The Steel Guitar Forum

I was thinking about a basic question this afternoon. Why is the Steel Guitar SO confusing to people?! Well, first of all it LOOKS funny! It IS a guitar, but it sits on a frame, has a bunch of pedals hanging down underneath, and you play it with a steel bar and some finger picks! It doesn’t look anything like a 6 string “guitar”, nor do you play it that way, so people ask, “What the hell is that thing?!” Well, it is a guitar…sort of! Ahhhh…trust me, it IS a guitar, just a bit different.

Then you get the statement, “It sounds really nice, but I don’t really understand what you are doing!” Hummm…what are we doing?! Well, I am making music, just not quite like the other guys in the band. I am, it just doesn’t quite LOOK the same. See, I play with this hand (right), and this hand (left). Got that? “Yea.” Oh yes, I also use this foot on a volume pedal, and this foot on these 8 pedals down here! Got that? “Sort of…but (looking at the guitar player)”, how come he doesn’t do that? Ahhh, well, he just pats his foot in time with the song. He has an easier job, because he doesn’t have as much going on! They go…”OK, I think I understand. By the way, why are you wagging your knees around under there?” (sigh) Well, see these knee levers? “Yea”. Ok, I am doing this with my right hand, this with my left hand, this here with my right foot, and this with my left foot. The knee levers are the same as the pedals, so while I am doing all the rest of this stuff with all my hands, feet and fingers, I wag my knees around under here and pull some more strings. Pretty cool, huh? (Total look of blank amazement!)

Once again, they look at the guitar player and ask, “This is a guitar, right?” The answer is, YES! ‘How come you have 10 strings and he has 6?” Oh! Simple answer…this is a Chromatic tuning! “ Ah what?!, is that like some ancient Cro-Magnon type of guy from the deep dark past?!” No, it actually started out as a 6-string lap steel, went to an 8 string, and then a couple of guys named Emmons and Day (and probably somebody else in there as well) put the 9th and 10th strings on it! Pretty neat, huh?

They say, “Emmons and Day? Sounds like a food processor!!” At this point I would say your best bet is to offer to buy them a drink on the condition they will NEVER ask you another question!!

This is all in fun, but if you stop and think about what we do, and trying to explain it to someone…it is not that far beyond reality!

B. Bailey Brown

I once spent about 20 min's trying to tell someone at a family gathering what a pedal steel look's like and was not having much luck judging from their blank look, when I looked down at the T-shirt I was wearing.
"JEFFERAN COLLEGE OF STEEL GUITAR" with a nice image of a pedal steel silk screened on the front. When I told him that "this" is a pedal steel, pointing at my shirt.
He said " can't be a guitar, it has legs!"
JE:-)>

i just tell them " you know the whinny thing that makes you want to cry in your beer in country music" you would be surprised on how many people then get it....you think thats hard try telling them you build pac-seats


wayne brown
c/o out west pac-seats

We try our best to play on pitch and in tune, and then we try to explain exactly what it is we are doing.. Like my sister, she says " My Brother plays slide " and then proceeds to tell me not to play Country because I am "identifying" with Country Music??? Then my brother claims to know what a crying Steel is tells me to play that crying sound, even when I'm playing perhaps an Alan Jackson song or even on the C6th neck,He says," Thats not right, play that George Jones tune, you know the one where it sounds like it's crying , I forget the name of it " " Thats what you should be playing " !!!

It's a Seinfeld episode for sure...
tp

"We tune."

We argue a lot, too.

We pay divorce lawyers, and contribute to consumption. We are smug in our ability to play a mechanical device that makes fools out of advanced Telecaster players. I chime, therefore I am.