The Steel Guitar Forum

I am interested in finding a few books about Music Theory as it applies to the Steel. Any suggestions? Thanks

Rick

Rick,look in the search archives above. Fellow Forum member Mike Perlowin has written such a book. The last word I heard it was out of print. Contact Mike for more info.

The original book is indeed out of print, and due to my contract with Mel Bay, I can't reprint it.

However, all the material it containd that does not directly apply to the steel can be found it the Mel Bay book. Here is a link. http://www.melbay.com/besttheo/98207.html
I have taken all the material as it relates to the steel guitar and written a supplement to the Mel Bay book. This is available either from myself of form Scotty. However, you need to buy the Mel Bay book first. The supplement by itself is meaningless.

Mike
I don't see any mention of the supplement on Scotties site - does it just come anyway if you order the main book ?
Thanks
Mick

I think Winnie Winston's is a good one. It now comes with a CD to play along with. It also has a section on how to adjust the linkage from the push pulls, MSA and the others.

Scotty also has a good one. If you Buddy Emmons style, you'll like it real good. I think Scotty listened to buddy a lot while he was learning to play.

Bob Carlson.

Rick, lots of good stuff here (http://www.jajazz.com/catalog/Default.htm) from beginners to advanced. Once you've mastered it all, don't let it hamper your picking. Someone told me that!!


Gary Lee

I think it was Chet when ashed if he could read music. He added, if you're reading music, you're playing whats inside someone elses head.

Bob Carlson.

Jerry Byrd said he could read music, but not enough to hurt his playing. Fred Laymon also has published a good steel guitar theory book. Articles on theory by Mike and Fred have appeared in the steel guitar magazines . Jody.

What can be wrong with learning music theory? It certainly can't take away anything you've already learned and can teach you how to learn a lot more, the right way.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>I think it was Chet when ashed if he could read music. He added, if you're reading music, you're
playing whats inside someone elses head.</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yes and if you are studying theory you are also learning something was in sombody elses head and if you want to understand more about how the music you are playing works and fits together, then you need to study theory. It will probably make you a better and a more perceptive player. And why wouldn't you want to know as much as you could about what you are doing?

Reece Anderson has some good stuff. "The Missing Link", The "CLIC" system. And "Smartab". I gaurantee you will go along way with these. Contact Him, he is a nice guy and will help you.

By the way, I appreciate it when the tablature written for steel also contains the notes. It really helps to understand the pedal changes and also the timing with out having to listen to a tape or cd. In my humble opinion, if more steel players could read music maybe our beloved instrument would have been seen and used more often.
Erv

Check out this sight.
http://www.outsideshore.com/primer/primer/ms-primer-4-1.html

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John Paul Jones

GFI U-12
Evans FET500 amp
ART T2 effects
HM-4 harmony machine

I want to add to the 'if you can read music you're playing what's inside someone else's head'. Written music is dots and lines on paper and there is nothing inherently musical about that. Just playing the notes on your guitar might not be very musical. Dots and lines and Tab are nothing more than instructions, how you interpret them is where the music is. In fact every time you play a 'cover' you're playing something that was in someone else's head.

I'm sorry but this anti-education, anti-knowledge attitude is a real Hot Button for me and it's how you keep yourself and anyone you influence down.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by chas smith on 25 October 2001 at 11:35 AM.]</p></FONT>

What learning music theory did (and does) for me personally, is allow me to understand something about why the chord progressions I'm playing work (or don't work,) and how to invent ideas to play over them, using an understanding of the relationship between scales and chords. With this understanding, I don't have to steer clear of soloing over strange chords. With a little time, I'll figure something out to at least get by. I notice that people who are into composition more, seem to use theory in quite different ways.

My personal experience has been that for awhile, I may lose some naturalness and feeling if I take on a lot of new theoretical tools. It's nice to have the freedom to become a student again, rather than to be required to keep an accomplished style and way of doing things together, when that may not really be where you're at anymore. That's what happened to me when I first broke everything down again and started learning scales, introducing more of a mental aspect into my playing. It took awhile before it all started to really sound like music rather than exercises, but after a period of time I realized I was playing stuff that was far deeper, and that I'd also be much less likely to feel held back by what I didn't know. Before taking some time off from playing jobs to concentrate on learning, the feeling was more like banging my head against a wall. I may have then been at a common place, where a lot of people don't decide to go further in their learning, but rather keep a kind of emotional freshness by not playing as often.

