The Steel Guitar Forum

Do any of you have bad habits you'd like to kick? Unfortunatly I undertook the steel guitar 8 years ago without the benefit of an instructor. I sent away for tab, CDs and learned chord positions, inversions grips and scales, but I can't shake some of the bad habits that I developed early on from my own ignorance. My two biggest bad habits are:

1. Instead of using my index finger and middlefinger to pluck the higher strings, I tend to pinch them with my middlefinger and thumb. I use the index and middlefinger in certain situations but not enough.

2. I can't keep my right arm tucked in and my right hand drifts up the neck more than I want it to. I have been spending a lot of time recently trying to correct these bad habits but once they've been learned it's tough to unlearn.

Regarding your "bad habits":

#1) Jeff Newman, and others, advocate(d) use of thumb and middle finger, with the index finger joining in when needed. Ergo, I see no problem here.

#2) Many folks move the right hand up and down according to tone. Keeping your hand near the pickup will brighten tone and hone the attack: I stay there only when I want Telecaster edge. I'd use your ears to guide your hand.

Extending your right elbow out is incorrect... IMHO... for at least two reasons.

First, gravity wants to pull your elbow in closer to your body. Fighting this will expend energy and cause tension in your arm and shoulder. You want your body to be as loose and relaxed as you can be.

Secondly, the back of your hand should be at about a 30 to 45 degree angle to the strings. Extending your elbow/forearm out to the right causes a change in your wrist position and flattens the back of your hand vis a' vis the strings. Most students I've had that extend their arms to the right have great difficulty in palm blocking and string attack.

What I counsel students to do is to simply relax your shoulder so that your arm falls naturally to your side. Then rest your hand on the strings in front of the pickup with the back of your hand vertically parallel to the right endplate. Your hand should look like it's hitting a judo chop to the strings, just in front of the pickup. Then naturally let your hand fall on the strings while curling your index/middle fingers into picking position. Doing all this should put your hand in correct relationship to the strings.

Also remember to keep the first joint of the thumb roughly parallel to the string it will be hitting.

Hey Fred,
Do you have the Jeff Newman Right Hand Alpha course? The course might in fact say that #1 is not a problem, but there are some good tips on how to align your right hand for best efficiency (which will help keep that elbow tucked too).

As far as #1 goes, I would just say "whatever works."

The problem I have with my right arm is that it DOES feel relaxed when it's in the wrong postition. I have to consciously think to keep it tucked in, and it never holds. And Herb, I believe you. I think it does affect my string attack and blocking. I'm considering making a harness to restrict my right arm! Maybe then I will develop it into habit.

I started studying with Jeff Newman course back in the 1970's and back then, he kept his pinky tucked in. And that is how I learned. He said to visualize holding a tennis ball- in order to keep your hand round and not have your fingers tightly bent.

Jeff later changed to the pinky-out approach. I do that when I think of it, and when I do, my right hand technique improves.

Anyway- keeping my pinky in is one of my bad habits that I am constantly trying to fix.

I heard that Buddy Charleton learned to play with his pinky out after cutting his right hand on a lawn mower blade or something like that. I heard that he had to have his pinky in a splint for a while, so he learned to play like that. Apocryphal? I don't know. I can't remember if I heard that from him directly or from somebody else.

What exactly is the pinky out supposed to do for you?

My bad habits:
- practicing what I already can play instead of what I can't.
- too lazy to put on picks (Bobbe, don't read this )
- not recording (and forgetting) what I create

I used to play with my pinky curled under. I thought it looked better, and after awhile it felt very comfortable. But when I started playing a lot (more than a couple hours per day), I developed a sore on the last digit of the finger. I was rubbing the finger raw on the strings. It even bled at times.

To keep playing I had to either put a bandage on that last digit of the pinky or play with my finger sticking out beyond the first string. Since the bandage on the finger usually would get hung up on various strings at all the wrong times, I learned to play with my pinky curled around the first string.

It took awhile, but now it feels very comfortable, and I think it's slightly easier for me to palm block the upper strings with my pinky sticking out.

Regarding bad habits: Not practicing C6th enough, and not varying my practice routine enough. I just keep playing the same old stuff on the E9 neck. Just ask my wife; she'll tell you.

