The Steel Guitar Forum

What is the most creative or even outlandish musical thing you've tried to do with your steel? Things I've thought of (but not necessarily tried):

1. Vibrato with a pedal or lever (instead of the bar).

2. Fluttering notes by lightly bouncing the bar.

3. Picking/strumming to the left of the bar on harmonic frets (I've done this--it sounds hauntingly beautiful, including whole chord slides and pulls).

Other ideas?

French Horns; did that a lot on steels with tone controls. I'd turn it to cut almost all of the high end which would push the lows & most importantly the mids more. Then I'd seek out 2 note & 3 note chords in the french horn range being careful not to slur the pedals but play them dead on, unless I guess you could if you were going for a "high school - city college" ambience. Sounded like the real deal recorded.

I can take no credit for it, but there is a right finger harmonic that incorporates a non harmonic picked string along with it. It is not easy to do, but it allows the harmony note To be an octave higher than the melody note.

I will try to describe how it is done. Using the typical right thumb pick and tip of the "ring" finger harmonic, you "sweep" the thumb pick so as it is leaving the harmonicked string, it just catches the next higher string and picks that string without a harmonic. IE, harmonic the 5th string and pick the 6th string in one movement.

My teacher in the 40's, Letritia Kandel taught me how to do it. And I used to do it while playing "Missouri waltz". She did it flawlessly and beautifully.

Like anything good, it takes mucho practice. Unless you are BE of course. In his case, he was born that way. Dang his hide

God bless LK, BE and all of you,

carl

I've played the slide trombone parts in a dixieland ensemble with clarinet,trumpet,tenor banjo etc.No big deal - no effects or anything,just played the stuff on the low strings of my C6 neck.I don't know how well I did it but it was fun because of the improv nature of that music. I was asked last week to record and do some gigs with a world music group here in L.A. called "Senor Juju" which has 4 horns,3 percussionists,Chapman Stick and Keys and I will probably check it out if my schedule permits.But mostly I'm a pretty normal cowboy.

I once set up a steel with all strings tuned to E, for a chorus effect on a recording. The producer didn't appreciate my creativity, and dropped the part. Sigh.

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (C6add9), Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6), Roland Handsonic

There is a chord change in the Firebird Suite that required me to simultamiously raise the 6th string to A and lower the 3rd to G. I had to remove the rod on the 3rd string from the raise and reposition it to a lower just to be able to record that one chord change.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bobhoffnar/MP3's/Track%2005.mp3

I found that because of the focus of even overtones and the ability to control intervals on the pedalsteel that I could play music based on difference tones/sub harmonics. I play this piece live with no overdubs or effects, except for an Ibaneze overdrive box. With the MP3 format its hard to hear some of the subharmonics.

I've played all sorts of out music on the steel. One of my proudest moments as a session player was to have some drunk English metal band try to be cute and ask the steel player to play something scary. A couple minutes later they ran into the room and stopped me because I was actually frightening them ! (I was sawing the strings off my steel with rusty metal rods. It sounded like wildcats screaming mixed with fingernails being scraped on a blackboard really really loud.)

Bob

I have a triple neck guitar called Guitarzilla, that has two 10-string necks and a 5-string bass neck. Each neck has pickups on both ends of the neck and all of the strings are in the same plane. Last spring I did a performance and recently, I did a recording where the guitar was "prepared". I machined a lot of 1/8" x 1 1/8" x 3 3/4" steel bars to be like a mini I-beams with a .040" center, they were then drilled with 11 holes, so that there was a hole half way between each string.

I then welded/brazed 1/16" rods (steel, chrome-moly, inconel, titanium),that had been cut to resemble a scale, the longest being 24", so that the plate is suspended in the strings over the pickups, with the rods poking up. I also wove titanium rods between the strings on the 10 string necks to "connect" them. Because the steel plates are magnetic, the pickups "hear" everything that the rods do as well as all of the stuff that the strings are now doing.

I hit the rods with hammer dulcimer hammers and I can "bow" them with thin strips of stainless that have velcro attached to them. The sounds are "fed" to a DDL chain and become textures.

I've done things where all the necks were connected with rods, long drills and springs. Sometimes I pick the notes, or hit them with dulcimer hammers or drill rods or pieces of wire. Sometimes they are bowed with velcro or sponges or scraped with glass.

Hey b0b!

