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Topic: New Motto - Refuse To Accept Failure |
Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 12 Oct 2012 2:27 pm |
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| Accepting failure musically is unheard of among our greatest steel guitarists. That is the main reason they are far and few between. They chase down "licks" and difficult changes by persistently working on problems until they succeed in reaching their goals. Thats my story.. it's a try, try, try, situation. |
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Stephen Silver
From:
Asheville, NC
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Posted 12 Oct 2012 6:08 pm
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| first |
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Charles Davidson
From:
Phenix City Alabama, USA
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Posted 12 Oct 2012 8:09 pm
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Second . YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.
_________________
Hard headed, opinionated old geezer. BAMA CHARLIE. GOD BLESS AMERICA. ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST. SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC ! |
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 3:26 am
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| If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 3:41 am
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| Nothing revives the spirited individual quite as much as success. It can apply to all endeavors as well as difficult musical challenges. It has been said that we are all given the same opportunities to accomplish whatever we set out to do. Perhaps the steps we take in approaching the ultimate endeavors, in this situation, trying to rise above average musical achievements as we know them. Proper approaches can spell those differences in successes and failures in attempting to reach specified goals. Moodiness, contraryiness, and such behaviorisms clutter the walkways leading to the final road to success. There are countless rewards in overcoming the challenges found in becoming a knowledgeable steel guitarist. |
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 4:05 am
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| Quote: |
| Moodiness, contraryiness, and such behaviorisms clutter the walkways leading to the final road to success. There are countless rewards ... |
Bill I have to say that all applies to me, because I don't play in public, and when I do sometimes, I have to do it for free. This doesn't motivate me enough to sit behind my steel and practice, so I only do it when the mood is right.
_________________
Fender Kingman, Sierra Crown D-10, Evans Amplifier, Soup Cube. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 5:25 am
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Joachim,
You can't deny having spent a considerable amount of time sitting behind the pedal steel guiter, and\or lap steel. To be able to "go" public with performances, covers a lot of territory in terms of practice time. It's impossible to draw accurate conclusions about another's ability to entertain prior to listening to a run through a familiar melody. Even so, it would require a trained ear to equate certain musical embellishments with those that are so much desired by steel guitar aspirants. |
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 5:50 am
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Bill, I would consider myself an average player, but I can play and I did this for some time in a regular band.
But there is none at the moment and that makes it hard to have a motivation for practicing. Playing on my own is not always pleasing.
_________________
Fender Kingman, Sierra Crown D-10, Evans Amplifier, Soup Cube. |
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Chris Schlotzhauer
From:
Colleyville, Tx. USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 6:55 am
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| In order to refuse failure, you first have to achieved some level of success. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 7:21 am
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Chris,
Yes, of course! Attitude is more than likely the source of the problem, when progress screeches to a halt. A man or woman without incentive will remain in a small circle of activities. Reaching out is the key to new adventures that offer some rewards for the many hours spent in study at the steel guitar. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 8:16 am
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Joachim,
Have you noticed what motivates those who play the instrument, or those who pay to hear the instrument? Many of the named players have been road musicians at one time or another. There are large numbers of players who are not interested in doing road gigs. They choose to go home to bed down after playing in reasonably limited distances from their abode. Success as a steel guitarist hinges on a system of managing either preference with a foolproof system.
Last edited by Bill Hankey on 14 Oct 2012 6:17 am; edited 1 time in total |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 10:14 am
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| the beauty of any one of bill's posts is that no response is necessary for his manic continuance of it! |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 10:32 am
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| Now there is an attitude that gives success a real meaning of satisfaction. If everyone was in total agreement, our system of pros and cons would go down the tubes. Chris, you have the right to turn every stone until you find what you may be looking for. That is perfectly normal behavior, but don't expect everyone to buy into what you claim to have found. |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 10:36 am
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| Quote: |
| If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer. |
There have been times it's taken me an embarrassingly-long time to figure out that those "weird nails w/ fins" actually required a screwdriver. A principal I derive from reading biographies is that those musicians who get terrifyingly-adept at playing in a variety of styles have enormous toolboxes, and they can come at a problem from a variety of directions if the first one + sheer persistence alone isn't getting them positive results fairly quickly.
John McLaughlin invented fusion first w/ Miles Davis then with The Mahavishnu Orchestra, then he invented world music w/ Shakti, then he invented the modern "superstar trio" format with the flamenco guitarist Paco DeLucia and Al DiMeola. To this day he's the only white boy qualified to put together a band of Indian musicians playing Indian music correctly, touring India to standing ovations... Paco DeLucia himself can play in enough different styles to evoke an astonishing variety of moods; Miles Davis, obviously, invented his own three or four genres. And although they were sytheses of previous forms, they both included and in ways surpassed those forms. It's not enough to just follow the "mashup" formula, as most subsequent fusion and world music has proven most painfully.
