The Steel Guitar Forum

So, how long did you practice pedal steel before you started gigging (and I mean doing a decent job with a decent band)?

AND

What was your musical background before PSG?

1. I've only been at PSG for a couple of months now and I'm in no hurry to play it out yet, but I sure do love practicing and learning something new.

2. I played guitar for 20 years, then switched to bass for the past 3 years (more opportunity with paying gigs). Fronted a couple bands on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, then went to bass with some lead vocals & harmonies. Played a variety of music over the years.

11mos. from walking off the show room floor, to a road gig in Cal. then to Canada and Brooklyn NY. I was not a great player, but my 16yrs. of guitar playing helped secure the job. Oh, I forgot to mention the pay was 50bucks a wk, a nice room, and plenty to eat. My steel guitar payment was 39bucks a mo.and I lived at home. So I was young, stupid, no job, and didn't have a care in the world.

I was fiddling around with my newly acquired ZB Student (3+1) at home until my old friend Gerry Hogan (already a very good player himself at this point) urged me to jump in at the deep end and take it on a gig. He said: "You'll learn more in two hours than you will at home in two months."

I believe he was quite right, but things didn't go well for me. My first time playing the ZB in public (I'd been a pro guitarist for many years at this point) was at London's Nashville Rooms. I took a few faltering and tentative steps, bar hand shaking and totally ineffective palm-blocking and there was Buddy Emmons standing watching!

I'm not kidding! He was in town playing bass in Roger Miller's band and a journalist friend of mine was taking him around introducing him to a few musicians. I hope my guitar-playing made up for my efforts on the ZB.

Emmons was very nice and, when I was introduced to him, offered encouragement but he must have wondered what he'd walked into!

I bought an MCI S10 from Buddy Emmons at the St Louis show and had a steady monday night gig at a bar in NYC in 3 months. I was terrible but I booked the gig and owned the PA so I didn't get fired.
I really could not play worth a crap at all. I recently found an old chart I made that had the name of the tune , the letter G and the number 3 on it. That meant if I put the bar at the 3rd fret some of the notes would be right....

I bought a pedal steel, played for as many hours as I could and still keep my job for 4 months starting in July. Starting in November I was asked to join a country band and we play out 3-4 times a month. It was the best thing that could have ever happened. I learned and am learning at an incredible rate. Plus I'm having a ball.

My GFI Ultra was delivered from Billy Cooper's Steel Guitars on Oct.15 2012. Two weeks later my office was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy(not good!) and since then I only work 3 days a week, allowing me a lot of time to practice (Great!). I play 5-6 gigs a month with my trio and in Sept.2013 my two bandmates convinced me to bring it to a job.Now they want me to bring all the time, if space allows it. Trust me, no one is ever gonna confuse me with Buddy Emmons but I keep it simple and try to hang in there. Playing out is helping me a lot. No do-overs allowed , like in my music room , and nothing like an impending gig to focus my feeble mind.I have a long way to go but I'm very stubborn. A few great lessons from forum members Mark Muller and Dave O'Brien have been a big help,along with 40+ years on six sting. I'm looking forward to more lessons from Dave when he returns from Florida,as long as he can tolerate my playing.

From zero,4 months and I was in a band. Yeah I sucked but each band heard something they liked so I kept on getting hired back. It's been a good ride since 1980 and I hope to have a few years left.

luckily no one around me really knew anything about pedal steel. so i started taking it to the gig right away. i sang and played acoustic before that. everyone was kinda funky so i fit right in.

A few weeks of hard woodshedding, then off to a gig. Yes, I sucked, but the band I went to work with had just lost their lap steel player and there was nobody else available to fill the spot. In fact, the gig came up in response to me asking the leader why he didn't replace the steel player. He responded with, "Hey, you know one?". I told him I had just gotten a pedal steel at a guitar show, and maybe I'd take a whack at it. A week or two later, he asked me if I wanted to try bringing it out. Right from the beginning, I had a B-Bender Tele on my shoulder that I could switch to if I got lost. But after a short while, I mostly played steel.

I had 35+ years of combined music experience before I started playing pedal steel. Classical piano early on for a number of years, 30+ years of guitar, banjo and upright bass along the way, and lots of years playing in bands, off and on somewhat. But if you take it out early, you gotta know your limitations and mostly stay within them. But I also benefited from the fact that most of the music scene I was involved with didn't know much about pedal steel, or steel at all for that matter.

Interesting question and very relevant TODAY...

For me I had already been playing guitars, in bands, for maybe a decade. Blues, US rock and roll, English rock and roll and had developed a strong liking to Buffalo Springfield. No Country yet thru the very early 70's. Once I started listening to Springfield the door started to open and i was exploring. I became totally invested in the Country Rock era, Poco, Pure Prairie League etc, but this was not actually country music.

