The Steel Guitar Forum

This may not be revolutionary or even an issue for many folks, but how many times has someone made a variant on the comment "If I spent as much time practicing as on the forum/internet/etc I'd be great"?
Well....

After taking bi-weekly PSG lessons for nearly a year and rarely managing more than a couple practices per week I was at a bit of an impasse. I really enjoy the PSG but sometimes lack self-direction and I just couldn't seem to manage to make my self practice regularly with so many other things competing for my time. I was slowly improving, but not consistently and not solidly enough to keep from forgetting things I'd learned weeks earlier.

This seemed to be something of a disrespect to my teacher, the not-insignificant amount of our family income that I spend on lessons and the generous gift from my brother of the Encore, Milkman, PSG seat, and all other necessary equipment that made this journey possible.

Here's my solution. I said this to my wife who -just for the record- had not expressed any dissatisfaction with my lack of practice.
"Dear, I promise, each day not to go on the internet before practicing my Pedal Steel for at least 10 minutes."

Time will tell how this works out, but I refuse to lie to my wife and thus far I've practiced 10 days in a row which might be a record for me even going back to my days of primary school music. Further, I've never practiced for merely 10 minutes, as once I get going I seem to get stuck-in for at least 20-30 minutes.

Anywho, that's my story, hopefully to continue for some time to come.

Anyone else got some tricks for getting themself to the woodshed or are you all just remarkable self-starters?

I too have a habit of putting things off 1 day, which becomes 2, then 3 etc. When I took up steel I set a minimum of 30 minutes a day, the exception being if we were out of town. And I kept a chart of how much I do. Over almost 5 years I am still keeping to that, except that the 30 minutes is usually more like 1 1/2 hours or more, I'm averaging over 10 hours a week.

I believe I make slower progress than most and there are probably 2-year players way better than I am, but my goal is to have fun. And that it is, without question.

After taking PSG seriously for about 3 years now, I have found it best to practise every day regardless of how long, certainly for 10' if that's all I can manage. If I don't, I slip back and start hitting wrong strings (the left hand and the feet are fine). So it's fear that drives me to practise, really!

I've been at my daughter's house the last few days and it'll be interesting to see how fast I get it back - not too long, I hope

My take, for what it's worth...

I've been a professional guitarist and instructor for 30+ years, steel player for around 7. My life is set up, time wise, very differently than most normal people's, so I'm able to practice 3-6 hours per day, sometimes more. I have had to do this my entire adult life, since the music I play is 100% dependent on my being at the top of my game for every gig or I start losing my place in the pecking order and no longer get the calls that pay my bills, as well as simply loving to play whenever I can. As far as steel goes, I'm honestly just obsessed and want to get my playing to pro jazz level as quickly as possible....

That being said, by no means is this possible or necessary for most people, and I want to say that your ideas on finding a way to practice daily are excellent, and that daily practice, when possible, is an important part of the equation. Good on all of you!

The other part that you haven't mentioned is how and what you're practicing. Ask your instructor for the most efficient practice routine (since I don't teach you I of course have no idea what you're doing or where you're at). Practicing effectively for 30 minutes a day will get you much further than spending several hours once in a while noodling. If your goal is mainly to have fun (hopefully this is at root everyone's goal!), being a better player is actually more fun, so this kind of practice benefits everyone!

It's a huge step to figure out how make yourself accountable for your practice, and I truly applaud you for knowing yourself well enough to discover a way in - congratulations on that very important piece of the puzzle!

If your not already, become a Catholic, take an oath to practice and adopt Catholic guilt. The guilt part is very important but should come naturally. When you don't practice, you will feel so guilty it will force your to do penance which will consist of practicing 3 times longer than usual plus doing all the scales three times. You should then be reformed which will then allow you to have a pretzel and a beer! Sometimes my guilt is so bad I reward myself with two beers and a hand full of pretzels for having seen the errors of my ways. Then make a renewed promise to practice; think of it as reloading. I do, however, keep a sufficient amount of beer on hand and a Party Size bag of pretzels handy at all times! WARNING, watch the expiration dates on the beer and pretzels and if they have expired, either you have been practicing sufficiently or it is time to sell your guitar!

That was funny Gerald. For me there's no way to practice without beer or some other recreational drink. On the other side this is sad, but that's the way my life went and I can't really enjoy music anymore without the influnece of alc.

If you can, join a band and start gigging, You will learn more that way than you will from years of lessons and practicing at home.

I agree with Mike 100% - it's painful at first, but does wonders for your skills!

Nicely Done Gerald,
However, when you said be "reformed" I thought you were going to comment that if you become Reformed (as in Cavinist) you realize that it was all predestined anyway so stop worrying since God already foreknew how much practice you would or wouldn't do!

Mike,
I'm very much of the same opinion for any musical instrument. I've told my quasi-band jam mates that I want to be off the bass and onto the PSG by the end of the year. We'll see how it goes, but I'm thinking that at the very least, some open mic's with my brother on acoustic and me on PSG would be beneficial to my progress.

Nothing improves my playing more than real deadlines. Gigs coming up, sessions on the horizon, steel show set to perform.

Sadly, without externally imposed deadlines I tend to get lazy.

So, getting into a band is about the best way to see rapid improvement and keeping your chops sharp, I agree with my buddy Mike Perlowin.