Buddy Emmons is the first, obvious steel guitar example. Among modern players, Greg Le1sz and the tragically under-known Dave Easley are good examples. And you can actually (sometimes) hear the different gears clicking in and out when they're soloing, as on Easley's runs at the ISGC heard here:
EDIT: the link for some reason was freaking some people's computers, just search YouTube for "Dave Easley International Steel" and it all comes up.
if you spend any time learning even just the vague direction of those solos, and ask yourself "why did he go here from there, and do it now?" - eek. I run across constant unanswerable moments - because my toolbox doesn't have the correct translators installed. And I've got "no" chops to speak of, not enough vocabulary to speak Swahili, Gan-Hakka and Farsi; certainly not enough to be able to pun in all those languages like the guy below. Scope the frankly ridiculous soloing by McLaughlin w/Remember Shakti at their Berklee concert in 1999:
http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/RememberShakti1999-06-26BerkleePerformanceCenterBostonMA.asx
McLaughlin knew who he was playing to, what would smoke their speedy little teenage brains, and he had a box full of the biggest baddest hammers in the world. And in trying to learn anything from it, the "why" questions remain unanswerable by dumb li'l me, but he cracks me up every time, shifting gears.... And the little kid with the toy guitar he brought with him, mandolinist U. Srinivas, actually smokes McLaughlin here and there! It gets dangerous round about 17:30.
(was this answer long & meaty enough to exempt me from "Hanky threads" for a little while? I need to practice....) 
Last edited by David Mason on 13 Oct 2012 8:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 11:34 am
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David,
You possess a musical intellectual prowess light years beyond my wildest dreams. I'm for the most part, country music oriented, and play a good variety of what could be called novelty instrumentals. I would be totally out of my league trying to exchange views with your advanced musical appreciation. |
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Charles Davidson
From:
Phenix City Alabama, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 12:44 pm
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Bill,You seem to know what goes on in a [road] picker compared to a [stay at home] picker mind. That's IMPOSSIBLE. Which are you ? If in your career if you have logged thousands of miles on a Silver Eagle,played countless one nighters a thousand miles away from home.OR has your career been a weekend warrior working a few miles away from your home.There is a difference between a weekend warrior and a road-dog.You could ONLY be qualified to comment on one or the other,So what is it were you [or are you] a livingroom picker or a road picker.YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.
_________________
Hard headed, opinionated old geezer. BAMA CHARLIE. GOD BLESS AMERICA. ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST. SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC ! |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 1:40 pm
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Charles,
I've tasted both! Road pickers play the same 12 songs over and over. If you attend one show, you've seen them all from a particular group. Weekend warriors usually feature a better variety of songs. The road musicians polish a song until it's worn to a frazzle, and gets to be something that could be played in their sleep. |
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 2:04 pm
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| If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards. |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 2:22 pm
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| lee (that's a good one...i'm gonna use that!) and charlie...you guys crack me up! |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 2:25 pm
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Lee,
I wouldn't suggest taking backward steps while you are programmed to learn in the art of playing the pedal steel guitar. All forward movements are encouraged, if one is set upon progressions leading to successes. |
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Archie Nicol R.I.P.
From:
Ayrshire, Scotland
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 3:08 pm
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Is it just me or is this a wide post rather than a long one? I have to move from left to right to read replies.
Arch. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 3:20 pm
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Archie,
I can't figure out what the problem is. After David Mason posted, the typing went haywire. Maybe b0b could instruct the readership a way to correct the problem. Thanks for reporting the problem. If David would revise his post, the problem may be removed. |
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Billy Carr
From:
Seminary, Mississippi, USA (deceased)
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 4:04 pm psg
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| Good motto. Mine is "Never quit." |
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Bo Legg
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 4:45 pm
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Successful players don’t accept failure simply because they don’t have to. They didn’t fail
Refusing to accept failure is a symptom of insanity.
When it is obvious you've failed you need to accept it, learn from it and move on
to a different approach.
Just maintaining a high level of insignificants is a struggle for some of us. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 13 Oct 2012 5:26 pm
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Bo Legg,
Hardly anything that comes to mind could be
termed insignificant. Least of all, would be
our struggles to develop a handle on one of the
most evasive of all musical instruments. Comparing
the pedal steel guitar for example to a keyboard,
would be like comparing a domesticated kitten to a
full grown African lion. It would take a good musician about 3 minutes to play a melody for the first time on the keyboard. No so on the pedal steel guitar. |
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