I did end up getting a Maverick by mid 72 or 73.. and was listening to Merle somewhat but I still was not connected to the music. I learned what the 3 peds kinda did, about as basic as one can be. I took a gig with a seasoned Country band and it went downhill fast. Two days !

It wasn't so much that I was a terrible Steel player it was more like I was a terrible Country music player .

To answer the question directly...it took about 3 to 6 months of woodsheding to get the hang of a 3+1 basics but took 2 years to understand and learn the country set lists. That was the bigger problem, the songs.

I obviously got fired on the 2nd night of my 1st weekend , not necessarily because I was a bad steel player but because I had no idea of the traditional Country songs set list. I was green before "GREEN" was IN...


At this point I started listening to L Green non stop as his early records are really about his playing the traditional tunes, a great place to start. Then Merle and Buck etc...

A year or so after being fired I was re-hired by the same guys and spent over 10 years with them on and off. By then I was more focused on songs and playing what was IN THE songs than mashing around on AB pedals. Also at this point, about a year and a half or 2 years in I had acquired a PRO III Sho-Bud and was getting more calls than I could handle. It didn't hurt that I was also playing Telecaster and singing some tunes. I was playing with 2 or 3 bands and I was on the set lists of each band fronting a few tunes.

Just like today , nothings changed other than my hair color..


I realize this appears self serving but one thing is true today for me, I play Steel, Dobro , Bass, guitars and sing a few with perhaps 4 or 5 different artists/bands in the area and it is not because I am considered a seasoned Steel player, not at all, it is because I know the set lists of each of the artists/bands and can fill in with pretty much no notice on any of the Instruments. Typically they add 4 or 6 songs that I front on the set list for the gig as well...that doesn't hurt. Truth is there is easily a handful of Steel players in my area that can burn my butt with licks .

I have a few guitar playing friends that can't find a gig to save their lives, not bad players but very limited on what they can do genre wise. They spent too many years thinking country music is easy to play and doesn't require any thought.

Moral to the story..learn the songs and learn some signature licks which identify the songs. You don't have to be Loyd , Curly, Paul or Buddy to get a gig but you do have to fit in with the band even at a minimal level.

Todays process is still consistent, I get a call, get a set list if possible and learn/prep the songs I may not know, yes even the New Country songs. My own catalog of cover songs I know is still growing.

My country music life began on Pedal Steel and evolved into other Instruments but it started on Pedal Steel, on the little 3+1 Maverick but it was the songs that brought it all home.

This is gonna sound bad and in poor taste, but when hanging in some clubs where traditional or new country bands have a Steel player, you can tell in a NY minute if they know the songs or not. It doesn't have to be that way is all I am saying.

Sit behind your Steel and study, even if you are just a day one beginner. In a decade you will reflect back and be grateful for the time you put in.

I believe it was Reece who stated right here on this forum,there is practice and perfect practice and they are not the same.

sorry for the long post...

t

I played lap steel in my teenage years but left it for guitar and bass. In late October 1969, I bought my first pedal steel - a Fender 2000 - and started learning. I would work licks out on my guitar and then transfer them to the steel. I also had the 1 volume Sho-Bud book to learn with.

January 1970, I got a call from Oscar Shields (Washington DC area) and played my first steel guitar gig. It was bad but he hired me for more jobs. Haven't looked back since that wobbly start. Playing "under fire" is a very good way to learn.

Jack Stoner wrote:I played lap steel in my teenage years but left it for guitar and bass. In late October 1969, I bought my first pedal steel - a Fender 2000 - and started learning. I would work licks out on my guitar and then transfer them to the steel. I also had the 1 volume Sho-Bud book to learn with.

January 1970, I got a call from Oscar Shields (Washington DC area) and played my first steel guitar gig. It was bad but he hired me for more jobs. Haven't looked back since that wobbly start. Playing "under fire" is a very good way to learn.

Playing under fire is a very good way to BURN, also.

Just over a year. I'm very self-critical, and probably still wouldn't be playing out, but a forum member and my teacher said that it's the best way to learn. They were right. You can't practice the situations you run into on a live setting. The band wanted a steel player badly. I had sang with them several times and they knew I took steel lessons. The leader kept asking me to sit in. I was very tentative the first few times. I played fills, but really couldn't be heard in the mix past the first couple of rows in the crowd. My teacher finally told me, "If you're gonna make a mistake, make it loud." Now, I never fail to disappoint him there.

