Pedal Steel Music

Hi guys and gals,

What is a steel guitarists main function in a band?

As you can imagine, it’s not to play rhythm or interfere with the bass’ low notes or to be playing loud at the same time the singer is singing. Steel guitar and fiddle are two of the instruments that are added to a band to add beauty and sweetness to the music. Every song needs this to make it more appreciated by the masses. Every instrument in the band, except steel and fiddle, are percussive. Drums, guitars, piano … every note is staccato. Steel guitar is a warm, floating note. A band without something pretty in it like steel or fiddle is kind of hard to listen to for very long. Your subconscious mind feels as though it is being hit by every note and sound and can be very fatiguing over a period of time. Steel guitar, with it’s beautiful, flowing tones weaving amongst the other percussive instruments, creates a very pleasant, exciting but pretty feeling which contrasts wonderfully with the percussive instruments.

Steel guitar, being a lead instrument, should not be played on top of the voice, but it’s licks should be used to fill in the holes where the voice isn’t singing and is also used to take the present chord into the next upcoming chord like at the end of a verse and walking or sliding into the four chord of the bridge. This is where the bass player usually walks up from a one chord to a four chord. The bass player’s thumping percussive notes on this walkup can be made beautiful by a steel guitar flowing up above him to the same four chord. The drums and bass in a band are the chassis and the motor and steel guitar is the beautiful bodywork. They can get along without us but they won’t look very good!

So remember, when playing steel with a band, that fillin means fill in the holes where the singer’s voice isn’t and be sure to give the lead guitar his fills and stay out of his way and ask him to play very quiet rhythm if he plays anything at all during your fills. Some lead players think they have to play all the time and if they don’t, they think they have to play their rhythm just as loud as their fills were. I personally will not work with one of these kind of players over one time. The lead player is there to do the same type of job you’re doing, the difference being, he just isn’t equiped as well (grin).

What should a well equiped steel guitar player have in his pack-a-seat?

If you don’t have a new Hilton or Goodrich potless pedal, you should carry an extra volume pedal. Effects such as digital reverb, echo and chorus. You never know when a song will need this icing on the cake. At least, one or two extra cords. Extra bar in your pick pouch along with several extra thumb pick and at least one extra finger pick. It goes without saying that a pack of .011’s is very necessary along with any others that may be prone to break due to your style of playing or your guitar. A complete set for both necks is nice to carry, even if you have to break a set due to an emergency. Some sort of distortion device … for example, Bosstone Boss effects pedal or Goodrich Steel Driver III. A power strip and at least one extension cord. My power strip is built into the side of my pack-a-seat. Carrying a sitar bar and a steel guitar capo can also be useful tools for the inventive player. Hand tools such as a speedy string winder, nylon tuner wrench, three or four allen wrenches sized to your guitar, a small multi-service swiss Army knife or something with several tools built into it such as pliers, straight and phillips head screwdrivers etc. You may carry some of these things for years without needing them, but the day you do, you’ll be awfully glad that you had been carrying them. I carry a headphone amp so that I can tune onstage or offstage where there’s a lot of noise and I want to hear me, not them and where I don’t want them to hear me. I can also tune by ear between songs by plugging the headphones into the third output jack on my volume pedal and leaving it there all the time. When I need to tune, I just turn the volume down on the amp and tune without bothering anybody or anybody bothering me. Most of you have seen professional players at big steel guitar shows using these phones to tune up while another act was on. Why do you think they call it a pack-a-seat? Go ahead and pack it up.

I want to thank all of you who bought the earphones and told me how much you love them. If you haven’t got one yet and need one (I highly recommend having one of these in your bag of tricks) go to … www.steelguitar.net/sale.html

… and you’ll save a little money.

Your buddy,

Bobbe

Hi guys and gals,

I’m getting many emails concerning pedal and knee lever setups and questions concerning the Z lever setup. I will answer these questions one at a time the way they were presented to me.

Question: I have spend $150. extra for an up knee lever on my steel that seems to me to be a total waste as I can see many other ways to do the same thing. Am I wrong or have I thrown away my $150.

Answer: You can always find something to do with it, however, I feel this is definitely a waste of $150.

Question: Because I can’t figure out what to do and how to use this knee lever that lowers 5 and 10, why should I believe that I can get to use the Z knee lever?

Answer: First of all, the Z lever is not just another way to get a chord or another lick, but opens the door to a whole new playing style by introducing a vast array of easy to get chords. The Z lever is also kind of like an eraser on a pencil in the respect that anytime you hit a bad note on your E9th tuning, you can push the Z lever and that bad note will suddenly blend in with the chord you are after. Many people call the Z lever the magic knee lever.

Question: How can the Z lever blend in with my standard tuning?

Answer: The perfect place for the Z lever on a standard setup guitar is the right knee lever left position as this is another knee lever that is somewhat useless in the overall picture of playing good steel guitar. Remember, these are advanced steel guitar secrets that I’m revealing here and not simple old worn-out, tired, yesteryear tidbits.

