The Steel Guitar Forum

Although there is an abundance of great training material out there for pedal steel, and I have collected quite a bit of material, sometimes I feel that my learning is not very structured. Anyone care to offer a basic outline of things to work on and in what order for a student with a fair amount of experience with other instruments?

Contact John McClung, aka Professor Twang, also a forumite. He is a great teacher, and he especially excels in "putting it all together". After 24 years of playing guitar, he helped me get a good solid start on the steel, but also made a much better overall guitar player/ musician as a result of his teaching. He way he connects all the dots and builds in a very structured way is very very helpful for any musician at any stage, and I highly recommend it.

+1 for Professor Twang - John McClung
I was in the same boat and a fellow forumite turned me on to John. He has a very well thought out and organized E9 course.

I'm gonna tell ya what I learned to do through the things I've done. After 15 years of Tab & lots of Bedroom playalongs, I realized I needed to tie things together. Just learning the C & G Chord, wasn't gonna get it done. So, I went back to MUSIC, to see what makes it tick & how it applies to the PSG.

One of the things I found, that helped me tie things up a little tighter, was learning to Hear the Music. A lady on the Internet, Nancy Ramirez teaches "Learning to Play by Ear" on the piano, which I have a background of Piano & Music, so away I went.

You know what, all them notes & chords I couldn't find on my guitar, were really there, all along. Learning the notes of the chords & the note intervals & chord changes start making sense after a while.

I played out a lot, back a few years ago. I could FAKE IT with some good playing guys, but inside I know I'm through. So I'm gonna get better in the bedroom, learning all this stuff, just for the sake of learning. Maybe my guitar will be the better for it & the person that buys this old guitar will appreciate it. I'll be 75 in late September & never will this guitar see the bright lights again. Learning some music, along with learning the location on the neck, is a BIG Help.

Good Luck...

What Charley Bond said.

I require new players studying with me to buy a great book, "How to Play By Ear" by Jack Hatfield because it helps so much with fairly easy ear-training.

What my years of playing and learning revealed to me was that just being able to play cool licks wasn't the main thing. Hearing changes, especially live on the bandstand, is the most important skill of all in order to survive gigs as a sideman, so that's a big focus of my curriculum.

Whether you come to me or not, get that book, guys!

Hay and Jeff, thanks for the generous endorsements.

Hi John. When I get to my computer I am going to pm you. Do you have a website?

Jim:

http://www.steelguitarlessons.com/

John,

that book seems to be out of print, Amazon lists a copy for 200$. Do you have any alternative sources?

Hey Martin...and anyone else interested in getting Jack Hatfield's book "How To Play By Ear". Jack had a devastating fire last November and lost a lot of materials, instruments, etc. HOWEVER it looks like much of his website is back up and running and you can order the book directly from him here:
it's all of the way down at the bottom on this page

http://www.hatfieldmusic.com/page3.html

As primarily a "play by ear" player, I highly recommend it as well.
Sections include:
The Number System
Listening for Relationships
Chord Types
Chord Functions
Types, Functions, and Probabilities
Progressions and Complexity
Sub-Progressions
Music Styles
A Step by Step Procedure.

Thanks, guys!

I've learned a ton from Joe Wright on the Sierra site: http://sierrasteels.com/lessons/e9th-lessons.html