Pedal Steel Music

This is Vic Lawson with today’s newsletter. Newsletters are often times the result of something someone says when they visit the store or questions that we get either in person or through email. People considering learning steel guitar often ask how long it will take for them to learn. Here are some thoughts.

Learning music is not a straight line, 1-2-3 or A-B-C proposition. It’s more like a spiral staircase. You keep going in circles and sometimes don’t realize that you’re climbing higher and higher.

What I’m saying in a round-about way is that every so often, you should revisit the basics and review things you’ve already learned.

I searched google for some learning tips. One of the first tips I read about said to teach someone else what you know. The process of explaining and showing something to someone else helps firm it up in your own mind.

We learn by sight, sound and touch. Combine all three of these.

Sight. Watch other players as well as listen to them. Have someone video you and watch yourself. That’s usually a real eye opener in more ways than one. I have a drummer friend who went into shock after watching a video of his playing and saw what he looked like with his tongue stuck out to the side and drool dripping off of it. But that’s another story.

Sound. Listen to radio, CDs, YouTube and so on. Close your eyes and open your ears. Try to absorb the texture of the sound. Sing a lick as you play it. You might have to slow it down enough to be able to sing it but it will get the sound into your head.

Touch. We learn by doing. Practice to tracks instead of a metronome. You can’t get the feel of a swing or shuffle from a metronome. You don’t want to be a metronome anyway. How many bands hire metronomes? How many drummers have lost their jobs to drum machines?

Another learning aid I found is to associate something you’re trying to learn with something you already know. For instance, if you can sing the first two words of Amazing Grace, knowing that the second syllable is a fourth above the first can help you mentally nail down the interval.

I feel fairly certain that just about all of you realize the part that repetition plays. If you’re trying to learn a new lick, play it 10 times in a row. Then come back five minutes later and play it 10 more times. Take another five minute break and play it again. Do it until you get it.

When I hit the gym for a one hour workout, it’s going to take 60 minutes no matter how determined I am to make it go faster. I can summon all my will power but it’s still going to take 60 minutes. I can throw a temper tantrum but it’s still going to take 60 minutes. It’s something you have to go through to get through.

Go easy on yourself. You didn’t learn to walk, talk, read or write without a lot of effort so why would you expect learning to play an instrument to be any different. Getting frustrated over what you perceive to be a lack of progress is actually an impediment to learning. So never discount the power of a positive attitude.

Here’s a road story that fits perfectly under the things you can’t prepare for list. I was playing a show in North Carolina last Friday night and three songs into the show I had no signal.

I tried not to panic and fortunately I carry two preamps. One for pedal steel and one for my lapsteel. So I had to change preamps in the middle of the show which also meant changing the EQ. But the show must go on, right?

I made it through the show and after it I’m thinking now I have to buy a new preamp. Too my surprise, the subs just vibrated the power supply loose. I told the front guy and he laughed and said that was a first for him. We both got a good laugh out of it and I didn’t get fired!

I’m working with Craig Campbell. Here’s the schedule for this week.

Thursday September 12th. The Wareham in Manhattan, Kansas

Friday September 13th. Features Sports Bar in West Salem, Wisconsin

Saturday September 14th. Clay County Fairgrounds in Spencer, Iowa

Please say hi if you’re at any of these shows.

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.com/bobbeseymour

Listen To Steel Guitar Music Streaming 24 Hours A Day!

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Open 9AM – 2Pm Second and Third Saturday of each Month
Closed Sunday

September 5, 2013

This is Bob Hempker and today I just wanted to share a very few of the wonderful, well thought out and insightful replies I’ve had to the last couple of newsletters. I wish I had more time to answer everyone individually and space to print many more of these.

Bravo, Bob….

Over 60 years I’ve preached that same sermon to a hundred people thinking they could buy the Chet Atkins course book and in a week play like Chester.

As a teen player, I was privileged to get some time with the great Eldon Chambliss, later with Chet and Paul Yandell … and I still can’t sound like any of them with thumb pick and three fingers.

