Damping, the part of your technique nobody hears

Terje Larson · From: Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden

It's a little sad. You put in a lot of work on getting a good damping technique and then nobody really notices. Except other slide players. Which is why we like talking about it among ourselves. Nobody else gives a s**t really, all they hear are clear sounding notes and that's how it should be in their mind.

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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

I think it's all part of the psychological makeup of the typical steel player. We love our instrument and sweat bullets over how to play it correctly (i.e. cleanly), improve our technique, do something new, or master a classic.
The average music hearing and music buying partron no sooner notices the "steel" technique (or distinguishes it from the rest of the sound) than they isolate or focus on the oboe, french horn, or saxaphone in a band performance.
A steel player, however, zooms in mentally right away on what the other steel player is doing. To heck with the words and song plot, what's the steel player doing? When's he gonna kick in? Oh my, those little pads and fills are purty, howdhedodat?
I'm just afraid it takes another steel player to fully appreciate a steel player.

Gibson Hartwell · From: Missoula, Montana, USA

Chet Baker had something interesting to say about this. He said something like only 10% of the people out there actually listen to the music. The other 90% are listening to only three things:

1. How fast;
2. How loud; and
3. How high you play.

The player that bases their whole approach around these things is going to end-up sounding lifeless - though they may well grab the attention of most of the people in the room, at least temporarily. Seems to be the hex bar music (No offense intended! I'm playing in the bars way too much and too often drink from the forbidden goblet of rock and give over to the dark side).

IMO the good stuff that sticks the 10% with is the cumulative result of subtleties. What's sad is the clueless 90% who don't have any idea of what they are missing.

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

I don't know if the majority of the listening public can be called clueless.
I do know that some people hear music with all the parts and can distinguish them. Easy for me to say. But mostly, everybody else just hears the song.

So we're 'hear' to do what they can't do.
We're here to entertain.
Entertain ourselves with damping technique, for example. The rest are going to hear the song.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I play, mostly, to a different crowd, being in Florida with all the retirees. And, most of what I do is "shows", not dances.

I've got quite a few non-musicians that are my fans (not that I'm that high on the totem pole as far as steel pickers) and they come to hear the steel. One commented that they've been to Nashville and to Branson and liked my playing and tone better! We have a relatively large non-steel guitar player audience at our monthly steel guitar club jams and they just like steel and can even name many Steelers, even obscure ones.

I will agree that 99% at a bar could care less, just as long as it's loud and has a rock beat.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Regarding damping or blocking, I feel fortunate that I came to steel with some experience in high-gain rock and roll guitar playing, because muting strings is important there too. The first thing players gravitating from acoustic to electric have to learn is that you can't leave unwanted strings alone and expect them not to ring out - the matter of which notes you allow to squeeze out, and which notes you don't play is as important as what you play. There's some deep philosophical life lesson to be learned there, but I'm not sure what it is.

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

One great way mto learn ABSOLUTE damping is to play Murphy lines with super overdrive ON.

If you can play clean single note
and oocasional double stop lines with a metal distortion on,
you will be nice and clean with a clean sound too.

Al Carmichael · From: Sylvan Lake, Michigan, USA

And don't forget that its often the silence between the notes that makes phrases magical!

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