This is an excellent thread of huge importance. Our choices define us largely. If we choose to practice the wrong thing every day, not only does it NOT serve to improve us, thus wasting time, but we're NOT practicing the RIGHT thing - doubly wasting time. Anyway, enough of that high horse. My bad habits:

1. Laziness - Playing stuff I already know & not challenging myself enough because it's fun & I avoid the "pain" of learning and doing something different waaaaaay too often.

2. Not practicing scales/modes/arpeggios regularly in all the keys with Band-in-the-Box.

3. Not practicing songs/licks in all the keys.

4. Not figuring out all the ways to play stuff in all the keys.

If you do these things, the brain connects solidly with the instrument. Now I just need to do it.

What are your bad habits?

My biggest issue is playing too fast for my skill level. I tend to go all in without perfecting the lick I'm attempting at a slower pace. I'm aware of it though and when I start to do it I notice it and fix it.

Fast Women!

Impersonating a steel guitar player.

+1 Practice time often ends up with me playing my favorite tunes (because it sounds so darn good) .

Breaking out of it though

Getting old definitely has some advantages.

No longer do I need to feel poorly because I can't pick as fast as everyone else in the room. Nor do I need to agree with all of you young whipper snappers......on the many controversies that endlessly arise here on the Forum.

When I play with pedals, I use the same psychology I used when I first started playing the Hawaiian Steel Guitar. I started playing the BIGSBY with pedals in 1956 and the Emmons in 1972 so I feel I do possess some knowledge on the subject. I started lesson #1 way back when Lewis and Clark were still beaching their hollowed-out log canoe on the North bank of the Mighty Columbia River, there at the famous Hudson Bay Company near Fort Vancouver.......immediately East of the Interstate 5
twin bridges. Sorry........I digressed. Old people do that from time to time, just ask Larry Behm.

I lay my hand across the strings in the same fashion that I do when I play lap steel which is the same way I did when playing my earliest ROUND-HOLE Flat Top guitar. I pick near what would be the right hand part of the circle/round hole.

My right arm/hand lies comfortably at a 45 degree angle from my right hip to about where my belt buckel is located. I do not lean my elboe on the pickup cover.

I've never encountered the cramping fingers, hands, wrists, forearms, elboes, neck and shoulders that I've read about here on the SGF. Watching some of the younger fellows playing steel these days is almost frightening upon noticing the odd and strained angles of everything from their stiff little finger to the awkward angle of the right wrists and elboe.

Elevating the right elboe, IMHO, is as incorrect as is immobilizing the right picking hand by glauming onto the pickup cover/ARM REST and/or the loafing pad where the first, nearest neck is located.

It it's difficult to master.......picking, that is, is it at all possible that one could be attempting to do it incorrectly????

And yes, I do appreciate the many young folk that of late have been holding open doors for me and volunteering to shove my carry-on luggage into the overhead bin on the airliner as I traverse the skies to St.Louis. My special thanks goes out to the kind FRONTIER AIRLINES Captain that pushed my wheel chair from his Airbus all the way up the jet-way and about a mile down the concourse in the terminal building at Denver last year.

I get lazy !!!! Well I developed bursitis in my hips so I don't feel like doing much after I get off of work. So I'm not practicing nearly as much as I should. I also keep flipping between guitar a pedal steel.....

#1 Nothing wrong. There are a simple exercises you can work on to develop an alternate thumb and two finger approach that will get you using two fingers together if thats a hurdle.
#2. Sitting too much in the center (near the 12th fret), may cause your elbow to keep rising. Try positioning your body around the 15th fret if you aren't already.

Clete

45yrs of nerves!!! When I should be enjoying myself

To Fred Glave- Re what the Pinky out does for you ?

It means you can be an upper class snob, not worry about it, and also look a prat
whilst drinking a cup of tea ! Oh! - you mean with the steel / SFA !

My bad habit is I sit and read the forum and post silly things on Facebook..
But you guys are so entertaining..

Other bad habit is I say what is your bad habits instead of what are you bad habits. ?? Ha!
Where are the grammar police when you need them?

I agree with Niels - Fast Women!


or maybe women - at least guitars and steel guitars keep some value and you do not have to pay them payments

but I have a good one NOW

I agree Joe. My bad habit is keeping an eye on the front door at the bar job.

Been there done that just glad those days are in my rear view mirror

My bad habit is too much bar pressure especially when I get in a tight or get nervous. The more of a tight I'm in, the more I push down on the bar. It seems to give me better sustain but know it don't. I've seen players that look like their bar is just barley resting on strings but I get a buzz when I do that.