Don't Trouble Trouble...

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

My formula for avoiding troubling trouble, is to strive to learn something new, musically, on the steel each day. Difficult passages that are troublesome, quite possibly will fall into place, as the learning process promotes advanced understanding of the instrument. What seems unplayable today, may prove to be a piece of cake on the morrow.

richard burton · From: Britain

And Vice Versa

C. Christofferson · Posted 19 Sep 2006 12:09 pm

god! i hope so!

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

I find that sometimes I can work really hard trying to get something right, I know where all the notes are but I just can't get them to fall into place. Then I go do something else for a while, and a few days later I get back to it and I can play it perfectly. There's some kind of assimilation going on while I'm asleep or something, it's pretty freaky.

graham rodger · From: Scotland

i was sayin exactly what you guys have said in the pub to a guitarist friend of mine last night who keeps playin the same old stuff and feels he aint gettin any further along and he said hed adopt that policy,now ill show him this thread to back me up.cheers guys

Jody Cameron · From: Angleton, TX,, USA

I agree Bill. I have a new baby in the house, and she usually gets up at 2:30 AM for her first feeding. So I get up and feed her then practice difficult lines or new ideas until she gets up at 4:30 and again at 6:30 or so...then I go to bed around 8:00 or 9:00 AM.

I leave leave on Thurs. or Fri. and try my new stuff on the gigs. My wife has baby duty 'til I get home on Sunday, and I'm already used to staying up all night anyway.....works pretty good!

John Cox · From: Texas, USA

I will take your advise when I try to takle c6th in what seems the 100th time. J.C.

Tracy Sheehan · From: Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Graham,why fight it.You can't win sometimes.Many bands i worked with asked me if i coulden't play a song the same way twice? A few years back i was teaching a friend steel and he wasn't getting anywhere.He finally told me every time i showed him how to play a song i showed him a different way each time.I really did not realize i was doing that so i started taping his lessons so i would remmeber what i showed him the last time.
It was because i played so many years and in different parts of the country they liked different kinds of music.So i was always learning a new style it seems.I had to to keep workig.For instance (i don't know about now but back then in the N.E. and N.W.they didn't like country.Mostly pop.In the mid west,rock,jazz in Chicago,etc.So having to learn so many styles it is easy to mix them together with out realizing it.And people wonder why steel players are sometimes nuts.LOL Being retired i still stumble into new licks and have to stop and figure out what i did.What a great instrument.

basilh · From: United Kingdom

The prime requisite of a session player is to be able to duplicate a fill or run when asked to by the producer.
Memory is MOST important and the carry over of that capability into the live performance arena is also the dividing line between the capable and the DESIRABLE player.

I have found that to be consistent with the given fills, performance after performance, ad infinitum, is an essential capability as well as the ability to compose/invent new licks/fills/intros etc when required.

I was once told by a major artist that he would prefer his musicians to be consistently average that brilliant once in a while.
I believe his philosophy

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

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

basilh,

I am inclined to believe that memory is the most important issue in adapting to the steel guitar. Plain and simple, everyone forgets! No single person will ever retain all that has been learned over extended periods. How often do we try in vain to recall a "lick" when a vague memory reminds us that it is there, but where? As for "ad infinitum", I think of the boundless possibilities on the steel guitar fretboard. We've only scratched the surface of its potentialities.

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

The fretboard of a steel guitar is like the surface of a sphere, finite yet unbounded...

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

Ray M.,

It's remarkable, and warrants noteworthiness, the fact that the steel guitar offers a serious challenge to those who would hope to master it in short order. It matters not, should the aspiring individual possess special skills in an unrelated endeavor. Watchmakers, jewelers, doctors, dentists, etc. discover a new learning experience, should they attempt to suddenly become adept at playing the steel guitar. For that reason, there is a high degree of satisfaction for those in realizing that an acceptable level of playing has been reached. Steel guitarists are richly rewarded, for the many hours of practice. There is only one road to success. Practice!!!

Dave Potter · From: Texas

Jim Bob Sedgwick · From: Clinton, Missouri USA

It will give you a giant headache.

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

Dave P. & Jim B. S.,

In response, I'll respond by filling in the blanks by adding don't trouble, trouble. Speaking of blanks, it brings back a memory of a stubborn individual who insisted that the word transparent meant, "Something you think you see, but don't see." I didn't go into detail from that point on. Welcome to the world of augmentation.

B.H.

Jay Fagerlie · From: Lotus, California, USA

Bill, I love you man.
J

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Erudition is its own reward.

