Please close

Susan Alcorn (deceased) · From: Baltimore, MD, USA

Please close

Alan Miller · From: , England, UK.

Susan, In a post in another section I described your playing like abstract art in sound rather than vision. Im intrigued at your choice of instrument, what attracted you to the pedal steel for the sounds that you play. (I have only seen you on youtube in a performance you did in france, I think it was.) The steel is a fascinating instrument , capable of many many sounds. Have you made any CDs , and do you play "conventional" steel ?
Do you think your playing /promotion of the steel will attract a wider audience and maybe attract young people to play it ? You are another performer who is pushing the steel into areas where years ago it would never have been contemplated. I must admit I didnt "get" the youtube thing at first, maybe I still dont but works of art are not always understood by everyone.

Alan Miller · From: , England, UK.

Susan , just had Twayn , Jody,& Mike on my other post and they have answered my questions ,studied with Jeff Newman....I think I got the paris live footage too early. where can I find more of your music?

Susan Alcorn (deceased) · From: Baltimore, MD, USA

Alan,

My music is available commercially here on the Steel Guitar Forum as well as a few other places, I believe that Elliot Sharp has some of my material archived (the "Mandalas") on his internet radio show (I don't know the url), and you can also access excerpts ofsome of my songs at

http://myspace.com/susanalcorn

Thanks for your interest; I hope this helps.

--Susan

Susan Alcorn (deceased) · From: Baltimore, MD, USA

Alan,

I responded (in haste) after reading only your second post. I need a little time to think, and then I'll respond to your questions.

-- Susan

Susan Alcorn (deceased) · From: Baltimore, MD, USA

Alan (again),

OK -- my approach to music and to the pedal steel guitar. First, the French video on youtube. That was maybe one third of a longer piece which later went into what are more traditionally known as notes and melodies. It was taken with my daughter's digital camera and the internal microphone, so you lose a lot of the richness and subtleties of the tones. There is another video of me on youtube where the band started playing before I could tune up (does this happen to other steel players?), and I spent the whole time trying to get a note -- this was in Sweden -- my great misadventures . . .

Now to my approach to steel guitar and to music. I agree that the steel guitar is a fascinating instrument, and it is capable of many sounds -- I think this can be a blessing and a curse. As a musician, you have to find the particular sounds that express the feelings of the music you are playing. In a way perhaps my approach is like abstract art (which I greatly admire), but I tend more toward an analogy to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean calligraphy, and Zen art. The brush stroke is immediate and quick, but precise. And as "space" is respected in art, so "silence" in music. Everything is expressed in that moment. Jackson Pollack would be another example. This is the essence of improvisation, especially free improvisation.

However, with this freedom, you need to be disciplined, to concentrate, to listen, and to be precise. This is the work of a lifetime. In other words, all your years of playing, your experience of life, and your aethetic are tied up into one single flowing moment, and at this point "thought" only gets in the way. I find it difficult and demanding, but if that is how you see things, then, as a musician and as a human being, that is what you should be doing -- you should always be true to your aesthetic. I love, and try to play, all kinds of music -- South American music, Tango, Japanese classical music, gamelan, western classical music, Balkan, Klezmer, Gypsy,Indian, Native American, jazz, blues, and (of course) country-western music. I practice every day -- scales, songs, ballads, but I also try to listen and play the very subtle sounds of the steel guitar -- the overtones, the way the bar sounds (and feels) when you move it across the strings, chimes in combination with unchimes notes, bar slants. I listen -- I hear the birds outside my window, the traffic, the wind. I think this broadens your language.

"Traditional" country music, E9th pedal steel, all traditional musics are demanding, and sometimes I think that their beauty lies in a certain sense of purity -- a distilled quality. And what these musicians do is amazing -- Lloyd Green Buddy Emmons, Paul Franklin, etc. They are among the top musicians who have ever lived. But that is only one way of seeing and one way of playing. Again, I think you have to be true to yourself. I guess my inner nature has led me on different paths, and what I do musically is in many ways a reflection of that. My feeling in music is very personal. I want to give and share with an audience as if they were my closest friends. I try to bare my heart and be honest, and this is difficult -- hopefully they'll respond and something bigger than the original note can start to happen. If it doesn't happen, well you have to try.

If what I do (which is really not special) is somehow an inspiration to others, particularly younger people, then I am happy. Though I love the pedal steel guitar, I could care less about "promoting" the instrument. I was somehow drawn to the pedal steel in the way that others are drawn to the clarinet, the viola, or the bagpipes. In that way, it's nothing special, and each instrument has its "true believers" and devotees. My feeling is that one should play one's best, and history will decide the fate of the instrument. Instead of pushing the boundaries, I think we should try to find out what it is we really want to express with music, what we really want to put out as vibrations into the air and into the ears of people, animals, plants, and things. I think that is our only legacy.

Well, so much for my long-winded (and most definitely off-topic) reply. Best of luck Alan with your own music.

-- Susan

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Susan, there's nothing 'off-topic' about your very cogent reply.

Alan Miller · From: , England, UK.

Thanks for the very interesting reply, Twayn said to look at your site to see where your playing comes from, I found a little there but couldnt quite understand fully. Your answer on the other hand goes a long way to find where it all comes from. Although I still cant get my head round it, the paris piece was way ahead of me. If I have it right.... that was a moment , a feeling, and it didnt need to have structure because it wasn't to be precisely repeated, it was one hour of freedom ? I hope Im correct there. I do still have reservations about hitting the cabinet and brushing feet over the pedals or tapping the legs to get a sound but as you rightly said you care not what others judge to be right / wrong, its your personal moment. you play with great emotion , I hold my hands up and say my opinion has changed....with only small reservations Ah! But I go forward more enlightened. Regards.

Forum Index > Upcoming Event Announcements		Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic

All times are GMT - 8 Hours	Jump to: