don Helms console an electric biscuit board once.

Kirk Eipper · Post by **Kirk Eipper** » 27 Apr 2012 8:51 am

Electrified Starvation Box.

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 27 Apr 2012 9:14 am

Fo'bro MJ calls it an " Appalachian tone bender "

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 27 Apr 2012 9:24 am

"Wow, that's sure a cool double-decker table-slide with steel peddles and knee kickers that you've got there! I know all about them. The most famous ones are the Sho-Boats, Emmussens, and ZumBecks."

Wally Moyers · Post by **Wally Moyers** » 27 Apr 2012 9:40 am

Kirk Eipper wrote:Electrified Starvation Box.

I had one of them one time

Danny Letz · Post by **Danny Letz** » 27 Apr 2012 10:03 am

They don't all know what it is here in Texas. I had a young gentleman of Mexican decent come up to me at the Lumberyard in Roscoe, Tx last Saturday night and said "What is that?" I told him it's a pedal steel guitar. He made me feel good though when he replies "I like it" and then walked away.

Sonny Priddy · Post by **Sonny Priddy** » 27 Apr 2012 12:07 pm

One lady Called My Steel A Key Bord one Time. Sonny.

Micky Byrne · Post by **Micky Byrne** » 27 Apr 2012 2:04 pm

I've mentioned this in another thread....An expensively dressed woman came up to me at a gig and asked "Is that some kind of Piano???!!!

Micky Byrne U.K.

Archie Nicol · Post by **Archie Nicol** » 27 Apr 2012 2:31 pm

"I like your impeziser playing."

"It's not a synthesizer, it's a pedal steel."

"One of those Wyamin guitars? I hate them!"

...and off he went.

Arch.

Wally Moyers · Post by **Wally Moyers** » 27 Apr 2012 2:56 pm

Back in the 70s I had a pastor ask me not to play that thing in his church because it makes you want to drink and f$^&%%e.... I told him it sounded like a personal problem to me.... We loaded up and went home.... around that same time I had another church ask me to hide my old sho-bud behind the piano because it had spades and hearts on the neck... Lately I'v played in some of the biggest churches in town front and center without a complaint, most folks still think its some kind of a keyboard... They usually set me up next to a hay bale and the pastor wears a cowboy hat, oh well, a gigs a gig...

Danny Letz · Post by **Danny Letz** » 27 Apr 2012 4:50 pm

Wally, someone on the Forum a while back said that the church didn't want a pedal steel because it was a "bar room instrument". His observation was, what instrument did you normally see in the saloons in the old west movies?

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Latest weird name for a pedal steel guitar

Latest weird name for a pedal steel guitar

???

name for steel.