One positive result was that about the second time I played with the band, we had a substitute sound man. We usually play at the same venue, and everybody knows everybody. SoundGuy has a reputation. I was playing along quietly as usual, so contrary to his nature, he told me to turn the volume up. I did, but no to his satisfaction. I frustrated him so much, he said he wouldn't run sound for the band again. The band still thanks me for that.

Bob Hoffnar wrote: I recently found an old chart I made that had the name of the tune , the letter G and the number 3 on it. That meant if I put the bar at the 3rd fret some of the notes would be right....

Hey, that's my system!

Funny thing is, after just a few months of playing, friends were amazed at some of the sounds I was getting. I knew different, but still that was really encouraging, and also kind of deflating. Mostly people nowadays just like the sound and idea of the steel, as long as its somewhere near the ballpark of the key. Maybe its always been that way? It's true that there's no better instructor as trial by fire.

Hello all,
Three and a half years for me. The time frame was more due to fate than anything else.
I am now happily gigging with a traditional country band.
Making a fool of myself weekly at the local senior center jam session for about a year helped a great deal.

it's true. jam or sit in every opportunity you get.
the ego crushing aspects will force you to get better fast, as well as the positive support you'll get.

Bob Hoffnar wrote:I bought an MCI S10 from Buddy Emmons at the St Louis show ....

Is there a story behind that purchase you could share, Bob? Was Buddy at a MCI booth, was it his personal guitar, did you know who he was at the time, etc.

It was probably a little more than a year, but I moved across the country shortly after getting my first pedal steel (an MSA Sidekick, which was a student model), so I was in a new city with a lot going on and no connections in the music scene. I think the Sidekick wound up not getting much attention for awhile before and after the move as everything was chaotic. As soon as I felt I was getting somewhere I started looking for a pro instrument, and then listed the Sidekick for sale. It was bought by a great young guitar player who had a line on some gigs and wanted to put a band together, so I was onstage pretty quickly with a fairly small bag of tricks. Mostly people were so thrilled to hear something that sounded kinda like a pedal steel that I got away with it, and nothing like being on stage for learning. I was a singer and a decent guitar player, with some childhood piano lessons and school band behind me, and all that helped of course.

Nice post Tony.

I started on resonator guitar in June, 1974, got a Fender Champ S6 3 months later, to play a gig for Patsy Montana (tuned it like a Dobro). Got my first pedal steel (a rental Emmons, 3/2) shortly after and played it in a Western Swing band. Got my ShoBud Pro 1 (S 10, 3/4) from Red Rhodes in November, 1975 and was gigging by Christmas that year. I should add that I played banjo, guitar, keyboards and bass when I took up the steel. I never was flashy (and I'm still not), but I could play well for country and Western Swing. I played professionally in the 80's and 90's. I LOVE music of all kinds, which help, imho.

I've been playing four years, started doing a weekly with my friends a few weeks after I got my first steel. It was perfect - I would sit at home and practice all day everyday and then once a week I'd go fail horribly at applying what I had learned. I was a gigging banjo and upright bass player at the time. Practice as much as you can(including by charting your copedent and neck etc) and try to start gigging asap!

3 weeks. Very similar situation to Dave M's. Good instructor who realized I already had a very good right hand. So he taught me how every pedal and lever on the E9th neck worked by relating it to my 6-string playing. Practiced about 6 hours a day. Didn't know any of the songs in the "request band's" card catalogue, but I played what I knew in tune. Their previous guy had been very "pitchy." Previous band had been a Mothers type band. I still recall the terror of the first night, first song;
""Sugardaddy" in A JB. kick it off! " I survived!

I played straight guitar in an instrumental band, doing Ventures, Duane Eddy, and other guitar-rock. Bounced around playing British rock, soul, and folkmusic. Played lap a few years during that time, but then bought a Fender 1000, and was playing mostly pedal steel in a country group withinn 6 months. 'Course, those 6 months were comprised of 10-12 hours every day practicing.

For me...a short 2-3 months before playing a gig.

I played bass for many years and 2 guys wanted me to join their weekly jam which was largely composed of classic country with lots of Ernest Tubb and Merle Haggard tunes. I doubled on rhythm guitar as well.

On the first night halfway thru I asked, "Don't these tunes usually contain pedal steel guitar?" They answered, "Why yes...they do".

I did some reading on this forum, took some good advise from Dave Mudgett and others, and bought a BMI S-10 3x4 and the "Up From The Top A & B pedal course. Took a lesson from Mike Auldridge and played a gig 2-3 months later.

Naturally, I couldn't play anything much, but I played nothing much in tune though.

I think it was about 4 months.

I played a double-8 Magnatone (no pedals) before that, in a hippie garage band. I learned guitar as a kid but never got any good at it. Much less competition on pedal steel.