The Steel Guitar Forum

Ever since I "left" steel guitar around 2001 video availability on-line & "FREE" has grown exponentially.
I went on back to standard guitar and the music I should have come from anyways, which is "Hot Swing" or so called "Gypsy Jazz". My issue thou was, I was living traveling around countries on 3 Continents and mostly not where "Gypsy Jazz" players are to be found typically. So, I looked up YouTUBE and found an impressive amount of videos on the subject. I met players when ever I could, but many of them too had their "Channels" and I could discern "fake"-teachers, "ego"-posters and BS'ers fairly easily from the real information, because I knew the genre well and I had started my musical journey on guitar anyways, and it wasn't like I had been on steel guitars not learning anything for years.

Back to steel now... for a year.
I learned a LOT I wish I had known and understood BEFORE I ever put my hands on a steel guitar, yet alone a PSG.

I am trying hard not to be too long here (good luck with that!)

I came back to steel with a clear set of goals:
- 1st, I would NOT warm-up what I had done on steel before.
- I would apply what I had discover by playing rhythm Jazz guitar.
- I would concentrate on Jazz and Bebop.
- I would learn and study systematically.

First I adjusted my tuning thru several stages ending up with a "loaded" C6th with all the traditional changes, but arranged differently and many of the newer changes.
Instead of exploring chords and scales or arpeggios at length first, I went into chord CHANGES, stressing ii, V, I's and then modulated extended movement sequences like iii, VI, ii, V, I, IV etc and use that to work off my biggest handicap, which was single not playing, which would give me the TECHNIQUE to improvisation.

VIDEOS:
Steel guitar is an ever shrinking niche "market". Most of the progressive evolution from the early Jerry Byrd years thru the early and most creative time which formed the still fundamental styles on PSG are from a time where video was FILMING/expensive and later video of bad quality and much of the little material there was, got lost or deteriorated.
Additionally, I believe PSG has one of the lower success rates in proficient player, compared to standard guitar, piano etc.
Evidently, there are many, MANY more guitar, saxophone or piano players than steel guitar players.
There are a very few steel guitarists which run or ran instructional "Channels" on Youtube which truly KNOW their stuff AND know how to explain or even effectively TEACH it. Additionally, most is geared towards E9th, Country and showing the latest licks.

So, my initial "place" to go, naturally became videos posted by standard guitar players, since I could relate and both instruments SEEM related too.
I must however say, and I think this is the point I am trying to make here, that I am finding myself looking much more at piano videos.
Yes, I always tried to "keep a keyboard" even if only a lousy plastic thing around. I can't say that I CAN play... but I understand the keyboard, I can play both hands ii, V, I, IV's in all 12 keys because I taught myself to do that... and things like that.
Keys are as graphic as an instrument comes. There is only one place to find each tone (vs. fretted instruments where you can each note many times over on different frets and strings).
I feel that when it comes to chords, inversions, movements and sequences (like ii, V, I's) and laying out and explaining IDEAS in Jazz, Pop, Soul, Blues and R&B and how to experiment with improvisation approaches... there is a LOT of VALID and PRODUCTIVE teaching material available FREE on YouTube and like sites.
I have never learned and progressed as productively as I have in the last 12 years. YES, DEDICATED and with enough previous knowledge to go about it in a principled manner.
Yesterday night I found my self just playing intuitively all along and across the neck single note improv, free and effortlessly. I am not where I want to be, but looking back over the last 12 months since I received my new MSA-Legend and revived my "old" Excel Superb, I have by far overshot my dead-line (would I pursue it further are rather do something else?).

Looking back, I must say that, yes, every now and then I look at someone else's steel playing, but that my personal "success" comes mostly form learning from piano players explaining what I am after on videos.

PHRASING:
Jazz and especially Bebop, more than Swing thrive off PHRASING. Call it "Syncopation" or what ever... it's how you tell a story. JD... for an example can go on and on writing and writing... b0b can tell a story in a two-word sentence.
As most of us, I have my steel guitar heroes... Jerry Byrd, Speedy, Buddy, Maurice, etc.
There were times I tried hard to study each one of them... like most I failed.
Can you WALK like Buddy Emmons? Can YOU? No? and you want to play and sound like him? Ha!
I today however think, that with proper technique, you & I CAN learn to play most anything they did. It's not TONE, speed etc.... it's "SAYING it" like they did!... it's PHRASING.
And that's one of the most missing elements in YouTube videos... there is NO LISTENING! It's most always going right into; "..., so on string number ehm... 5, on the 7th fret and then go to... "
I've come to realize that if I can't play it intuitively I need to STEP away from the guitar and listen to the phrase, sequence, maybe to the whole song until I can CONSCIOUSLY "sing" (I am NOT Frank or Elvis... so let's call it "hum") along and then sing (yeah, yeah.. HUM) it while driving or in the shower. It has to be INSIDE myself before I should try to lay it on the Instrument! I think this is most essential and rarely discussed.


