The Steel Guitar Forum

Hello. I am really new to the pedal steel. I just started in December. I have been practicing a lot. I'm really enjoying learning this instrument. The sound is... *sigh*
So, how does one begin to make it flow. Like... Paul Franklin. He isn't just picking notes. He is like picking lots of strings up and down the neck. He makes a melody out of chords or something. Gosh.. I reallllllly want to do that when I grow up.

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

Dawn

More seat time and scales. It will all begin to fit together as you work through songs. 1st find the chords then the scales to the chords and then make music out of them. Keep going, it will work. We all started out the same way. Best of luck.

Jeff Rady has a few Paul Franklin lessons. You get a tab and in his video he walks you through every lick by calling out the fret, string and pedal.

My .02 learn the chord pockets, learn the scales and when you learn a song from tab or lesson pay attention to what the chords are that the lick is happening over. Slowly but surely it will start to come to you.


Also, use the search function on this forum and you will be amazed at all of the old threads you will pull up with all sorts of great tabs, licks and insight from many great players.

What Larry said. You start out learning where to find the notes and chords;
then you think about how to play what you're thinking and also you think of licks and patterns you know;
then you start singing to yourself and the notes come out of the guitar;
THEN you start singing to yourself and the notes come out of the guitar in harmonies.
I like to say "my guitar plays itself: I think the notes and they come out of the speakers. But it's taken me decades to train it to do that."
It'll come. I got there in 25 years. But I had a lot of fun and frustration along the way.

Learn the basics first. This includes learning the undercarriage also. Learn how and what to lube whenever you change strings. Something as simple as a loose bellcrank can cause a player problems all night.

Welcome, Dawn, you're hanging out at the right place.

I agree, it may seem like magic, the way Paul Franklin plays. He does make melodies out of chords, and chords from melodies.
He probably started out playing scales. His ability to play them cleanly gives him a facility with melodies.

A child sits at a piano and plays all the notes, then figures out how to play a few of them, or one, and makes some sense of it along the way.

They say it takes two years to get to where your playing sucks. Persevere. Keep listening for the music as you play.

You must first have a good basic knowledge of the neck and what chords are available at each fret along with knowing what happens to these chords when you use pedals and knee lever combinations.

Once you know what chords you have you then have to learn to use the scales to connect those chords.

Fluidity is a combination of volume pedal control,pick pressure,attack,hand placement and how smoothly you use all of these together along with thinking AHEAD OF THE MELODY and not behind.

I've watched 100's of videos and it's very evident when someone is playing behind the melody.

Most of this boils down seat time and an effective practice routine especially with a good teacher to correct bad habits before they become ingrain.

I hope this makes sense and helps you.

Dawn,

Get together and play with others. Whether it's a gig, or just informal, it will bring out the best in you. Play fewer notes, with the aim of drawing beautiful sound out of those you do play, i.e. that TONE. Don't wait until you're ready; that's like wating "until things settle down."

Welcome to the madness...
it's a nice little hobby.

Dan

Dick Wood wrote:Fluidity is a combination of volume pedal control,pick pressure,attack,hand placement and how smoothly you use all of these together along with thinking AHEAD OF THE MELODY and not behind.

Love this... It explains a lot. Guess I'm still too busy "thinking" about all the mechanical stuff to anticipate where the melody's going and be in a position to do more than just 'get there' in time.

Fluidity is volume pedal control.

Never, ever, let the signal completely shut off while you are playing, that's the difference between the pro's and the wannabees

Learn the basics. As you start to get some control over the instrument, the beauty you seek will appear. It's taken me a couple of years, but every now and then I do something that sounds good.

The renowned 'cellist Pablo Casals said "Playing the 'cello is easy - the only hard part is getting from one note to the next" and this applies equally to the steel

Ian Rae wrote:.... every now and then I do something that sounds good.

Ian, I can SO relate to that statement!

Dawn, it is a series of advancements and stagnation. Almost once a week I am crying on someone's shoulder that I'm getting nowhere and just don't sound good. Then I work just a bit harder, and some small piece falls into place, just enough to keep me going.

I didn't read every post, but if nobody suggested it, periodically make a recording of your playing. Six month, a year, two years down the road, when you feel like you are spinning your wheels, go back and listen to how you sound today. You will hear yourself struggling with some task or lick that by then will be easy for you.

Learn where all the different inversions of chords are, and then slide from one to the next without picking at all the frets. Just pick the first chord inversion, then slide to all the others while maintaining the volume at a constant level.

