The Steel Guitar Forum

If you were going to offer a beginner ONE piece of advice what would it be ??

i think it would depend on the new students musical direction and goals.

i thought a little about this before i answered and can say that i strongly feel the ONE piece of advice i would give to a beginner is...
find the best teacher you can and don't attempt to figure this out on your own unless you intend/are willing to endure many years of frustration*

that advice would be directed to someone wanting to learn how to play the steel guitar. there are a lot of people who actually don't really want to 'learn' the steel guitar, just have some fun messing around, or as a 3rd or 4th instrument they play in curiosity, or they are just playing slide guitar with a band on a few tunes. nothing wrong with any of these...btw

*needless to say a great teacher does not make up for desire/dedication in a student. a strong desire + a great teacher will make for amazing progress.

I'd offer a quote from one of our dear departed fomites Steinar Gregertsen, "Play to express, not to impress"

Pick one tuning (with a 6th in it) so you can play minor and major triads and start playing along with every song you hear.

If you have friends that play, jam with them, if not play with CD's, records, youtube etc.

When you see the logical patterns that chord progressions make on the fretboard you will soon be able to play almost any song in any key.

Dom

I agree with Jerome: Get a good teacher to get you started in the right direction

Don't give up. It's more frustrating than some instruments, but rewarding in equal portions.

Ignore 98% of what you read on the forum.

Buy a horse.
No, just kidding of course.
Buying and learning to play a steel guitar will be one of the biggest and best experiences of your life.
Enjoy the ride.

I agree with most of the above. I especially like Dom's idea. Pick one of the time-tested, standard tunings, preferably a 6th tuning and stick with that tuning until you learn the chord positions, the harmonized scales, slants, etc. inside and out before moving on to another tuning. And Start on 6 strings.

Only one?
Call John McClung.

Beppe Gambetta says: "Practice! Practice! Practice!" I guess he said it three times 'cause I always forget the middle part….

Don't quit your day job!

Neil Smith wrote:If you were going to offer a beginner ONE piece of advice what would it be ??

Take up golf instead.

From a beginner...concentrate on technique at every practice session. That "sound" will magically appears on it's own.

Choose music, choose tuning based on music.

Well, I am a beginner and the one thing I didn't expect to need was therapy.

Neil, there are some many factors that need to mesh that it is hard to come up with one that should come first. So while it may not be number one, I would advise you not to worry about dropping the bar. Just pick it up and start again. One day you will turn around and say, Gee, I haven't dropped the bar in while.

My advice would be to follow your own inspiration as a starting point and take it from there. In other words, follow your muse, not someone else's! There is nothing more powerful than your own determination to learn to play an instrument. Once you've made up your mind on what you're after the rest of the pieces will fall into place.

It takes a lot of time and effort for most folks to really learn how to play an instrument. Students who start with a fire in the belly, who are self motivated, tend to do better and go further than students who rely on others to provide direction.

The world is filled with books on dieting, retirement planning and learning to play lap steel guitar. So many options and methods! A motivated student can learn something from even a bad teacher whereas there are many, many students who struggle to learn from a great teacher because they lack the will to succeed

If you dont already have general music theory knowledge, go out and acquire some. It will save you time and sanity in the long run.

Don' t fear the slant.

It's great if you have access to a good teacher but many don't. However, there are many good web teaching videos as well as Skype lessons with master players - like John Ely - that are available.

The two key things I'd say are: blocking and intonation. What you learn to not play is as important or more important than what you do play. There is a fractional difference between heaven and hell on steel guitar so it's critical to listen to yourself to tune-up properly and make sure what you play is in tune. It's really, really easy to over emphasize the "slidiness" of the instrument. It's one of the most fun things about playing steel but good players control that aspect. Oh yeah, and have fun! It's called playing music!

Guess that was more than one idea.

I believe that getting involved on a "eat & sleep playing steel" attitude is what it will take to really learn. Playing scales might be great for learning piano, but I consider it a waste of time on a steel guitar.
About tunings: Jumping all over the available tunings will make you "master of none" If it's all types of music, the C6th seems to be the all-around tuning. C#m7th. is a beautiful tuning, but quite limited for a lot of music genres, but a nice one to know in a secondary way.

On the other hand, maybe what Niels Andrews said is good advice..."ignore 98% of what you read on the forum ( this one )!

This is the one thing I would tell a beginner, and Ira Glass has told it so well, so listen to him:

http://youtu.be/PbC4gqZGPSY

That's golden, Mike.