The Steel Guitar Forum

I an unable to make a smooth transition from B&C pedals down to A&B pedals down. Is there a proper technique for doing this?

Thanks,

Plant your heal and do it back and forth after about 5000 times and it gets easier..
I some times forget it is on the B/C
You can depress the B/C slower and smoother than the A/B mash technique.
Practice using it for your 2 minor.
Newmans minor chord connection is a good one for this.

Pete, I'm no expert by any means, but I place my heel in line with the B pedal, and just use the heel as a pivot from AB to AC. Do you still play a pedalmaster? I used to have a SD10 as well. Should have kept It. I like my Mullen, but the Pedalmaster was a good guitar. Larry

I'm no expert either, by a long shot; but I've never been happy with having to release the C pedal and re-engage the AB during a smooth slide up a minor inversion. The sounds we want often drive us to seek new copedents to get these, so I changed my copedent. Now I can slide smooth and sonically parallel inversions up the neck, both majors and minors, without ever having to release/re-engage pedals: inversions transition from knees to pedals to knees, and the smooth tonal change that results at any slide speed was worth the new copedent. This is one example of why there are so many copedents out there! This may not help you much, then again if you're not happy with what you can get out of your set-up (after those 5000 practices): experiment!

Sorry, I've been off the Emmons E9 setup for a while and goofed up the pedal names above. Should read releasing the BC pedals and engaging the A pedal for a minor inversion slide. Some would comment that I'm substituting copedent for skill, and there would be some truth in that. Then again, sometimes we can find personally friendlier ways to play what want, with the sound we want, and this can enable us to play better faster (skill with less fighting, as it were). Pedal steel is uniquely rich in possibilities, which is just one reason I love it so much!

Pete- on Paul Brainard's suggestion, I made my LKV do E-F# on strings 4 and 10....now instead of A+B->B+C I just do A+B->A+B+LKV. Very smooth. And it moves string 8, which C pedal does not. I believe b0b also has this change....and some other folks are adding it after playing mine.
You give up the B->Bb, but I found the E->F# to be really useful for chords, flourishes, and melody...

If you see the need for this move coming (as opposed to "hey, while I'm here, THIS is what I'll do next!!"), you could hit A & B with the left foot, and hit C with the right, taking it off the volume pedal. I've never had occasion to try to transition from BC to AB, but I have found myself wanting to add C while I'm at AB.

But, like I've warned before, I'm a bit odd.
I would say do whatever it takes to get the notes from your head to the speakers

http://www.jamcenter.com/

Go to the key of C, click "Major" on the console. It is a very cheesy play along track at a good pace. An endless loop of 1/6m/4/5.

There are other good patterns to practice exercises there in different keys and styles. I use these as drills to get my hands and feet synched to the changes, all to a steady beat.

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Like anything else, practice and over time it will no longer be a problem.

Agreed - focused practice, over and over and over till it's second nature. To focus on mainly BC to AB and AB to BC pedal moves, I'd use a repeating pattern something like this:

1(pedals up)/2m(BC)/4(AB)/3m(BC)/4-or-5(AB)/2m(BC)/1(pedals up)/,

changing grips to get reasonable lead voice movement. Of course, there are other changes you could add to make it more musical and integrate BC with other important pedal/lever moves, like the A-pedal-only or A+F. The type of pattern shown above is extremely AB/BC-centric, but probably useful to get the pivot-off-the-heel thing second nature.

It's called the rule of 5000... anyone ever heard of this?

A brief googling turned up nothing, Ken. Is it related to 10,000 hours? THAT, I've heard of.

Thanks for all the inputs, guess maybe I'm expecting a little too much for 7 weeks in the saddle! I'll sure be checking out all the suggestions though.

Pete Nicholls wrote:...smooth transition from B&C pedals down to A&B pedals down.

If you mean without releasing B first, I dont think its done very often. Its usually either on BC or AB, and both pedals are released before pressing the other pair. You would need really slippery soled shoes to slide across the pedals while holding B down. Otherwise, you'll need a really wide foot, but I suppose it has been done. Steve has an effective workaround with the lever.

Ken Metcalf wrote:It's called the rule of 5000... anyone ever heard of this?

Lane Gray wrote:A brief googling turned up nothing, Ken. Is it related to 10,000 hours? THAT, I've heard of.

On average it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a given field, but I believe Ken hinted at it in his original post.

Ken Metcalf wrote:... after about 5000 times and it gets easier...

Clete

The so-called 'Rule of 5000' is pretty common in motor training circles - e.g.,

http://deborahauer.wordpress.com/2011/1 ... r-running/

http://www.hockscqc.com/articles/howmanyreps/?index.htm

I think this concept has been implicit pretty much ever since people started studying motor learning, but a lot of people give Richard Schmidt credit for stating it as a general principle and giving evidence for it in these:

Schmidt, R.A. (1988). Motor Control and Learning: A Behavioral Emphasis. (2nd ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, pp. 482-489.

Schmidt, R.A. (1975). A schema theory of discrete motor skill learning. Psychological Review, 82, 225-260.

Another operational phrase is the counter to 'practice makes perfect': 'practice makes permanent'. This acknowledges the idea that if you repeat something over and over the wrong way, the wrong behavior will become ingrained.

The 'magic number' 5000 is often questioned. Many argue that it's more like 500, unless you have to unlearn some wrong behavior, at which point you're looking more like 5000.

My take - this type of rule more typically about some limited motor skill. My take on the '10,000 hours rule' is more about a type of general skill than a specific narrowly-defined motor skill.

If you want a smooth, e.g. not hearing the pedals release then reapply, transition, then you've asked the impossible, and none of us try that way. If I wanted a smooth transition from Bm to D, for example, I'd play Bm at fret 3 with the Es lowered and slide to 1 with A pedal and Es raised, or from 3 with Es lowered up to 5AB.
FWIW, the Es lowered (C#min open) is my favorite position for minors.