The Steel Guitar Forum

I must..I decided to buy a Pedal Steel Guitar and try to learn to play it by myself. This is called "Torture" in many languages.
Seriously,I was a mediocre 6 string player that fell in love with the sound in the late sixties when I started listening to the west coast country rock sound..Byrds, Flying burrito brothers, Linda Ronstadt, JD Souther, Sneaky Pete etc.
I, for the life of me, get so frustrated trying to figure out what I am doing with this instrument. It confounds me with all the changes and variations with all the pedals and levers and inversions..GEEZ....Who invented this chamber of horrors?

The only reason I don't shoot myself is shells cost money and I am a lousy shot..much like my steel playing.

The thing that keeps me sitting down at the guitar is the hope that sometime, someday a light will come on and I will "get it".
The sound of a steel is the only instrument that can take me to a special inner place where the beauty of music really comes alive for me. I can't describe why this galdern instrument is important for me...

I hope [with kindness] that others feel similar or the same..How the hell do you play this thing anyway?
Maybe it was fate when my original steel was stolen in '78? Maybe I am not supposed to have one to the detriment of the steel playing community?
The long and short of this is that I love this instrument and when I accidentally make a correct chord change and the pedals are meshed the way it's supposed to be, I get a rush and a smile that reaches deep into my heart where the real steel player lives...even if it's only for that moment.
enough said....

Relax, Chris. Lights will come on in varying degrees, many times before you master this instrument. Don't expect an overnight epiphany, it's not gonna happen. Take small bites and your progress will amaze and delight you. Play to please yourself and have fun with it. The great players that you admire spent hour upon hour woodshedding to master their craft.

Thanks for the encouragement...I get it. Mostly posting out of frustration because I am so bad and I am such an A type..
You are in AZ with me? Are you playing with anyone.. would come to see you.

Chris

Well sir...........I am teaching myself lap steel so I don't even have all those evil pedals and levers to deal with.
I get frustrated, angry, upset and then every once in a while I accidentally play something that really sounds good
and I sit there and smile. Then I get mad because I didn't record it or my wife didn't hear it.
As for shooting myself, sometimes I feel like it but I am a good shot so I keep my firearms locked in the safe.
If I had tried pedal steel I would have been in the nuthouse months ago.
12 strings, half a dozen pedals and as many levers. My head would explode.

There are a bazillion YouTube videos of instruction. You just have to look for them. I have links to most of Mickey Adams' lessons on my website. Like someone said, take it slow. You are trying to learn how to play one of the hardest instruments to learn and play. In time, you will either get it, or decide it is not for you. But, give it a chance. I wouldn't make the decision until after a year, or preferably two years.

Besides Mickey, look for William Litaker, Joe Barcus, Paul Sutherland, Greg Cutshaw, and I am sure I am forgetting many more.

ROTFL...

that was funny! Of course. .. brings back memories. ... the two year wall.. where you discover this thing is so deep and difficult that a life time might not be enough to master it.

A guitar fretboard is two dimensional to the piano s one dimension. .. but a steel is at least three dimensional . .. because every lever and pedal changes the fretboard.

The steel guitar has been called The Humiliator...yes it brings humility and 'perspective' to a Type A...haha.

It is the ultimate challenge. . I tell people i am just getting a headstart on my retirement project.

Right Tom. It still humiliates me.

Don't give up. It takes time to come to terms with this strange critter.

The bullet would be a Permanent solution, to a temporary problem...
Lane is correct...Exercise is the key...repetition...Rome wasn't built in a day...Most of the guys in here have 20+ years behind them....There is NO instant gratification in this game...

Hehe. Thanks for posting.. Your self description was so spot on to myself, I couldn't help but laugh.. Also mediocre 6 stringer, now pedal steel because of the same tunes, and what's worse, my dad played for 50 years and I turned my nose up at that "country stuff"

I will say, I am taking Skype lessons with John McClung and that is helping (if I could find more time to practice that would also help.. Right John?)

I would highly recommend a good teacher to start out as breaking poor habits is way harder than learning right the first time..

Good luck!

A word of caution here. With each new thing you learn.......it opens 40 new doors and it can be habit forming...........there is no end.

It's worse than heroin.