I like what you said, David M.
I think Mike Perlowin had to go from listening to 'listening with intent'--and then to hearing himself playing Stravinsky.
The effect for this listener is that after the initial cognitive dissonance of hearing it played on pedal steel, the music itself surfaces and I'm hearing Stravinsky.
-------------------
I just can't see learning the licks. Approaching the instrument with the desire to hear the music opens up new possibilities.
I may spend many passes trying to get a lick down, but then something happens and the lick changes, and I have something that is expressive of me.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

well there is another way to look at it..

rather than trying to play a NEW something or other everyday..

wouldn't it be more advantageous to play the same DIFFICULT phrase everyday until it is no longer difficult ? Then learn it in 1 or 2 more redundant positions ?

my thought is if you go 7 days and add 7 different difficult passages, at the end of 7 days you still have 7 difficult passages...

Stretching is great..but stretch slowly...

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

Tony,

I hope you'll agree that one of the important keys to open new doors, is called the polish key. As far as "learning" something new every day, it may count much more if a player "reaches" for the polish. The smooth flowing and glowing interpretation heard in Buddy's performances, didn't just fall into place by chance sessions. Another important key, from my vantage point, is to explore different "string attacks", whereupon a significant speed increase in note patterns can be realized. A simple slight twist of the wrist may very well pave new inroads to better musical expression.

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

Record producer/music publisher and steel guitarist, Pete Drake, who passed away in the summer of 1988, for a time attempted to emulate Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day. He later went on to develop his own style of playing. He received many awards for his work in helping others. He said, "I was always looking for the note on the steel that I haven't found." Pete built his own steel guitar, after hearing Jerry Byrd play in 1950. David M., perhaps you may have information on Pete Drake during that period of activity. (1950-1988)

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

I know of 3 steel guitarists who are called "Buddy". Of course, Buddy Emmons, Buddy Charlton, and last, but not least, Buddy Cage. That may be the reason that B.E. is called the "Big E". I'm not sure. if it would be more confusing if a writer had written "Buddy C.", inadvertently forgetting that there are two Buddy C.'s. Out of respect, I would like to point out that any new written material will clearly state which Buddy is the subject matter.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

yes Bill, of course I agree.

My comments are more related towards those that may stumble across or find a TAB for a certain phrase...and may learn it a bit..then move on to another without fully understanding the potential of the first phrase..or where it comes from...

seeking new ground is always the path to success...but knowing what ground you just covered is the path to the new ground.

remember the old joke

Guy in NYC asking for directions...

"How do I get to Carnegie Hall ?

old guy on Corner

"Practice"

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

If memory is the basic requirement for being a desirable musician I think I've had it. I can't remember what I did ten minutes ago. A classical guitarist will play to the sheet music and most likely play the same piece the same way every time. Someone who plays by ear will tend to just make it up new every time. I never play the same piece the same way twice running, so maybe I chose right in not giving up my day job !

But practice helps even when you don't think it does. When I was at college I was used as a guinea-pig by the Psychology Dept. to undergo repetition tests. They would give me a simple task, like following a dot on a turntable with a pointer. What happened would be that as time elapsed I would get worse, but then after a rest period I would go back to the same task with a better performance than when I left it.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you first sit down at an instrument you come up with something brilliant, and then you try to repeat it but it doesn't sound so good. The more you practise the worst it sounds. Then you go back to it the next day and it sounds better. It seems that the way the human brain works, it takes time for the brain to file away a routine, so the benefits come after a waiting period.

The other problem with human memory is that it is continually being replaced. An hour after an event you remember the event, but you remember it imperfectly, and an additional memory is built around the imperfect recollection. Twenty years after an event you've remembered it so many times that you're now remembering the memory of the event rather than the event itself.

Dave White · From: Fullerton, California USA

David Mason/Alan Brooks--both of you described a similar phenomena, experienced during playing and practicing, and a friend of mine who is a PhD psychologist explained it to me this way: When you are working hard, and striving to learn something new, or figure out a difficult problem, the brain is in a heightened state of concentration, operating at a higher "frequency." When you relax, and step away from the practicing or the problem, your brain goes into a relaxed, contemplative state. This allows it to absorb and "process" what you have been trying to do, which it invariably does. Later, when you go back to whatever it was you were doing, it all suddenly seems to click, and you can do it. This is because your brain had time to rest and assimilate all the new info you were giving it. My friend told me that marathon practice sessions are not the best thing, and that practicing an hour at a time with long rest periods between are better for learning. He is also an accomplished concert violinist, by the way, so he knows what a practicing musician is up against.

Forum Index > Pedal Steel	Goto page 1, 2 Next	Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic