The Steel Guitar Forum

Right Hand Blocking

Right hand blocking technique is a matter of first, teaching your brain and then allowing your brain to teach your hand.
You have to break down the task into digestibly sized bites that the brain will accept easily.

First, lay your right hand palm against the strings. Shape your picks so that you can pick the strings while your palm is laying across them. While keeping the strings muted with your palm, pluck the strings in different combinations (grips) across the muted strings. The strings should make nothing but a "thud" sound. When you are comfortable performing this exercise, proceed to the next exercise.

With your right hand palm resting on the strings, lift your palm just enough to allow the strings to ring as you pick the strings. Do this with different string grips and single notes. Now make the actions of plucking the strings and lifting the palm one single movement.
Limit the amount of movement as much as you possibly can. From a slight distance, it should look like your hand is not moving at all. It may help to play in front of a mirror. The mirror is a good motivator as you see yourself as another steel player.

For left hand technique, practice moving the bar from one fret marker to the next, as fast as you can across the strings, (while keeping the right hand muted). Don't try to make the strings sound. All you want to hear is the "thud" of your picks against the palm. I suggest you do this exercise sitting at your steel, with no amplification, watching and listening to the TV. It doesn't matter what you are watching. This is a way to get a ton of practice while your brain effortlessly drinks it all in. Just think of what a night of TV watching can do for your playing.

***(Added 8-14-2020) Travis Toy also recommends practicing while watching TV! His tutorial web site is only $30 a month and you can quit anytime.
https://travis-toy-tutorials.teachable.com/courses

Highly recommended! Great player!
David Neslony

Blow up the TV. Or at least get it out of the practice room.

Fred, this advice is for beginners focused on a specific task.
Blocking can be a big hurdle for some and this is a way to remove some of the anxiety they may be facing.

David Neslony

David, I am a novice PSG player myself. Blocking is difficult and requires focused attention, especially at first. TV is a distraction.

What messes me up the most is trying to pick with my thumb after a palm block, I do OK picking with fingers after a block, but 9 times out of ten that thumb picked note ends up muted.

I've been studying up on Moon's technique in the 'A Couple More Years' video on youtube, great stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-urOq56Ofc

Fred, obviously you are doing fine learning to block and should continue with what works best for you. For someone who's uptight about blocking, they can actually use the distraction as an aid to learning this rote exercise.

David Neslony

Hi Tim,
It sounds like you have isolated your problem.
Now you can work on your thumb picking the strings.
Practice with only your thumb until you have it where it's working for you. Pick, block, pick, block and so on.
When you can pick and block with the thumb, add the fingers.
Don't advance to the finger blocking until you can block with the thumb. Try picking up your palm completely off of the strings when you block.

David Neslony

I'm gonna give that a shot and see if I can't get the hang of it. Thanks, David!

THAT was great advice.

My biggest problem (35 yrs ago and now) is that it seems like an unnatural position for my hand. When I put my palm on the strings, my thumb is OK but my fingers want to stick straight out to the left, and not curl down to pick the string. I also feel that there are too many fingers there and not enough room to work with - but, I keep trying.

Bobby Nelson wrote:My biggest problem (35 yrs ago and now) is that it seems like an unnatural position for my hand. When I put my palm on the strings, my thumb is OK but my fingers want to stick straight out to the left, and not curl down to pick the string. I also feel that there are too many fingers there and not enough room to work with - but, I keep trying.

I'm guessing you have a pretty large hand, Bobby.

The standard "karate chop" hand placement on the strings didn't work for me either. I eventually decided I wanted to pick some strings first and worry about blocking them later.

What David said in response to Tim's difficulty should work for you too. Isolate your fingers instead of the thumb, though, and figure out from that exercise where your hand needs to be for picking first, then blocking. Then bring the thumb back in and see what damage you can do

Try putting your palm on the strings and then rolling your hand to the left while it's still on the strings. This should put your fingers in contact with the strings.

Some pretty good advice here already.

If anyone wants a free, VERY detailed, step-by-step set of instructions and exercises to learn to improve their palm-blocking, check out this thread from 2011: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=200502

-Dave

Dave Magram wrote:Some pretty good advice here already.