For example, F# at fret 2 no pedals, F# at fret 5 with the A pedal and F lever, F# at fret 9 with A&B pedals, and then the octave F# with no pedals at fret 14. Do this backwards and forwards in every key 'til it becomes second nature. Do it first playing strings 3,4,5. Then do it with just strings 5&6, and then with strings 5&8, then with strings 3,5,8, and then with strings 6,8,10. This type of stuff is what pedal steel guitars are famous for, and it's great for fills and working into melody lines.

Oh yeah, and what Richard said, too!

There's a slightly "quirky" grip that gives a major triad on the E9th neck, and that's strings 1, 2 and 5.

It's not in the regular "pockets", but it's there, it's yet another inversion with its own voicing, and if your right knee right (RKR) lowers string 2 a half or a while-tone (with a split) you have another minor chord as well.

This should have been self-evident to me, but I didn't see it until I looked at a diagram of the 10-string E9th fretboard with every open-note at every fret from the nut to fret 12 noted. Then I saw the C major triad at fret 1.

Sometimes you just have to look at the notes all written down for each string at each fret and then things start to pop out at you that you didn't see before. As these things happen, the knowledge you gain may also help you add "fluidity" to your playing by adding extra positions where any given chord can be played.

Don R Brown wrote:it is a series of advancements and stagnation

We hear about a "learning curve" but it's more like a staircase with shallow treads a mile long. But the walk does you good.

Ian Rae wrote:

Don R Brown wrote:it is a series of advancements and stagnation

We hear about a "learning curve" but it's more like a staircase with shallow treads a mile long. But the walk does you good.

Sometimes I think a few of those stairs takes a step back down before resuming their upward climb!

I try to remain positive, Don

It does seem like stair steps… sometimes the riser is higher than the tread is deep, sometimes it's the other way…

Jeff Newman's courses !

Close you eyes - Listen - Try to hear the notes before you try to play 'em.
Like speaking, we form the words in our brain first, then speak 'em.
Sometimes we say the wrong thing at the wrong time! Same with steel.
At some point, with practice, the fingers take over and it is good.
The recent Herb Remington post is a good example of this.
Rock on!

Jeff's courses are great. So are Joe's, and Herb's, and Scotty's, et al, et cetera.
But, John, they won't get you the final steps.
The "making it flow" is among the last pennies to drop.
I dig the "music as language" metaphor: our solos are speeches; our fills, color commentary.
All the courses, all of the sax licks swiped from Sonny Stitt, all of the B3 licks swiped from Jimmy McGriff and played on steel (Buddy did that, and so do I), will help give you bits to say. But they cannot tell you which lick to drop where for maximum effect and beauty.
If only there were something like Toastmasters for music. BUT THERE IS! Local jam sessions and picking parties. Only seat time under the gun, a "take it, Dawn" on song after song you probably never played before, where you have to create your own flow, will get you there.
Or, put on a karaoke track of a song you like, play your own ride where the vocals go. Practice making your own lines.

Dawn's already been deluged with advice, but I've just remembered she asked about "making it flow" (which is why I quoted Pablo Casals).

On the steel it's all about blocking, which sounds paradoxical, but just as legato tone on the piano is all about how soon you stop the last note after you've begun the next one, so on the steel it's easy to achieve annoying gaps or annoying clashes, and the promised land is the tiny sliver of territory in between.

I see it as a communication analogy as well. It may help to imagine a baby… listening, absorbing, and desiring something… first words are " Gabba Gik!", then on to "Chag gamik", "Chocco Miwlk", "Chacca Milk", and then "May I have some chocolate milk?" and eventually "Please pass the Jameson, good fellow."

It's a language… Small steps, small words and phrases that gradually knit together. Surrounded perhaps by memorized songs from tab or friends to give a sense of accomplishment and a structure for how the phrases can go together.

I was fortunate to start right out with Winston's book (with a thoughtful approach to scales and chord progressions, linked with good song examples.) Even so, I doubt I would have progressed as fast without also being in a band that forced me to try fitting it all into songs. Jamming with tracks if a band isn't in the cards.

Great advice on starting with small phrases, and trying to see how they come from/fit scales and chords. Try singing short lines to yourself and finding them on your guitar. Then slowly tie together. At least it's fun!

and the promised land is the tiny sliver of territory in between.

Amen Ian.

I see the different answers as coming from each person seeing the question differently.
I think of 'making it flow' as the difference between reading Shakespeare aloud (where it sounds like reading), and the giving a performance, where the audience feels like you're Pollonius. And then moving on to improv, but making the character seem real.
I'm still amazed at the session cats who can invent and portray a character an hour from nothing, week after week.