Blocking - Beginner Questions

Arthur Baker · From: Washington, USA

Hello, I'm just starting my steel journey and picked up my first lap steel guitar as well as DeWitt Scott's book. I have a few questions regarding pick blocking. I'm sure these questions have been asked in one way or another before, but I could not find exactly what I was looking for. My apologies if they have already been answered.

I come from a classical guitar background so I am aware of the importance of muting strings. In the spirit of not developing any bad habits I'd like to get some things cleared up before moving on in the book.

When I first picked up the lap steel I bought a few courses from Troy Brenningmeyer, really like his teaching style and he gets you playing tunes pretty quickly. In the course he mentions the importance of palm blocking, and that you can also pick block, but the lessons will focus on palm blocking. I found the technique to be pretty intuitive, and was able to get a nice clean, well articulated sound when doing two string pinches up the chords with some practice.

After starting the Scott book, he introduces both techniques right away.

My first question is related to pick blocking. He describes it as follows:

"Lay the 3rd finger of your picking hand along the side of the 2nd finger, As the 2nd finger picks the string the 3rd finger is there to touch that string and block the note from sustaining"

That's the only explanation he gives. I'm wondering if proper technique is to alternate in that same pattern, meaning that when the 1st finger picks, the 2nd finger blocks the note?

Of course the thumb comes down to block the note that the thumb plays, is it also acceptable use the same finger to block the note? For example, I pluck a note with the 2nd finger, is it ok to block with that same finger?

Question #2

When doing the exercises on the following page and applying pick blocking, the other strings tend to ring out when placing the bar on the next notes. I would assume it's good practice to lift the bar up slightly and place it back down on the desired fret when I want to just play the next note without any type of embellishment (please correct me if this is not the case). However when placing the bar back down, no matter how gently, I tend to get the other notes ringing out ever so slightly, making an undesirable metallic sound. This does not happen with palm blocking because my entire palm is blocking the notes until I am ready to play them.

Question #3:

In the palm blocking section, he describes a method of tucking the 3rd and 4th fingers under the hand and using a combination of the 3rd finger knuckle and palm to block notes. I remember reading another post about blocking and remember that someone mentioned that this is a pretty old school technique. Is this method of palm blocking still used? Or is it outdated?

J Fletcher · From: London,Ont,Canada

Google pick blocking , Greg Cutshaw and Joe Wright have some instruction available. Best of luck !

Joe Burke · From: Toronto, Canada

I'm pretty comfortable with palm blocking. Andy Volk explains it well in his lap steel instructional book. Lots of good stuff in Andy's book.

https://www.volkmediabooks.com/products-books/exploring-c6th-lap-steel-guitar

Doug Taylor · From: Shelbyville, Kentucky, USA

Check out Joe Wrights site, I believe it is all free and I spent months working his 32 moves, I think he made it all free but it’s worth a lot!

http://pedalsteel.com/joe/

John Larson · From: Pennsyltucky, USA

Here's Paul Franklin explaining how his blocking technique actually works.
https://youtu.be/XFumqjf8dRs?si=cprpIiQplabWEKru
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Derrick Phillips · From: Jacksonville, FL

Hi Arthur,

I've been working through Travis Toy's Tutorials and to say that it has accelerated my playing - is a massive understatement however it's not necessarily for the beginner. I found great value in Joe Wright's lessons - he has stuff on his site but the best pick blocking / right hand videos are on the sierra site.

http://sierrasteels.com/lessons/lap-lessons.html

They're all free and all Joe Wright. I suggest starting with his Lap Lessons and go from there, just do what Joe says and enjoy the journey!

Joe also has lessons for E9th and Universal - but the lap lessons is where he starts with the right hand - I can't recommend it highly enough.

Good Luck,
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

When I started playing, I didn't understand what everyone was talking about with regards to blocking. It was mostly pedal steel players who were talking about it, as lap steel players were mostly not really as ensconced in their picking technique to really have a tried and true system. It was mostly just like "how do you play the fast triplet runs like Sol Hoopii?" kind of stuff. As more people started hearing Joaquin Murphey and a few of the other exceptional pickers, the talk picked up.

But as I got more into playing and had an evolving desire to play certain ways after hearing so many of the masters, I just sat down with the instrument and tried to learn to sound like some of my favorite recordings. That meant that I had to figure out how to stop the notes from ringing into each other. Pick blocking is what came easiest for single notes. It's kind of hard to describe, but it involves the finger coming back down to rest on the ringing string just as the next note is picked. When you are playing consecutive notes on the same string, that is also what is happening: the next note you pick interrupts that previous note. When playing on different strings, another finger (usually the one that played the previous note) comes down to rest on the string while the next note is plucked. I think this is called a rest stroke in classical guitar technique.

Palm blocking is something that is more useful for playing chords or harmonies across strings. This can be a tough one to do without making it sound too noticeable.

There is another form of blocking which is something I've gotten into over the past few years, and that is bar blocking, where you are essentially moving the bar completely off the string to stop the ringing--and I don't mean lifting the bar off the strings. This is one of the more interesting things for me and has changed my playing very noticeably.
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