If anyone wants a free, VERY detailed, step-by-step set of instructions and exercises to learn to improve their palm-blocking, check out this thread from 2011: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=200502

-Dave

Dave, I am pretty sure your instructional comment on that thread was the grail from which I partook about a year ago when I was just starting to play and had no idea about blocking. It is about time I thanked you for that, so...Thanks!

A player on facebook said this and I had to laugh: pedal steel.has to be one of the only instruments where you worry about stopping the music as much as making it. Lol

In all seriousness though, I being a rookie player, know that proper blocking can be frustrating. The age old debate "pick blocking or palm" is one I've seen a bunch alreadt. I prefer pick blocking personally as it comes more natural and to me makes more sense but in any event I am finding that I just need to play the thing and do what comes natural. I know how it should aound, now I just need to duplicate that... easier said than done though, I know

Guys this is a very timely post for me as I'm just picking up the PSG after playing guitar for 25 years. I have a large hand so it's difficult for me to keep my palm available for muting plus have my fingers bent for picking. One question i have to ask is: Am I really lifting my hand every single time I pick a note and setting it back down (albeit very slight), or am I just muting the strings so that they make a sound but are ever slightly muffled and don't ring - plus picking near the pickup so the strings sound more bright? In other words, can I feel the string on my palm (or, sometimes I'm using my ring finger) when it's plucked, or should I not feel the vibration of the string at all?? Thanks for the link below too - I'll check that out later today!

As I stated I am new to psg as well (been at it since May) but to answer your question, as far as palm blocking, it's not a matter of lifting your hand everytime you pick but more on a matter of stopping the strings after you pick. Here's how I think of it, being new... my fingers must come back into contact with the strings when I pick the next note or notes, so all I am doing is silencing the notes I've just played and playing the next notes simultaneously (almost)

To me, it's a matter of making the most out of everytime I move my hand. It seems blocking is subjective as most things seem to be when it comes to PSG (palm blocking vs pick blocking). I come from an acoustic backround where I would finger pick my guitar a lot so pick blocking is more natural to me. No matter what instrument you are talking about, you want to be as efficient with your movements as possible (i know there's a name for this but it escapes my.mind right now)

If you do palm block, I was taught to use the life line on your Palm as sort of a guide to where you want your hand. You want your hand to move laterally with the strings you play. I try and keep this life line about even with the highest string I am going to play/block (if I'm palm blocking)

But you do not want your.hand to be touching the string at all when you attack them. Mickey Adams (who is a forum member) has a book he wrote that will explain this very well for you I think. I would suggest getting hold of him. Mickey is always eager to help a new player, as he has helped me countless times.

Most of all, FWIW, I suggest you just play the thing, as much as possible. Practice and repetition are the only way to get where you want to go buddy.

This seems as good a place to ask this as any...

Where can one find the much heralded "Right Hand Alpha" course?

I've searched the forum and only found a few links to website that seems to be belly up now.

I might just wait for a used copy to come up for sale, but if it's available new, I'd at least like to know where!

Thanks in advance.

You can order it on their Facebook page. Or look in yhe forum classifieds to see if anyone is selling the course.

Jim Morris wrote:You can order it on their Facebook page. Or look in yhe forum classifieds to see if anyone is selling the course.

Whose facebook page?

I added a metronome to Dave Magram's instructions, after the basic motions were more or less in muscle memory. Pick/click, block/click, etc., until the picking and blocking is nearly simultaneous and the string can ring right up to the next pick/click.

Jim Morris - excellent point about moving the hand across the strings as you play.

Jeffran music's facebook page, sorry.

https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7 ... ent_filter

Thanks fred. As I said, I'm a newbie as well so I'm working on all these things myself so thank you for your advise. I try and pickup knowledge anywhere it is offered.

Here's a good you tube video that may help.by James Shelton

https://youtu.be/c5mfJyIxzLs

Jim Morris wrote:Jeffran music's facebook page, sorry.

https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7 ... ent_filter

Thanks, Jim!