The Steel Guitar Forum

I thought this to be very interesting and might be of interest to others or at least worthy of discussion???
This is something out of a discussion we were having on the break about Pentatonic scales and Bo was showing how he played the A major Pentatonic Scale at the 7th Fret on the E9 as much or more than other positions.
I thought it odd since I hadn't ran across that in my vast archives of tab and I mostly associate that 7th fret position related to an A chord as an Amaj7 scale.
So here is all the positions that Bo uses for the A major Pentatonic Scale including position II at the 7th fret. I also noticed that Bo uses position IV with a lot of C pedal work when he hangs on it through a three chord progression southern rock or blues.
Three things to note here is 1. Slide into the bar position from below the bar. 2. lock onto those specified within the bar position. 3. pedal into the bar position notes that are above the bar position.

Very cool Stuart!

And thanks for the homework

et

Stuart--I am so dependant on hearing audio examples of what someone has written, could we get some form of this as a youtube? Thanks for sharing your insight!

Stuart- A huge thank you! This is exactly what I've been looking for since starting on steel about a year ago....your positions 1 and 4 - the classic "pedals up" and "pedals down" positions - were easy to learn about....but the others weren't obvious.

I played with figuring them out on my own, but it is much better to have the test of time that these have been given....

And the real beauty of these is that they connect the classic two, so now I will be able to command the entire fretboard by sliding between these positions...

And, of course, the minor penta scales are just these, three frets up....and the full scales are easy to interpolate by adding the missing notes...

Here is a short 3 bars each of the pos II major penta and the the equievalent minor penta up 3 frets.
This is a TablEdit file you can download that will show and play the tab. Remember you can download the free TEFview, a FREE TablEdit File Viewer to play these if you don't already have this program.
It is really a handy program to have.
Click Here for the above penta files.
Here is another download of a use of Pos II and the equivilent minor penta mixed.
Click Here
Click Tefview for free download.

I guess that position is only exceptable if you can play "The Steel Guitar Rag" within it.
Click Here

I cant add to the conversation, but I would like to thank you for posting this. This is really helpful information.

Wow Stuart and Bo! Tks! Needed the audio here to put it all together too.
For those of u who didn't know, Tefview is available for iPad and IPhone users as well, and it seems to work great...

Tks for introducing me to it...off to find the intro for Fire on the Mountain!

Here is the Minor Penta up 3 frets frome the Major Penta. Just in case you might want to mix them.
Also included a sub position ( pos V )to fill the space between pos IV and pos 1 in the minor penta, TefView file included.



Click Here to download the TablEdit tab.

That is really cool! TablEdit is pretty nice too

I'm sorry......... I am a 3yr.dummy at playing steel... SOOooo I don't get it...

Since you are a self proclaimed dummy, I'll use the key of C.

Major scale C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C; as numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Those numbers are the scale degrees shown in the above examples.

Major pentatonic, penta=5; C,D,E,G,A 1,2,3,5,6
Black keys on the piano is a popular example. What is missing is the leading notes, the 4th and 7th. So you can play it over just about anything.

Rearrange the same notes A,C,D,E,G
That is the A minor pentatonic scale. Note that if you add an Eb you have the A blues scale and the Eb is the minor 3rd in the C major scale, and the flat 5th in the A scale.

Every major pentatonic scale has a related minor, the 6th, i.e A is the 6th in the C scale. and C is the minor 3rd of A scale. That's why Stuart points out you get a minor scale with same root as the major by moving up 3 frets.

Every major key has 3 pentatonic scales in it that use only the notes in the scale. For key of C you have:
C = CDEGA that is also the A minor
F = FGACD, alias D minor
G = GABDE, alias E minor

If you map the fretboard of the pedal steel (E9) as numbers in a key such as C you should notice some useful things.

A major scale can be played across the strings at the I fret (home fret), using pedals/bar. I = fret for the major cord of the root, in key of C, cord of C major at 8th fret.

You can also do this at +2 frets, II position for cord of D major at fret 10, +5 frets at IV position for F major at fret 13, and and +7 frets at fret 15, V position for G major. and +9 for VI at fret 17 cord A major. My positions are numbered by the cord you find there. Different than how Stuart numbers them. Mine: I,II,IV,V,VI, = Stuart's I,II,III,IV,V

All are not equal, some require more bar movement etc.

As Steve alluded to,they over lap forming 2 groups I & II, and IV & V. and the 2 groups over lap a little and are 1 fret apart. Position VI bridges the gap in the other direction.

If you learn them, you should be able to go from one group to an adjacent group, which would mean you know most of the fret board. Change keys by changing home fret.

That is my plan. I think it will take the better part of a year to know them well, simply playing a scale is not good enough. I am 2 months into it.

Sounds like a lot of work, but some things are just necessary and you just have to do them and get it over with. i did it once with the sax, taking a year to learn to play in all 12 keys.

Hope that helped rather than added confusion. It's a lot to cover in one post.

Thanks Frank... Guess I should have studied music theroy.... Too old, to late at this stage of the game. Will just keep pluging along the way I am doing, and having fun doing it Thanks again. Jack<><

Stuart/Bo:

Thanks a million for saving me (and many others I'm sure) a bunch of time and aggravation in organizing and mapping those positions out. While I'm at it, thanks to all the luminaries on the forum for being so generous with your hard earned knowledge. I love this place!

John

Nice information!

Thank you all for expressing your appreciation and your enthusiasm is very encouraging.
It is also encouraging that we got this far through the topic without someone bashing tab.
There are endless little things inbetween all the posision and if you want to get right down to it there are good little positions on every fret. Some are just a little easier to do than others. I think you'll find you will only use the ones that seem comfortable to you.

Thanks, for the fine info, Stuart. I have been putting it to use. I will also say that I've gotten a lot of mileage out of tab and still do. What program do I need to download the other info you have here? I don't have the correct application to open those additional pieces. Thanks, steve t

Steve I use TablEdit ($59.97 with free updates) and a Microsoft Works spreadsheet with a simple program I made up.
I save the TablEdit file, upload it to Box.Net free file storage for download and copy from it and/ or the spreadsheet, paste to paint and save as a Jpeg that I edit in Adobe Photoshop for sharing.
Here is jpeg of the simple spreadsheet program. (No I do not wish to expand it. Simplicity is the whole idea) A person should know how the pedals and levers will effect what is shown on this spreadsheet.
I don’t see the need to go to the expense or take a lot of time making a video of tab played on a PSG when you can listen to the TableEdit tab that plays as a midi and follows along note for note with the tab and give it your own picking personality. The tab can be set to play at a slower speed which helps a lot in the learning process.

Note that to view what is available in this thread, you only need the Viewer, which is free.

This is a nice complement to the Joe Wright lesson #3 on the Sierra Steels website. I love those lessons. In this one, he discusses 3 basic positions for the pentatonic scale, all of which skip strings 9 and 2.

http://www.sierrasteels.com/lessons/e9th-lessons.html