I subscribe to Chet’s basic philosophy … if my mother walks into the room, I want her to know what song I’m playing … and the one I live by. “If you can’t play the lick on a flat top acoustic, don’t put it into the song.”

The best Marshal amp and all the stomp boxes in the world won’t make you a player.

The day I stop learning, my335 will go in the case and sit in the corner.

Bill Cook

Bob, Thanks for sharing the information about playing stereo. . I have been playing that way for about 40 years and I ask players all the time if they have ever tried to play this way and I am amazed with the answers. About 90% of them look at me and say how do you do that? As I have been playing steel and guitar this way for about years. I tried everything possible to improve my sound and playing with two amps is the greatest tool of all. I can’t believe that the amp companies haven’t done more to promote the use of this great sound. I would like to have a new amp that has two power outs with two small speakers 12″ that you could just plug in the second speaker and not have to carry two amps. Then the other angle of this is to have the speaker cabinets with legs so that you can lay them back on stage and point them to your liking and let the sound guys figure out how to get your sound out front. I have always told my buddies that if you start playing this way you will never go back to playing just one amp. It’s like listening to the home stereo with just one speaker? Why wouldn’t someone want to hear more? Again, the more players to do this would improve sales of amps and equipment and I think you would have better players as well. I have learned through the years the better you like your sound the better player you become and also the better you look on stage the more people will take notice of you. Thanks again for sharing this and I hope that the amp companies will pick up on this someday. I do know that there are a couple of companies that already have this built in to their systems and that is what sells equipment. I would love for Fender and Peavey and the Little Walter amps to give us a simple way of just plugging in two small speakers and a stereo head and let us rock! I see they are working on one with Paul Franklin right now. Maybe other companies will take notice. Stereo Steel has a great set up and their pre-amp is killer. I have been using their pre-amp for years.

Keep up the great new letters…………James Bates

Hello Bob,

Thank you very much for your “rant” today. Personally, I couldn’t agree with you more!! As a member of the Steel Guitar Forum, I sometimes want to rant as well when I read folks implying that Country Music is the only way to go with the steel guitar! Although I was raised as a kid with Classical Music, even playing some on the piano, I too am a real Country Music devotee!! However, as you so correctly pointed out, the steel guitar has so much versatility to offer, we should ALL support the efforts of those who play it, regardless of the genre they are playing in. Thanks again for saying what I’ve felt for many years.

Kindest regards,
Jim Harrison

Double dittoes and a hell yeah on this one, Bob.
When I came up on steel, almost all the gigs were classic country, or country rock. But every time I made myself available to new genres or musical avenues, many more doors opened up. I’ve found that most musicians really like steel guitar and have thought about adding it to their sound, at least on recordings, and players who have disdain for anything outside of classic country are shutting MANY doors on themselves.
Best wishes,
Mark van Allen

Bob,

To me, and instrument is something you have a conversation with. The piano player lays down a line, we all hear it, and the next guy filling in sends that line back with his own twist on it. It goes back and forth between players and behind the vocal until the conversation is finished. It’s not an argument, just a chat.

I agree with you on musical genres, it’s fascinating to hear Handel’s Messiah on Steel Guitar. Try that at the corner bar on Friday night and they all look at you and wonder what’s wrong with the steel player?

Where I draw the line is; “do they have something to say with their instrument?” Finding a tune that’s familiar but not shop worn and digging out lines you haven’t heard before…that tells me they have spent “quality time” with the instrument. They have found a piece of themselves in the music. That’s something fresh to add to the musical conversation. That takes a lot of work and imagination.

IMHO we spend too much time finding the lines the session players laid out, and not enough time finding the lines we hear in our own minds. With a little taste, many players would have as fine a showcase of ideas as the A team players. Often, those ideas are never heard, because it wasn’t on the recording.

Ron Carpenter

Well that’s about all the space I have for newsletter replies. I appreciate and read every one of them whether good, bad or ugly. Everyone doesn’t agree with me, but everyone has a right to their own opinion.