Thus I thought I'd share this here as food for thought, because I believe that we often tend to go "in circles" and limit ourselves to our ever shrinking "guild" of steel guitarists.

... J-D.

Some interesting perspectives JD. The 'sing what you play & play what you sing' approach is something I often return to. To paraphrase Herb Ellis, this keeps the 'musical faucet running' and prevents one from leaning too much on patterns and licks. Not that I don't indulge in my share of said patterns and licks!

Technique is definitely the key to it all. That is the main thing great players have that the rest of us don’t. Even their relatively simple musical ideas sound good. I think good technique can actually be taught. Certain basic principles are the same for everyone, but some of the minutiae can be left up to the player through a correct approach to practicing.

The process of technical development is also the main thing that gets left out of free material available online. Maybe it’s too boring to demonstrate, I don’t know. Joe Wright’s videos on the Sierra are one exception that I have found. He gets very deep into detail, and doesn’t bore me, anyway.

Musical ideas for pedal steel...yes, you are right JD. Taking the instrument out of its customary niche means adaptation to the vocabularies of other musical forms, in addition to developing the technique necessary to express them. A long road indeed, requiring dedication, study, playing, and yeah baby.... listening!

PS - If I limited my playing to what I can sing, I would throw my axe out the window and go pound sand.

This is a great course for FREE for Jazz and very educational. I wished steel guitar "teachers" would learn from that format.

The examples are on Piano, but mainly right hand soloing. Very easy to follow IF you know your basic chord portions

The chords are the basic "Autumn Leaves" progression.
Great quality slow down to play along.

Since the song is well known, Rhythm Tracks can be found in many keys on YouTube to practice along with.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnYQYR2-JuU&t=379s

... J-D.

Audiation is often overlooked by teachers and students, but you need to hear it/hum it/sing it before you can play it.

Dean Gray wrote:Audiation is often overlooked by teachers and students, but you need to hear it/hum it/sing it before you can play it.

I’d never known the word “audiation” before. Had to look it up, and it’s a good one.

This notion of having to be able to sing it or hum it before you can play it may be a prerequisite to playing music it at an elementary or even intermediate level. But if Albert Lee, Buddy Emmons, or John Coltrane could sing much of what they played, they would also be known as some of the greatest singers who ever lived.

I would think that an advanced stage of audiation for musicians might be an ability to predict the outcome of an improvised phrase based on the experience of having heard or played a familiar pattern or sequence before, understanding its effect on the underlying harmonic movement, and having the ability to actually play it while thinking (for lack of a better word) it.

PS, That piano jazz lesson website is pretty cool, JD.

Fred Treece wrote: This notion of having to be able to sing it or hum it before you can play it may be a prerequisite to playing music it at an elementary or even intermediate level. But if Albert Lee, Buddy Emmons, or John Coltrane could sing much of what they played, they would also be known as some of the greatest singers who ever lived.

There's a jazz style called "vocalese", which does just that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocalese

Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross were probably the best known practitioners of it. Giacomo Gates is another. And then there's Roger Miller....

--Al Evans

Thanks, Al. That’s the second new word I’ve learned this week, just in this thread.

From what I understand, “vocalese” is a little different from what is being discussed here, in that the vocal is done after an instrumental solo has been established - a copy, basically. Being able to sing it before you play it, on the other hand, seems more of a methodical approach to phrasing a solo as if the instrument were a human voice. The George Benson (and many others) style of singing a solo in unison while you play it takes the idea step beyond that.

Yeah, Roger Miller, and this guy too, are among players who sing vocal harmonies with their solos.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tee61YGheaA

The fact remains however, that I can sing very damn little of what I like to play, but playing vocal melodies, and playing around them, has always been a big part of what I play anyway.