I think it would be possible to learn theory and technique a little at a time and not really lose anything in the process, keeping up one's schedule, but that isn't how it happened for me.

As far as reading music, not being much of a reader, I really respect those that have that aptitude. I'm very glad to be able to listen to someone who can enlighten me with their interpretation of something from Bach's mind of 250 years ago. I don't pretend to be an expert on classical music, but Glenn Gould, (my personal favorite,) seemed able to access the same kind of space that the very best improvisational musicians in other genres are coming from, and it didn't matter that he was playing a series of notes that was created by someone in an entirely different culture, a long time ago.

On the other side of the coin, I'm reminded of a story about John Coltrane. A transcriber had spent a lot of time notating one of his solos from a recording, and asked Coltrane to play it again. He said that he couldn't, because it was too difficult. It wasn't because Coltrane was a bad reader, either.

I don't feel comfortable saying there is an absolute rule that the music's value is greater if it originated originally with the person playing it, or further, that music which is pieced together by the performer before hand must then be less valuable and "immediate." Sometimes the perceived advantages of spontaneity may just be predictive of hearing the same old familiar patterns.

For better or worse, my personal psychology is more geared toward the improvisational "ear" approach, but I think this question is just an invitation to explore some interesting differences in personality types. I'd be really curious to know if there are people on here who truly feel they can read, and play/improvise "by ear," with equal facility. My guess would be that most people's psychology is biased one way or the other, but I don't know.

I am firmly behind Chas with regard to the "anti-knowledge" catch phrases that get tossed around.
It dovetails nicely with the frequent conversations we have in here about "Why isn't the steel accepted into such-and-such kind of music?" Well, maybe because the guy that's playing it doesn't know what's going on. Sorry to sound blunt, but it's only the truth.
One such catch phrase I've heard quoted in here is from Charlie Parker, who said something along the lines of "study music, get to know your horn, then forget all that s___ and just play".
Some guys are so anxious to get to the "just play" part, that they skip over the "study" part. Make no mistake, guys like Bird did their time, learning about chords, progressions, form, etc. Some could verbalize it, and some can't.. that's irrelevant to a large extent. Don't kid yourself.
As an alternative quote, think about this: Years ago an interviewer was talking with piano legend Teddy Wilson about his hectic gig schedule. She asked "My... when do you have time to practice ?" To which he replied:
"Practice ?? I already did that!"
-John
p.s. To the original poster, I would be glad to share whatever meager knowledge I have acquired with you anytime. Unfortunately, I can't direct you toward a written course. All the best. -J

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by John Steele on 25 October 2001 at 04:49 PM.]</p></FONT>

I wish I had learned theory earlier in my career, it would have made it so much easier. Hang in ther Rick and come to see me. Jody.

<SMALL>I don't see any mention of the supplement on Scotties site - does it just come anyway if you order the main book ?</SMALL>

At this point in time, I am the only person selling the supplement. It costs 10 bucks.

All the material in the supplement is in the original "Music Theory for E9 players" book. This is the stuff I pulled out of the Mel Bay book, which is written for players of all instruments, rather than just steel players. If you have the original book, there is no reason to get the supplement. If you have the Mel Bay book, the supplement will tell you how the material in that book relates to the steel.

To me, as a jazz and rock guitarist, one of the biggest problems with learning to play what's in my head on the steel is to break out of the tendency to play close intervals. The steel is tuned with adjacent strings in (mostly) seconds and thirds, and the natural tendency is to play from string to string. In my opinion, this is why steel guitarists tend to sound similar, rather than slavish imitation. The only way I can think of to break this scalar approach to soloing is to apply some theory.

IMHO Mike Perlowin's material is exceptionally well written! I find it very useful. I refer to it often.