Pulling Strings Behind The Bar?

Matt Farrow · From: Raleigh, NC, USA

There's a real good thread over on Pedal Steel about bar slants, but does anybody do this -

I usually tune my 6-string lap steel to open-E (EBEG#BE,) and I will often slide up to the V chord, then with my 3rd and 4th left hand fingers, I will pull the 2nd and 3rd strings up. I can bend the 2nd up a whole step (from B to C#) and the 3rd string up a half step (from G# to A,) which then makes your I chord. It's a basic thing to do that on a pedal steel, just push your A&B pedals down, but I don't think you can get it on a lap steel, even with a slant.

I can't be alone on this, in fact I know for a fact that I stole the idea from Junior Brown. Anybody know who he stole it from? I play pedal too, but I like to be able to take just a little 6-string lap on gigs, and this little trick lets me get some licks that would otherwise be impossible.

Thanks everybody
Matt Farrow

Aaron Schiff · From: Cedaredge, CO, USA

I do it. It's called choking or bending. Very common in blues guitar and not uncommon on dobro.

Sage · From: Boulder, Colorado

I play with B6 on my '49 Oahu. I like to pull the 3rd of the chord up into a suspended 4th. I can't imagine pulling a whole tone, though. I like heavy strings, and I only have one finger available to pull back there since I play with a 2nd bar stuck on the end of my ring finger.

Matt Farrow · From: Raleigh, NC, USA

I play with heavy strings, too. Not as heavy as yours, perhaps (.013-.056) and that 2nd string is a plain .017. I can bend it up a whole tone pretty easily. What do you do with a second bar? That sounds pretty interesting.

Matt

Sage · From: Boulder, Colorado

I call it a "tag bar". I made one out of Turcite and a thimble about 8 years ago. I use it to play hammer-ons and pull offs up higher on the fretboard. It kind of substitutes as a mobile "nut". I also push it down to drop a string under the bar to get a 7th chord, for example. I just gave mine away to Chuck Campbell on Sunday when he came thru town. I'm presently working with Chuck Brattain of Red Rajah fame to get a new one made for me. I have been out of circulation for years so very few know about it. Friends have been encouraging me to patent it, and I will. I don't want to use the forum as a promotional platform. I'm just telling you a little about what I have and how I use it. It is a lot of fun.

John Kavanagh · From: Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada * R.I.P.

I started a thread a year or more ago on this topic, but I can't find it now. There is some discussion of it here and also here, though. A lot of players who play pedal and lap feel that those sounds are easier to produce and more characteristic of pedal steel, and when they play lap steel they don't want it to sound like a pedal steel. I understand that completely, but I play (8-string) lap only, and I'm more comfortable with the bends than the slants, though I do use both.

It might be worth trying a 6th tuning: the bending possibilities more than double. With a six-string it means less range, of course.
Since you play pedal steel, you already have the knack of skipping strings, which can be a problem when playing blues and rock in a 6th tuning. You might try an E6 tuning (adding a C# somewhere) or a G6 tuning, both a little more like open E than the standard C6.

At any fret, you can get I6, I7, vi7, VI7, and IV chords by bending just one string, a o7 by bending two at once, and a IIIm or IM7 if you can manage a whole tone bend, plus various suspensions and incomplete 9ths and so on.

[This message was edited by John Kavanagh on 15 February 2001 at 07:50 AM.]

Mike Tatro · From: Oregon, USA

Pharoah-

Same thing withe me... I can get a whole step bend on the 2nd... 'works for great for faux PSG/B-bender licks. I also get 1/2 step on the 3rd string. Nothin' much else works for me and not a lot of folks do even that much. I get lots of double-takes when I do the faux PSG stuff.

Robert · From: Chicago

I think a lot of people use this technique, and some in a musical way, too. When I do it, it just sounds like an exercise. Practice needed, I guess. And knowing where to use, or not use this effect! I first had it shown to me years ago by a guy who ran the only guitar store in Carbondale, Illinois. Or the only one that was worth a damn that I can remember. Nice guys, nice shop, great repair work, and great players, to boot.

Rob

Ric Nelson · From: Silver Spring, Maryland

With an E tuning on my 7-string, I pull the 3rd string and sometimes the 2nd, depending on the cord I'm after.

I first started doing it in the 1950s on my Dobro. Seems to me Kenny Haddock, dobro player here in the Washington D.C. area also did it, but I think it was first tried on steels/dobros right after Bud Isaacs arrived and changed the world with the PSG, which was about 1952.

I can recall the surprise it got one night after I had put on heavier replacement strings before a gig. The first time I tried a pull, I got quite a look from the guys since I couldn't even make it up a 1/2 step. I also thought my finger was also going to explode while trying! I gave it up that night and figured out what my mistake was the next day. It had never entered my mind the difference a slightly heavier string would make.

On some licks, I pull and release quickly only for the count of the single note I'm playing. Try that on the third note of "Faded Love" Pull on the third note and release for the fourth.

wayne yakes md · From: denver, colorado

One of the best I have EVER seen at pulling on strings is Billy Robinson. Check him out at any steel convention! He will knock you out!

Tom Olson · From: Spokane, WA

Any of Stacy Phillips' instructional material will explain the use of "pulling" or "choking" strings behind the bar. He he is pretty much of a proponent of the technique. Of course, he is a dobro player more than a lap steel player. His book "The complete Dobro Player" goes into some detail on the technique.

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

I use pull-string technique not to imitate pedal steel licks but as a cool extension of standard lap steel technique. One technique I like to use is to pull to a tremelo effect on the third string in C6th tuning with a real wide vibrato. The effect I'm after is that of a big band where the sax section sustains a chord while the soloist plays a 2-note tremelo.

Here are links to some pull string licks I posted a while back ...
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum8/HTML/000052.html
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum8/HTML/000055.html

Mark Ardito · From: Chicago, IL, USA

On my 6 string lap steel I tune it up to open "G". From low to high...GBDGBD. However, on some tunes I tune GBDGAD. This way I can bend the 2nd string behind the bar into the 3rd of the chord. This gives you some great pedal steel effects. I also do a lot of prebending with tuning the 2nd string to A. Happy Pickin'

Marcus

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

Billy Robinson is the absolute master of this. I've heard that his recordings made a lot of guys go out and buy pedal steels in the 50's, because they couldn't get what he was doing on a lap steel.

Billy plays at steel shows fairly often. You gotta see him - he's so great!

------------------

Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session S-12 (E9), Williams DX-10 (E9, D6), Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra 8 Laptop (D13), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, A6)

HOWaiian · Posted 13 Feb 2001 3:58 pm

I was under the (wrong?) impression that the PSG was an outgrowth of this technique, not the other way around.

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