The Steel Guitar Forum

**non-starter, no interest*<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bill Miller on 24 April 2005 at 05:46 PM.]</p></FONT>

Maybe if you had left the question up people would show some interest. It is Sunday after all. Most people surf this at work>

I started on steel guitar when I was 36, which ain't exactly young!

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

<font size=1>Drew Howard - website - Fessenden D-10 8/8, Fessenden SD-12 5/5 (Ext E9), Magnatone S-8, N400's, BOSS RV-3</font>

Old is a state of mind.

What is the question?

Well I just decided the post was long winded and probably kind of dull so I killed it. But here's the jist of it: I've noticed that a lot of the really elite players ( Paul Franklin, Tommy White, Mike Johnson etc) started playing very young. And I wonder how big an advantage that is. It's known that we lose a big part of our ability to learn language after a certain age so I wonder if mastering the skills needed to play an instrument also comes easier to the young. I'm not discounting the importance of practice and innate talent, but I suspect that having started on steel at 35, no amount of practice would ever get me to the level of playing you see from the guys listed above. <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bill Miller on 25 April 2005 at 06:28 AM.]</p></FONT>

Glad you revived your post. I think this question is a concern to more of us than you may have thought. My dad started when he was 11 and he was world class with his picking. I started taking lessons when I was 11 and played for only two years. Now fast forward 30 or so years and Im starting all over again. been taking lessons and seriously working on for only a few months but, the fundementals that I was taught when I was a kid stayed with me. Some thing I don't have to work hard at and other things give me a real hard time. So I'm taking it one day at a time and progressing slowly it seems.

Rick

Aw, startin' young just gives ya more time to learn bad habits that must eventually be unlearned... I started when I was 10. Been "unlearning" ever since 1963.
You're never too old. And if you truly love the instrument, the frustration is part of the learning process.

There must be something to the importance of starting early. Every story about the Big Names seem to include how they started out at 5 or 6, and turned pro before they were 15 or so, playing for hours and hours every day... Just read the player portraits in Winnie's "Manual of style", interviews with Buddy E etc...

Just think of all the song lyrics you learn by heart as a kid or teenager. If (today) I put on my old Moe Bandy, Tanya Tucker or Don Williams records I bought when I was fifteen, I can still sing along with every single track; if I try the same with an equally appreciated CD i bought a couple of years ago I only remember fragments. Sad, but true for most of us.

The younger the better.

I started steel at 33. Having a family, a job, and a house pretty much determines how much woodshedding I can get in. When I started guitar at age 10, I played all the time, but I didn't consider it practice. It was just something I did all the time, and eventually became pretty decent at it. But later on I could learn just about anything on the guitar in a few minutes. I can't say the same about pedal steel. The instinct is just not there for that.

I read that George Jones' and Tammy Wynette's steel player in the 70's, Sonny Curtis, didn't start playing until he was 21. He seems to have done well despite this "handicap."

Gary AKA Noah M. Enz

There seems to be a cottage industry of academicians studying the effect of early music training on a multitude of things, but especially spatial-temporal reasoning skills and the ability to learn mathematics. I'm sure some are interested in actually figuring out what really affects what. But I believe a lot of these studies are attempts (some seem amateurish to me) to justify music programs in schools, which are increasingly being phased out. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for music programs in schools, but a lot of the studies I've looked at don't cut it. These are mostly statistical studies, which invariably conclude that early musical training is correlated to higher performance in a host of other things. I rarely see any sense that these researchers account for other effects. For example, is it really the musical training that really produces these benefits, or would other mental exercises work as well? Also important are whether or not other variables have been controlled. I rarely see any real attempt to figure any of this out, in lots and lots of studies, many available online.

There is one study referenced in a Scientific American article I remember reading a while back showing MRI studies of the brains of 15 male professional musicians who started early and a test group of non-musicians. In the musicians, certain areas related to sensory-motor activities had significantly more gray matter. That article was highly ballyhood in the press as a warning that unless one got early musical training, one probably couldn't be a serious musician later on. This is erroneous reasoning, IMO. The authors of the article themselves argued that "an alternative explanation may be that these musicians were born with these differences, which may draw them toward their musical gift." The SciAm summary on this is here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0006212E-B54D-1C5E-B882809EC588ED9F</p>

As a final example, look at guys like Wes Montgomery. He didn't start playing until he was an adult, and became one of the finest guitar players the world has ever seen. I know other examples. Upshot: If you get early musical training, great. Obviously, more time playing an instrument is better. But I wouldn't let any of these studies stop you from getting serious about music later if you want to.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Dave Mudgett on 25 April 2005 at 09:31 AM.]</p></FONT>

How about starting at five...
This is my little guy, already doing slants and holding the bar pretty damn good...lol
He thinks my magnatone is his cause it's so small...

I began only last Sept. I will probably never reach the level I want to, but I am learning fast at age 47 and having a blast with the psg. My cousin has been playing for about 25 years and he says I am way past where he was starting out and he was taking lessons from a guy who played for Ray Price. Anyway, maybe the psg will just help me to live longer, so I can play better.