You be playin' my tuning! I call it the "EEEEEEEEEEEEzy Tuning"! (12-string tuning; 81 Emmons S12 p/p)

BTW: Pedals 1, 2, and 3 raise them to F and pedals 4, 5, 6 and 7 lower them to Eb. The kneelevers don't do a thing. I just keep 'em on there cause they look cool

Keep on pickin'1
Glenn www.kevinfowler.com <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Glenn Suchan on 17 February 2003 at 11:12 AM.]</p></FONT>

Red Rhode was the master of getting his steel to sound like an organ. He used no effects, just bar vibrato. He used it on most of his instrumental albums, check it out!

I do what I call a "B-3 Chop" on the C6th neck. It's kinda complex, but here's what's going on...

With my pahse shifter on "Fast" (for a Leslie effect), and the boo-wah pedal engaged, I tap (smack?) strings 5 thru 10 with the third finger of my right hand, while the same strings are dampened with my left hand. Immediately after this move, I then slap the bar down on the same strings (using my left hand). This move is repeated twice for each beat in any "be-bop" type song. I alternate between the boo-wah (pedal , and the D7-9 change (usually on pedal 5), playing 1 measure in each chord.

The result is a sound very similar to someone "comping" chords on an old Hammond B-3!

It's a very "un-steel", organ-like sound, and it usually drives the bass player crazy. Sounds cool to me, though! If I can ever learn how to upload stuff to my ISP, I'll post it here.

I don't know if this counts on this topic but when Kenny Dail lived here in Virginia we used to introduce him like this: "AND ON STEEL GUITAR TONIGHT WE'VE GOT THE GREAT KENNY DAIL, HE'S GOT ONE STRING AND 27 PEDALS. HE DOE'S THE SINGLE NOTE STUFF ALRIGHT BUT IT'S FUNNY WATCHIN' HIM HOP AROUND TO GET THE CHORDS".....

Also Carl, I've been doing that technique you described on lead guitar for many years and for some reason I never thought of doing it on steel. I'm gonna set up my guitar right now and get after it....JH

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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

Bob H.,
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I hear the middle D string on that piece?

Back in the late sixties, I cut a couple of sessions using the Leslie Cabinet which was very effective for steel guitar, came out very nice.
Gene

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If You Keep Pickin That Thing, It'll Never Heal!

Chas.,
How bout postin some sound bits of those rod thingys.

Bill

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Bill Ford

Chas,
You gotta picture of that monster for us ? Chas's instruments are beautiful things to look at.

Jeff,
I used a standard C neck tuning with some long pulls on it. But mostly I used the E9 neck. In a few places I used both necks and kicked the pedals to get some more stuff to clang and vibrate.

Bob

BTW: That piece is coming out on a steel guitar compilation disk on Elliott Sharp's label at some point.

Bill and Bob, I had planned on posting a photo that was taken by a friend, of me rehearsing a simpler setup and I haven't figured out all of the new upload features with my new provider. (we, the 4th tech that day and I, spent 2 1/2 hrs trying to find my e-mail). Now, as fate would have it, there's a "family crisis" and I have to fly out in the morning. So I'll have to address this a bit later.

I have a new CD that is going to be released in April on Cold Blue Music and b0b and I have discussed the Forum consignment arrangement. It will be called 'An Hour Out of Desert Center' and it is all steel guitar, Bigsby lap guitar and steel guitar-generated, including Guitarzilla. By steel guitar-generated, I mean that I've made samples of crotales, zithers, steel cutters and my Pez Eater that I trigger with my Super Pro to harmonize myself while I'm playing.

This is, however, NOT traditional music even though it's very pretty and friendly, by my standards. It's unlikely you will be humming it in the car unless you've taken some serious drugs.

oops <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 17 February 2003 at 10:10 PM.]</p></FONT>

Chas, with reference to a recent thread, you may well win the prize for having "the most;" you can't have too many challengers for having "the most historically significant;" but your axe collection is absolutely the shoo-in, hands-down winner in the "weirdest" category! Having glimpsed a few of your creations, I would really like to hear some sound clips. Are any of those things freeway legal?

Gary Moorse has played steel with a violin bow in a fusion band in the 80s.

Now that's unconventional!

I'm a keyboard player by trade, and I have run my pedal steel into my synthesizers for some pretty strange sounds...Jim