If you can't arrange for that, then practice with tracks at home, I endorse Steve Alcott's "Texas Dance Hall Classics," there are 4 volumes of classic country tunes, all with a singer, so you can learn the melody and then sort out how to play it, a really vital part of your ability to survive the bandstand.

I agree with many of the posts on this topic. I've been practising assiduously since taking up the PSG in August 14, and learned enough on it to go out on a gig. I've since joined a band and my standard of playing has progressed far beyond where I would have been had I stayed playing at home. I live in Ireland, by the way, where country music is very popular but where steel players are not that numerous.

Mike Perlowin wrote:If you can, join a band and start gigging, You will learn more that way than you will from years of lessons and practicing at home.

Absolutely correct. 4 hours on the bandstand will advance your craft farther than 40 hours (or more) of lessons and/or practice.

Mike Perlowin wrote:If you can, join a band and start gigging, You will learn more that way than you will from years of lessons and practicing at home.

I use Band in a box and there is a function called jukebox.
Put together a file or set / group of songs and it will play them back to back non-stop.
Click, In 45 min or so run through 10-12 songs without getting stuck noodling or on one micro element.

P.S. You must be baptized in the fire of public humiliation. ^_^

As I said earlier, I really agree with Mike's comment - however, it won't help if you don't also practice!

Do both - a winning combination, guaranteed

Mike Perlowin wrote:If you can, join a band and start gigging, You will learn more that way than you will from years of lessons and practicing at home.

Easier said than done. In some areas, 35 and 40 year players are sitting home because there are no more country bands around.

Thats easy to fix Don, learn other types of music besides country - a pedal steel guitar is a musical instrument first and foremost, so you can play anything you like on it

while playing in a band weekly is fun and does assist in our educational journey, nothing beats proper practice, as Reece used to term it

PERFECT PRACTICE

Playing in a band does not allow us to correct what we are doing wrong, we can't stop and say..hey wait, I played it wrong. Live playing is about the "moment".

Perfect practice is about taking something we KNOW we have to work on, doesn't matter what it is, do it each day, or as often as we can, but never NOT DO IT.

It's very hard to do and requires strict "mind discipline".

Most of us spend way too much time in the fun zone, noodling but not near enough time in the serious zone. Then on a gig we try to execute something that we really are not ready to play and we "fumble".

The only way to eliminate that fumble is to take that one thing out of the NOT COMFORTABLE zone and placing it in the COMFORTABLE zone. That can never happen on a gig when you play it one time over a 10 second period once a week.

Each day, or each sitting, take ONE thing that really needs work, play it over and over again for 5 or 10 minutes, do it for 30 days . Noodle after you do your homework otherwise what we need to improve on just sits in the Noodle category.

One thing, 5 or 10 minutes a day or with each session, repeatedly for 30 days. You will be blown away with the result.

Don't try and place too many things in the Perfect Practice routine. That old slogan works here,

Jack of all licks, master of none

By the way ,I have the same problem as many, my mind wanders while I'm attempting Perfect Practice. But at least I know it !

Structure via a band setlist with target gig dates. Adds that extra bump of do or die.

I'll never play in a real band - do enjoy playing along with the wife (accordion).

My practice: 12 YouTube tunes that play one right after the other. Starting with one in the key of C and the other tunes follow the Circle of 5ths so all keys/frets are in play. Learning proper tempo without the noise of my metronome plus can key in on what issue I'm working on - Single note - pick blocking - scales - etc. all while playing along with Willie, Patsy and Ray Price (etc.) This gives me about 30 minutes practice and some fun - that along with just hammering out my problem areas (Many) with my metronome going in the background. When the dog howls I know it is time to give it a rest.

Don

Practicing isn't about playing what you already know which most start doing after only 30 seconds of "practice". If you're not in the uncomfortable zone you're just playing repertoire.

Lots of good advice here. Thanks!
I'm pretty good with practice methodology. Each two weeks my teacher has usually given me some new technique or riff to really bear down on and though I'm mostly practicing along with recordings, or videos, I'm trying to be discilplined enough to stop the recording and woodshed specific passages that are giving me trouble rather than just playing through them.\

There is alot of playing of a couple of tunes that I know fairly well, but the goal each week is to incorporate a bit of what I'm learning into those songs.

21 days in a row and counting...

I have been at this for roughly two years and my take on playing is you can practice playing intro's, fill and endings OR practice playing the melody(songs). My goal is learn to entertain myself and maybe friends who drop over (leave it alone guys). Having said that, I would think that what and how you practice would be different depending upon your goals. I personally practice a lot of songs with just occasionally playing scales/fills because my interest is to play songs vs. fills. Thoughts?

Karl Paulsen wrote:I'm mostly practicing along with recordings, or videos,

Let me throw out something briefly - it may be covered in more detail in the "computers" section. When playing along with YouTube, depending on what browser you are using, you may see a small "gear" at the lower right corner. If you click on that it will offer you several speeds = among them are "Normal" and "0.5" . By selecting 0.5, it slows down the playback to half which is very helpful when sorting out some licks that seem just too quick to grasp. Some browsers apparently don't show it, so do a search on that forum section on 'puters if you can't see it.

Oh yeh, forget to add this...

If we can't play it slow, we can't play it fast .