The Steel Guitar Forum

Pedal Steel guitar players are ate up with the Dunning-Kruger effect.
They put strings on a bucket of bolts, stomp on squeaky pedals, tune up in different +/- cents on any given day and then pretend that everyone in the band is out of tune but them. You gotta love em!

I don't really know what that is.
I just hope it has nothing to do with the fact that I am an amazing person...

LMAO. Gotta find a way to weave it into a conversation.
Funny wikipedia article about this effect.

I owe my career to the DK Effect..

I was one of the original test subjects.

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is.

I'm not quite sure that all of that applies to most pedal steelers. However, I do think it's ill-advised for people with zero mechanical ability and aptitude to take up what is, arguably, the most mechanically complex musical instrument still in current use.

As my old man would say..."If you can't swim, don't buy a canoe".

According to Dunning–Kruger effect highly competent individuals may erroneously presume that tasks easy for them to perform are also easy for other people to perform, or that other people will have a similar understanding of subjects that they themselves are well-versed in.
This is my point, I don’t see a lot of Steel players assuming non-steel players have a similar understanding of subjects that they themselves are well-versed in, on a whole range of matters including tuning.

Fascinating: I had never read that before.
I'm and engineer, and I have a personal philosophy which is similar, and it has on occasion saved me from me from making stupid mistakes:
On a day I feel smart, I'm actually dumb (because dumb things seem smart to a dumb person). And vice-versa, but that flip-side isn't so dangerous because even if the dumb thought was brilliant, I am less likely to forge ahead blindly because it seems dumb at the time.

Ideas that seem like good ideas at the time are the dangerous ones, like dynamiting the whale carcass or power washing your changer.

Along my playing/ learning pathway I met a good number of musicians who would rip off a string of something-or-other in answer to a musical question that would seem to be either a passive-aggressive way of keeping their chops to themselves, or an assumption that I could simply do anything they could... conversely, I gave a first lesson once to a dentist who showed up with a whole rig and the somewhat arrogant pronouncement that pedal steel couldn’t be that hard after dental school. We spent 3-4 hours going over the basics of the tuning and playing fundamentals, laying a out a practice regimen and so on. After loading up he came back in from his car and said he just didn’t think he’d have time after all to master “this thing”. At the conclusion of the conversation I ended up with a new Mullen D10 for a grand.

Great story, Mark

It was great for me, anyway. I believe that Mullen ended up in Japan. I was sorry for the dentist, mostly because he seemed to reject the idea that something that would take him some concentrated time and effort couldn't be… fun.

Mark van Allen wrote:It was great for me, anyway. I believe that Mullen ended up in Japan. I was sorry for the dentist, mostly because he seemed to reject the idea that something that would take him some concentrated time and effort couldn't be… fun.

On the other hand, it is possible (even likely) that he is a better dentist/husband/father for having made the decision.

Perhaps he has reached the Peter Principle.

The Peter Principal! Indeed!

I have learned to assume nothing. Like, sometimes I'm invited to play with a friend as a duo, guitar and steel. While I can see and hear what he plays on guitar and can follow easily, he has no clue what I'm doing on steel. So, I spend a fun evening following along. All it takes is lower expectations and a resistance to assumptions.

It could be that the Dunning-Kruger effect is an advantage for steel players. No one else knows what's going on with steel.
It is an instrument that is easy to reach the level of your incompetence.

Donny Hinson wrote:

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is.

I'm not quite sure that all of that applies to most pedal steelers.

Charlie McDonald wrote:It could be that the Dunning-Kruger effect is an advantage for steel players. No one else knows what's going on with steel.

I'm with Charlie: Certainly in my case it's other people assessing my cognitive ability as greater than it is.

Audience member: "How long did it take you to learn to play that thing?"
Me: "If I ever do, I'll let you know then."

Charlie McDonald wrote:It could be that the Dunning-Kruger effect is an advantage for steel players. No one else knows what's going on with steel.
It is an instrument that is easy to reach the level of your incompetence.

Charlie, I must be a much greater player than I thought, because I've been incompetent on this contraption since the first time I sat down with it!

I've always maintained that EVERYBODY that has anything to do with music...i.e. musicians, singers, agents, producers, promoters, vendors, etc., can all be evaluated numerically with what I call M.C.U's, or "Musical Clulessness Units"
In my opinion, to do any of these things, you have to be somewhere on this spectrum to get anything at all accomplished in music. Some people who have high numbers of MCUs (i.e. "clueless") are able to accomplish great things because of their lack of objective self image. Others? Not so much...
Just go to a NAMM show, and you'll see what I mean.

Rick Schmidt wrote:I've always maintained that EVERYBODY that has anything to do with music...i.e. musicians, singers, agents, producers, promoters, vendors, etc., can all be evaluated numerically with what I call M.C.U's, or "Musical Clulessness Units"
In my opinion, to do any of these things, you have to be somewhere on this spectrum to get anything at all accomplished in music. Some people who have high numbers of MCUs (i.e. "clueless") are able to accomplish great things because of their lack of objective self image. Others? Not so much...
Just go to a NAMM show, and you'll see what I mean.

This is great! But...you left out the audience. Though they are not out to accomplish anything in music, the MCU count is pretty high amongst our adoring multitudes, and this contributes greatly to the relative success of the performer who may also be at the upper end of the scale.

On the other hand, without an audience, educated or otherwise, where would any of us be? Gotta give ‘em the best of our incompetence, no matter what.

Fred's last sentence is, like, the bottom line. I've gained a lot of MCU's from being on the forum,
but for someone who has never been prepared, you give them the level of your incompetence every night.

Brint, your post made me laugh like hell...

I took up steel because I was a lousy guitarist, and I noticed that lousy steel players were getting work.

Rick Schmidt wrote:I've always maintained that EVERYBODY that has anything to do with music...i.e. musicians, singers, agents, producers, promoters, vendors, etc., can all be evaluated numerically with what I call M.C.U's, or "Musical Clulessness Units"
In my opinion, to do any of these things, you have to be somewhere on this spectrum to get anything at all accomplished in music. Some people who have high numbers of MCUs (i.e. "clueless") are able to accomplish great things because of their lack of objective self image. Others? Not so much...
Just go to a NAMM show, and you'll see what I mean.

Rick this is the funniest thing I've ever read. I've always thought this but never had the ability to articulate it the way you have here.

Now comes the task of a standard of measure, such as What is one MCU worth, like a BTU is defined. One MCU is like what? Recognizes 5 chord sometimes? Or thinks that "Bad to the Bone" has a lot of changes?? This is some funny stuff.

~Bill~