For all those who asked, I talked to Bobbe last week and he said he is doing better so that is good news. Not many things are more valuable than your health.

Yesterday, Jerry Fessenden came by and delivered two brand new Fessenden steel guitars which are now up on the website for anyone interested.

Remember, we cater to steel players, not sound men.

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.com/bobbeseymour

Listen To Steel Guitar Music Streaming 24 Hours A Day!

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Open 9AM – 2Pm Second and Third Saturday of each Month
Closed Sunday

August 29, 2013

This is Bob Hempker. I’ve had folks call in here of late who had questions that many of you may have and so I wanted to discuss a couple of ideas in hopes that I can benefit more people than just the callers I talked to.

One person was inquiring about the harmonics video we did about a year ago. They were wanting to know how to play that song. That wasn’t what the video was about. The video was instruction on how to play harmonics.

In many cases, especially with newer players or beginners, people want to be taught songs. You must understand the things we hear we hear over the radio or on CDs or whatever, is usually done by musicians who have been playing 30 or 40 plus years.

These people started out learning the notes on their instrument, learning the location and the sounds of particular notes, scales, arpeggios and such. I know this can be boring and can become drudgery, but these are the things you must learn before being concerned about learning songs.

If you don’t like to practice scales, arpeggios and such, take up playing drums.

We also get questions of how to set an amplifier. There is no one size fits all way of setting an amplifier. Our ears are different. Our hands are different. The placement of the amplifier can vary. Every room is different. Use your ears and listen to what you’re sounding like. Play with the knobs until you find something YOU like.

It’s your sound. Take responsibility for it.

Lloyd Green’s tone is different from Buddy Emmons tone is different from John Hughey’s tone. Each and every one of us has our own unique thing we put into our tone.

I remember people back in the days when the Jeff Newman settings came with a Peavey Profex II when you bought it. I remember players dialing up a Buddy Emmons program or a John Hughey program and thinking it was going to make them sound like that player.

Sorry folks, but that’s fantasy land. There is no substitute or shortcut to learning the basics of your instrument and of music and practicing with your instrument for years and years.

We can’t put a price on good instruction either. With the teachers that are available in this day and age, plus the DVDs, books, CDs, YouTube, Skype there is no reason for anyone to sit by themselves trying to figure things out at a snails pace. I would’ve given anything when I was young to have had all of these things at my disposal.

Unless it is something that is going to aid you in learning to play, spend your money on instruction. We have books and DVDs by Bobbe Seymour and Doug Jernigan. We have a Mel Bay book that is great. We also have a list of teachers if you want to go to private instruction. The Tascam guitar trainer is one of the most useful tools in learning to play.

The tools to learn are there. It’s up to you to use them and put in the time. Bear in mind, you may learn from someone how to play a certain thing, but again I can’t stress the fact a beginner or novice is not going to sound like a seasoned professional playing the same thing.

Be patient with yourself. You’re not going to sound like Paul Franklin in three months time. Learning to play any musical instrument is extremely difficult. Steel guitar is one of the most complicated instruments in existence. We need all the help we can get.

Don’t short change yourself on instructional materials and private in person instruction. Spend the bucks for it now and worry about getting this or that neat sound with this or that gadget after you’ve learned how to play.

Don’t try play above your level. It’s great to challenge yourself and push yourself, but know your limits. Can you imagine a piano student who can’t play Chopsticks asking his teacher to start him out with Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto?

Use your ears to find the note. With all the songs you’ll learn to play throughout your playing career, there is no way, it is not possible, to learn them by rote and memorize them mechanically.

If you try to learn songs by memorizing the string, fret, pedal and knee lever position for each note, then you are never going to rise to the professional ranks and probably will never even rise to the level of competency needed to play with a band.

Remember, we cater to steel players, not sound men.

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.com/bobbeseymour

Listen To Steel Guitar Music Streaming 24 Hours A Day!

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Open 9AM – 2Pm Second and Third Saturday of each Month
Closed Sunday