It is VERY frustrating learning new skills.
It's even worse when you try to learn several at once.
When I started, I'd already played Dobro for a couple years, so I knew the bar, and the picking and the flat side up.
I STILL say that the only thing that kept me from throwing the guitar out the window was the fact that it was a borrowed guitar that I'd have to return

Mickey Adams wrote:...There is NO instant gratification in this game...

I've had PLENTY of instant embarrassment though ! What they said + 10x

Fer sure. There's a video on YouTube by a guy who went from 6 string to pedal steel describing the change. At one point he says - "It takes 2 years to sound crap".

I went from 6 string to pedal steel and I can verify his findings..... But, 4 years in now and it's starting to work for me. It certainly is the great humbler, it's the most frustrating yet rewarding instrument I've played, but when it works

In some ways it's quite mathematical, it takes a while for all the parts of the equation to come together into a unsolvable addiction

Well Chris, if I can do it then anyone can.

The best time to plant a tree was about twenty years ago but if you didn't do it then, the next best time is today. So start practicing now.

Get as many pictures as you can of BE's right hand and mimic that for a start.

She's a demanding mistress. Give her what she wants and she'll give you what you need.
She wants your time and complete attention.

While you're learning it, it is the most cerebral instrument. First you have all this thinking about where to put all the parts of your body in order to make the noises you want to make. After that, it demands you think about all that theory of how to harmonize the melody you're playing, and which harmonies to play and which ones to leave on the neck.
PS: most of them are better off staying on the neck most of the time.

The pedal steel guitar is the most humbling instrument on the planet. I've been playing most of my adult life and am still learning. The key is to play every day you can and no matter how frustrating it can be, never give up. The rewards will follow!

Rich Upright wrote:It's worse than heroin.

Yup. I have a hell of a time getting a D10 into a syringe.



Sorry... Couldn't resist.

Hang in there. You're at the best place for information and help there is.

While you're learning it, it is the most cerebral instrument.

It's all you will think about. Hopefully, the wife and kids will understand. You will sit down, and take you right hand and pretend you are picking. People will look at you as if you are ready for a straight jacket.

new to pedal steel here to, am 62 years old, have had my steel for 3 weeks now I play everyday (or plunk) and everyday one more thing makes sense, if I can do it anybody can, these guys on the forum really can help

If you can play guitar, It;s not too hard to understand, Put a capo on the fourth fret. Play a cowboy 6th string C chord. Look at what the pedals do. Simple.

I think you may be trying to run, before you can walk. Find some good instruction and have somebody show you or find pictures of how to hold your picking hand and bar. Find and work some simple exercises picking up and down the strings and going up and down the fretboard.

Dick Sexton ahs posted lots of exercises and scale material on the board. Do a search of that and that may get you back to the basics.

First off, a lot of you are not going to agree with what I'm going to say, and it's definitely not for everyone, but then, I've never done hardly anything, by the book. I'm an older player(76), who started learning steel too late in life(about 55)for various reasons.Having played lead guitar, and Bass for most of my previous life,sometimes with some pretty good steel players, I pretty much had most of their licks, memorized in my mind. The notes of the licks, not how they did them on the PSG. When I finally started actually learning, on the steel, I learned how to do them, one by one, by finding how to get each note of the lick, which pedals, levers, strings, etc., then doing them over, and over, till I could do them in my sleep. While I was practicing those licks, I was learning how to use the finger picks, and bar. 5 years in, I started going to steel jams. I learned a lot from the other players, and in a couple years, I wasn't the worst one there, anymore. since then, I practice, and learn almost every day, increasing my speed, and like learning to drive a stick shift car, everything is getting pretty much automatic. Most PSG players, take lessons, learn Tab, learn how to explain what all the pedals,levers, strings,do, different types of steels, etc. Not me. I'm just interested in getting the licks, and sound in the right places. I know how to work with other musicians, without stepping on any one. In the last three or four years, the whole thing is coming together, nicely. I still can't tell you, verbally, what my levers, and pedals do, or even correctly recite my tuning, without looking at my notes, but I know how to make the sound I want, come out of that thing! I usually practice with CDs, or surfing the FM radio. I guess, most of you folks, are doing it the right way, but maybe a few of the older guys, starting late, could get to point "B" a little quicker, doing it the way I did it! -Jake-