To play the most with the least and be as standard as possible, the perfect setup would be 3 pedals in the ABC configuration and 4 knee levers setup like LKL raises the E’s … LKR lowers the E’s … RKL the Z lever which lowers the second string a half tone, raises the seventh string a whole tone and lowers the ninth string a half tone. This setup is very close to standard with the exception of the Z lever which you will find can be the most useful lever on your steel guitar with very little practice or instruction and of course, the RKR now can lower the second string a whole tone only now.

Two of these knee levers, no matter where they are on your guitar, are the standards of the industry and need to be on every steel guitar. This is raising and lowering the E’s. Where these are placed on your steel guitar is really not important except that these are two knees that cannot be used at the same time, so why not put them on the same leg since you can’t make one leg go in two directions at the same time anyway?

This setup has been created over the past 45 years of experimenting, listening and watching all professional players and consulting with several music majors in how to accomplish the most with the least.

As you watch my video tab series, only the basic knee levers are going to be used. I will be playing the instructive material on a standard setup guitar as a convienence to you, however, it doesn’t matter where you raise and lower your E’s … (which knee levers) just where you see me lowering my E’s, you just lower your E’s where you lower your E’s. Most of the licks on the video tab will only involve raising and lowering the E’s so it doesn’t matter where you do it on your guitar.

Believe me, if you add the Z knee lever to your guitar, you won’t have to worry about learning how to play it. I’ll have many tapes out on this subject in the future, besides, it will just about play itself anyway. If you put it on, you will use it.

Lowering 5 and 6 with a pedal and lowering 5 and 10 with a knee lever are two recent fad knee levers that have very little merit to musically compared to the Z lever.

Question: How hard is the knee lever to put on the steel guitar?

Answer: It should be very easy to install and your guitar should already have two of the pull rods and bell cranks needed but you will probably need to purchase a third bell crank, pull rod and nylon tuner nut. These can usually be had for as little $35. from us or from the factory. I will be glad to add this lever labor free at my store for just the price of the parts if you don’t want to do it yourself. Of course this pertains only to major brand guitars. For home-made guitars, you can get the parts from the builder.

Video Tab, Volume Two is ready to ship. It’s available on the website at $39.99 and available to my mailing list members at $29.99 for the next two weeks. Volume Two picks up where Volume One left off … and the section on harmonics is worth the price of the video all by itself … and there’s so much more information than that. It’s certainly a lot less expensive than a private one-on-one lesson and what’s even better than a private lesson is the fact that you can play this lesson over and over again as many times as you need. to.

Click here for the special price for mailing list members.

Video Tab, Volume Two

or type in the web address … http://www.steelguitar.net/sale.html

Bobbe

www.steelguitar.net
sales@steelguitar.net

Hi guys and gals,

I have received over a hundred emails on my last tip concerning mental preparation before playing a very important job. One thing I left out as Charlie Vaughn of Atlanta emailed me about is another thing that definitely affects your mental ability. This is the pressure or stress of outside events such as IRS notice in the mail, divorce or breaking up with a girlfriend, meeting your soon to be ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, death of someone close to you. Try to deal with everything as much as possible before the gig and try to detach yourself emotionally from the rest at least during the time of the gig.

I have noticed on a couple of the steel guitar forums that people are inquiring about a self-powered headphone that can be plugged into the guitar directly or into the output of effects that also may be used for tuning up in a crowded area when you don’t want to be heard. However, it seems mostly people use these headphone amplifiers for practicing at the house when they don’t want to disturb fellow family members. This item is very handy for many uses and being as portable as they are, they can be used going down the road in the car, van or bus and seems to me to be an indispensible part of a steel players necessary equipment … easily carried in your steel guitar case or pack-a-seat. The unit I sell retails for $39.95 and my regular website price is $34.95 and I will sell one to anybody on my mailing list who needs one for $29.95 … if you need one, just follow this link.

This is something I have touched on before but everytime I see another inquiry on this subject, I feel like throwing my hands up in the air (but I won’t because I wouldn’t have anything to catch them with!). This has to do with fad pedals or knee levers … a fad pedal or knee lever is one that is installed on a guitar that adds very little musically and cannot be used in conjuntion with other knee levers or pedals and is just used for “the lick of the day”. To simplify what I’m trying to say here … don’t install another pedal or knee lever on your guitar just to play one lick you heard on a record and also remember that everytime you play that lick somebody else get’s credit for it anyway. Remember, we are playing musical instruments, not lick machines. Remember this also … what is a great lick to us as steel guitar players is not a lick to the average listener, it’s just steel guitar music to them. They give you no more credit for what you think is a great lick than for what might be simpler but what would fit the song better. Why add the lick of the day pedal when there are thousands of licks that your guitar is capable of playing but you haven’t learned yet?

Most fad “lick of the day” pedals don’t have a very long life span anyway. Licks have a way of getting old and dating your playing. Good music doesn’t.

Your buddy,

Bobbe

www.steelguitar.net
sales@steelguitar.net