The Steel Guitar Forum

I'm coming from a background in electro-acoustic and experimental music, specifically making and playing tape loops, but I usually play lap steel in the more conventional fashion. I would love, however, to incorporate steel into my music, but I'd like some opinions on people who have this sort of more experimental background. Does anyone approach their steel not within the confines of the guitar paradigm, but as just another timbre generator albeit with particular characteristics?

And in that vein, does anyone use lap steel in the vein of, say, FoDM - using it for pads, perhaps with ebow (or actual violin bows?!
) and can speak to the effectiveness of the instrument in this regard and what techniques or tunings I might want to look into?

Thanks!

Forum member Chas Smith is deep into exploring the timbres of his unique steel guitars and other instruments:
https://www.google.com/search?q="chas+smith"+music

Neat, I'll check it out later!

(as a postscript to my original post, this is for studio work rather than live performance)

Martin,

Patrick O'Hearn does the kind of music you're asking about; Although his older work c.a. 5 years ago seemed freer, less arpegio / chord based than his more recent work. Go to his website, click on *play* for the video displayed there (that first track on his website isn't his best work by far), and when it runs out (or you fast forward to near the end) a youtube menu will appear with many of his pieces. He bought a very nice and great sounding pre-war Rickenbacher B6 from me several years ago. I couldn't really understand his wanting it for it's tones (in the manners you described) rather than learning how to play steel; But he recorded with it on one of his CD albums, and along with other albums he recorded I understood and enjoyed it a lot when I was in moods for such music. He used the Ric B6 for chord arpegio rythms, subtle portamento (sliding) chord effects, to extract pure at-rest ringing strings tones from, and extract tones from using the B6 as a subtle percussion instrument, and most likely other effects I didn't identify.

You can hear the nice full audio spectrum and spacial envelope of his work if you listen with efficient headphones or good hi-fi.

I cannot remember the name of the album nor songs that he used the Rick B6 on, ...but you could email him from his website and ask.

------------

After thinking about it, I think the B6 was used on his 'Glaciation' album (and probably others). You can find cuts from 'Glaciation' by clicking here, or searching in the 'Patrick O'Hearn' link at the beginning of this posting.

I love FODM and took a lot of inspiration from them in two of the bands I recorded with.

Xul Solar

"Dead Man", "Moon" and "Sigh": all atmospheric effects were created with an old EP4 Echoplex and lap steel.

"Orbis Tertius" and "Mitzpah", the lead is played on steel. Was aiming for FODM, particularly on "Mitzpah".

The Subcons

On "Upendix", I layered several Ebow tracks in an attempt to create string section of sorts, particularly near the end of the song.

"Sogni D'oro", more Ebow.

Beware the strict traditionalists! I received some negative responses (mostly PMs, but also some public ones) when I posted these a few years ago. One person accused me of diminishing the instrument to a "sound effect" and another advised me "learn to play". I should mention that I also received plenty of encouragement.

....diminishing the instrument to a "sound effect" and another advised me "learn to play".....
Chuck Campbell told me that a lot of steel guys in Nashville said things like that to him about Sacred steel. Lloyd Green didn't.
I suggest trying something like a baritone scale steel like the type DL or Cole Clark guitars makes and tune it to something like C tuning [ lo CGCGCE hi or CGCGCD. Very low,still melodic if you need to be and very different sounding than conventional stuff. Also,get an E-Bow.

Traditional C6 tuning should be able to accomplish the task at hand. I have to agree though that you may get some negative responses when you buck the mold if you are unknown.

The "learn to play" I guess means show your musical flexibility and agility to be able to play anything. Once that's done I suspect you could scrape the strings with a high heel shoe and people will still respect you cause the ability to play complex music is there.

However if you do learn and practice traditional music you could be more emotive when experimenting and I truly mean that. As I once thought traditional playing limits you. It's the exact opposite. No foundation does as your mind can express and idea better than your playing.

And that is what I'm going for to be able to play what my mind feels. Communicate.

Also check out Mike Cooper (google etc) he is based in Rome, originally hailing from Reading in England and was part of the 60,s blues set with his tricone, over the years he has used the steel guitar in many different abstract ways...

Lee