The Steel Guitar Forum

My wife's friend saw and heard me playing the other day and told my wife that I played keyboard sooo beautifully. My wife told her I was playing a pedal steel guitar and the sweet lady had no idea what a pedal steel guitar is.

"You can observe a lot just by looking"

Apparently not. People ask me what the instrument is I'm playing, I tell them, and they still seem none the wiser.

I'm thinking I might take up the krummhorn or the theorbo.

I can t count the amount times that people call it a keyboard or have no idea what I'm playing. And, I tried explaining what is it and some seem to get it while others are clueless about it. The people who seem to get it somewhat are musicians, especially the ones who play guitar..

someone asked me the other night if it was a xylophone. that was a first for me

My best was in the 70's. I was doing a duet with my best high school buddy at a friend's birthday party. His gorgeous girlfriend came up to tell me what a beautiful organ I have. Woo woo!

Clearly it's an electric table.

Keyboard? Ironing board!

One bandleader I worked with introduced it as the electric cheese slicer

My cousin told someone I played an iron guitar.

“Double-decker electric table-slide.”

(Tip of the hat to Dave Van Allen for that one! )

I had my guitar sitting outside the kitchen back door at a gig one night, Near the stage steps. When I came back there was 2 little white haired ladies arguing, One was saying it was a cheese slicer, The other was saying it was a noodle cutter. On stage I chuckled to myself our whole set. The 2 little ladies kept looking at me, Playing the Cheese Slicker/Noodle Cutter.
To each their own.

Horizontal pitch approximator.

I took an iron to a gig once. My last bandleader would tell the audience that for a fee, I would iron their clothes.

One time I had a lady tell me, "You certainly are a wonderful pedal keyboard player".

Next thread.... "What do the pedals do?"

I've had the "is that a keyboard" bit from little old ladies at my country praise gigs.

Along with THAT look that made me feel so very unlike a little old man!

Dave Hopping wrote:I've had the "is that a keyboard" bit from little old ladies at my country praise gigs.

Along with THAT look that made me feel so very unlike a little old man!

Gray-haired Groupie Grannies!

I've heard that stuff so many times that I made a PSA about it recently! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgp2TfSU6_k&t=194s

When I first started playing steel guitar, I was still in high school, and I would tell the other students and teachers that I'm now a steel guitar player, and I remember one student said, "how do you play it", and I told them how it works-you've got picks, a bar, and pedals and you don't play it like a guitar, then I told them it's a pedal steel guitar, meaning it's got pedals underneath and you play using picks and a bar, and the student in question said, "so, it's like a piano with strings", and I shook my head in disbelief, chuckling. At a jam session in 2017 in my hometown, Pickens, South Carolina, all the musicians were taking a break from playing, and one lady said, the instrument you play looks like a table with strings, and I wondered if she'd understood what I'd told her about how the steel guitar works, then several jam sessions later, the same lady came up to me again and asked, "Why can't I hear you playing the steel?" and then I had to explain to her that there are differences in the lead guitarist and the steel guitarist, where the lead guitarist plays many parts and the steel guitarist only plays fills and solos if called on to do so.

I always liked "what are the strings for?"

A friend of mine was playing his D10 at a bar here in the San Fernando Valley. He broke a string, and when the band took a break he stayed on the stage to change it.
Meanwhile a patron at the bar - a little lubed - went up to one of the other guys in the band and, pointing to the steeler still on the stage, said...

"You guys are good, but that guy up there in the wheelchair is really good!"

True story...

Funny story Skip!

"It's a 4-legged divorce machine."

I just get tired of people calling it a piano. Any more I just tell them it's a 10-string cheese slicer.

I had someone ask me if it was a keyboard at a gig this weekend. It's funny to me, but I don't get annoyed. I bet I could go to their workplace and ask a thousand questions about their equipment that seems ignorant and obvious to them.

"Ignorance" or "Dumb=Drunk"
I don't mind the ignorant; as they do get to learn from me about the instrument I'm playing.
Dumb-Drunk obviously can't learn anything at that point; so I just say: "Are you Drunk?; get away from me".
Ricky