I am 53 and just started 5 months ago. The big problem is finding time to play on a daily basis. I also find the memorization things that used to be easy take more effort now and arthritis has taken some hand and finger speed. The upside for me is I don't have any illusions of grandeur, I just love the sound and learning something new. I do believe starting early would be a huge advantage though.

Dave, you mention Wes Montgomery having gone a long ways after starting later in life, but I think there are bound to be lots of exceptions as there are in most things. Still, wouldn't it be interesting to see what the overall picture is...a graph or something to illustrate starting age and level of success or proficiency attained. I guess it would be hard to quantify though, since proficiency and success are subjective.
All that aside, if you've never laced up a pair of skates until age 15 you can pretty much forget about ever being an NHL hockey player and I think most of us who started playing steel after we found our first gray hair aren't likely to end up Nashville studio players. Not that that worries me, I love the instrument and get a lot of pleasure over struggling with it.

Quote: "Still, wouldn't it be interesting to see what the overall picture is...a graph or something to illustrate starting age and level of success or proficiency attained."

Yes, Bill, it would. I don't see that kind of information available. Of course, it would not tell us what caused people developing/not-developing proficiency. This is purely on the basis on anecdotal experience, but I really think the biggest issue to adult learners is the daily responsibilities they have to overcome to find time to learn things. I just worry that older folks get buffaloed into thinking it's necessary to start early in order to achieve serious proficiency. Unfortunately, the research I've seen doesn't really show whether early training is absolutely essential or not to real virtuosity. But I know enough examples, guys like Wes and Ronnie Earl (a really fine blues/jazz guitar player) who started late, didn't seem to hurt them at all.

Good thread, many of us started steel late.

I've known three people who I consider to be world-class musicians, and they all started by age 7 or so. I started in junior high school, like many others. You got to figure, right at the time I was getting interested in girls, driving, a few less-than-exemplary substances as well as playing, these kids already had all the scales, chords and reading going on and they already had a big jump on snarfing up the paying music jobs. And, they were much less likely to blow off their practice time to get a job at Burger Doodle to pay for their interests in girls, driving, and less-than-exemplary substances.

Yes, there will always be exceptions, but it is generally well known that learning to play an instrument while the brain is still developing gives an enormous advantage over learning to play later in life.
I speak from experience: I was 30 before I even knew what a pedal steel guitar was!!
R B

I started out when I was 17, didn't know anything about steel-guitars - but really liked "the lonesomest sound". Got to try in 5 minutes, and 1 month later I order a Carter Starter. I have now been playing for about a year - and still figuring out the basics.
If you have the time, patience and courage to start when your over 50 - I belive you can be as good as one that started when he was 10. It's all about practising alot.

Looking forward to have many years left behind the pedalsteel.

(sorry for that practise!-post, meant to add a reply here)

I started playing steel guitar when I was eighteen. I'm twenty-three now. I started loving the sound of the steel guitar when I was nine years old, but the thought of playing steel didn't come to me until I was seventeen or eighteen. By the age of eighteen, my interest in playing steel guitar grew stronger and I got my first steel guitar for Christmas in 1999 and I've been playing ever since then. The steel guitar is my alternative to a standard guitar, since I've got cerebral palsy. Brett, Emmons S-10, Morrell lapsteel, GFI Ultra D-10

great players have something the rest of us dont have. it's a special gift that is innate in them.
no matter how early I could have startd I doubt that I could have the same abilities as those great players mentioned.
that aside, I started psg one year and four months ago. the forty odd years of playing guitar helps. I am not threatened by the complexity of the psg. nor will I be another Speedy or Buddy.
I do know I will never be bored and not know what to do with my free time.
it is important to always seek growth through learning.
perhaps we can keep premature aging at bay.

Kids can learn a heck of a lot faster than adults, that's a given. But, kids are also far more likely to tire of something and give it up. (Ever seen how fast a kid dumps a certain video game, once he's bored or frustrated?) We elders have a certain tenacity and determination that the young don't possess yet. We've learned the value of patience. Youth just wants to go fast, and old age wants to just get there...while enjoying the scenery along the way.

In the end, you get out of it no more than you put in. I'd advise getting private lessons, and getting out to see and hear other steelers as often as possible, that's the quickest route to learning. You've got the time if you've got the determination, Bill, to become a fine steeler. The choice is yours!

How bad do you really want it?

Donny nailed it, I think. Once in a while, though, there is a kid who has it and runs with it. But that is certainly the exception.

I was one of those kids who everything came really easy for me. I could nail everything from Keith Emerson to Keith Jarrett on the keyboard by the time I was 16, but I lacked the discipline and passion to take it to the next level. I got bored with music and quit for a long time.

Now I'm almost 50 and I've got patience, self-discipline and determination and I amd digging playing more than any time in my life. The only thing is that I'm not as sharp as I once was. It doesn't come as quickly as it did. I am determined to master the steel, but it is a challenge unlike anything I've encountered. If i didn't have the patience and passion that I've acquired over the years, I'd never have stuck it out this far.

One thing is certain; I'm not going to ever take this instrument as far as it could go. In a way there is something satisfying to me in that realization.