Free E9 Practice Tool

Ryan Bateman · Post by **Ryan Bateman** » 22 Dec 2022 10:48 am

Hey folks, I'm pretty early on in my PSG journey, but I wanted to a share a practice tool website that I made to help myself learn E9. It's still a work in progress and no doubt will have some bugs or quirks. The gist of how to use it is that you can put in the nashville numbers of a chord progression (it defaults to I IV V) and a key center and it'll display a fretboard diagram for each with an interactive changer/pedals/knees with each of the notes in the scale color coded. The "position" dropdown lets you swap between common pedal/lever combos and bar position to play the given chord. I've also been pretty interested in learning some chord substitutions, so I put in a drop-down on the chord name where it provides a few common substitutions (secondary dominant, tritone sub, and their relative minor chords as well). At any time you can click the pedal or lever buttons to see what impact it would have. It should render OK enough on a phone to do some basic use, but I'd recommend a larger laptop/desktop/tablet screen to get the most out of it.

Anyway, hopefully someone else who is just learning might find it useful too. In the future I'd love to make the copedent fully customizable so that you could make it match other setups, but right now it's only usable if you're on an Emmons E9 setup.

If you use it and have any suggestions or ideas for how it could be better definitely let me know!

https://porkloin.github.io/pedal-steel-trainer/

Dave Magram · Post by **Dave Magram** » 22 Dec 2022 6:37 pm

Ryan,

Wow! That's a masterpiece of software engineering--it really seems to capture the complexity of the pedal steel!

It sounds like you are open to suggestions, so here's one...
You might consider using the interval numbers instead of letter names, since I suspect most proficient players think in terms of intervals.

For example, https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... eb06e308bd

or Paul Franklin discussing "intervallic/triadic improvisation": https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... 72&start=0

Just a thought...

-Dave

Ryan Bateman · Post by **Ryan Bateman** » 23 Dec 2022 12:37 pm

Great idea Dave! I already put in an “intervals” checkbox that would convert the labels for each of the highlighted notes into interval values, but it used the scale/key root as the “fixed point of reference” for all of the individual chords/fretboards. After reading those posts I think I’ll change that behavior to be the default, and to make the intervals be in reference to the chord root note rather than the scale root, because the interval “patterns” during a given combination of pedals and levers would be portable across the neck, which is much more valuable! Thanks a ton for the feedback!

Dan Kelly · Post by **Dan Kelly** » 25 Dec 2022 2:58 pm

Nice work, Ryan! I like the addition of the "Intervals" option.

Thank you!

Brett Lanier · Post by **Brett Lanier** » 26 Dec 2022 1:24 pm

Wow, that is really cool! Nice job man.

My suggestion would be to drop the M's and P's and let them be assumed. Maybe just use a flat or sharp sign showing intervals that are outside of the major scale.

For example, if you pulled up these chord/scales this is what you'd see:

Gmaj: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

Gmin(aeolian); 1,2,3b,4,5,6b,7b

Gmin(dorian): 1,2,3b,4,5,6,7b

G lydian: 1,2,3,4#,5,6,7

Samuel Phillippe · Post by **Samuel Phillippe** » 26 Dec 2022 3:13 pm

Ryan, did I miss something or am I just plain stupid.... what does the 1P and 5M etc. stand for?
I am also just learning but do not have any music theory education. Have been playing all my instruments by ear. Started with arm pit guitar at 13 and started playing psg almost a year ago (84 yrs old). I can grasp the chord postions (1=4=5= etc.)

Thanks in advance.....Sam

Ryan Bateman · Post by **Ryan Bateman** » 27 Dec 2022 9:52 am

Brett Lanier wrote:Wow, that is really cool! Nice job man.

My suggestion would be to drop the M's and P's and let them be assumed. Maybe just use a flat or sharp sign showing intervals that are outside of the major scale.

For example, if you pulled up these chord/scales this is what you'd see:

Gmaj: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

Gmin(aeolian); 1,2,3b,4,5,6b,7b

Gmin(dorian): 1,2,3b,4,5,6,7b

G lydian: 1,2,3,4#,5,6,7

Great point! Maybe I'll add some more controls to switch between interval conventions. It also sounds like in this instance you might want the interval labels to be "absolute" to the parent scale, is that right? I currently have it configured so that the intervals are relative to the root note of the chord in question. Seems like maybe I should expos some controls for how those intervals get calculated as well.

Appreciate the feedback!

Ryan Bateman · Post by **Ryan Bateman** » 27 Dec 2022 9:58 am

Samuel Phillippe wrote:Ryan, did I miss something or am I just plain stupid.... what does the 1P and 5M etc. stand for?
I am also just learning but do not have any music theory education. Have been playing all my instruments by ear. Started with arm pit guitar at 13 and started playing psg almost a year ago (84 yrs old). I can grasp the chord postions (1=4=5= etc.)

Thanks in advance.....Sam

No worries, Sam, I think another poster mentioned the convention being uncommon as well. "P" "M" and "m" are shortening different intervals. 1P is would be a "perfect 1" aka unison, same note. 5P would be a perfect 5th, 3M would be a major 3rd, 3m would be a minor 3rd, etc. It seems like that way of labeling intervals is a bit confusing/doesn't align with how people tend to be thinking of intervals, so I'm considering changing it to a sharps and flats instead.

Also, if you'd rather not use intervals at all, there's a small check box at the top of the page (near where you can set the root note and progression) that toggles between showing the note names (C, E, G for a C chord) rather than intervals (1P, 3M, 5P).

Bob Shilling · Post by **Bob Shilling** » 27 Dec 2022 10:15 am

This is really useful Ryan. I agree with Brett's suggestion to drop the M and P. Those are pretty much understood.

I would find it useful to have the option to show just the triads. i.e., Not the Major or Dominant 7th chords.

The vii dim is not working for me. But if it were, it would be useful for the 7th option to show the "half diminished" chord: 1, b3, b5, b7.

Ryan Bateman · Post by **Ryan Bateman** » 27 Dec 2022 5:24 pm

Bob Shilling wrote:This is really useful Ryan. I agree with Brett's suggestion to drop the M and P. Those are pretty much understood.

I would find it useful to have the option to show just the triads. i.e., Not the Major or Dominant 7th chords.

The vii dim is not working for me. But if it were, it would be useful for the 7th option to show the "half diminished" chord: 1, b3, b5, b7.

Good catch on the vii dim not working – I must have broke it at some point and not realized! I just fixed it, and will look into updating the interval labels sometime soon too. Many thanks for the input!

Samuel Phillippe · Post by **Samuel Phillippe** » 27 Dec 2022 6:39 pm

OK Ryan, thanks for enlightening me. went back onto the site and messed with it without the intervals. It was much easier for ME to understand.

Great job and again thanks

Sam