The 9 month mark-my first recording

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

I sure hope this works. I put a MP3 up on YouSendIt.com, and this is the link to it. I'd sure appreciate any feedback. I've been playing PSG for 9 months now and this is my best shot to date. The tune is "please help me I'm falling". If clicking on this link doesn't work, maybe cutting and pasting it into your browser will.

[url]http://download.yousendit.com/95B511BE4CB1E86A

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Hey Phil,
You're coming along just fine ...I'm not sure if it's your steel slide placement or knee levers or footpedals that are out of tune in spots ....As they say on American Idol, " It was a little pitchy in spots " ....You are doing very well though ...Keep up the good work and see if you can locate the pitch problems and correct them ....The rest is just practice , practice, and when you are done practicing , practice some more !!...Not too shabby at all for 9 mos. ....Sincerely, Jim

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

Hi James,

Yep, definitely a bit pitchy here and there. Its the bar placement. I was just tickled to get through the entire tune without a train wreck. My tone and volume control also need work, but that'll come with seat time I believe. I'm also glad that I didn't rely on a tab for that arrangement--simple as it was--I was able to find it on my own.

PSG is without a doubt the most challenging instrument I've ever tried my hand at--but also the most fun.

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Phil,
I play quite a few different instruments , and have not been playing steel myself for all that long , and I agree that the coordination and everything that is involved with Pedal Steel makes it a very challenging instrument to play ....What makes it even more challenging is that you can change your copedant around to suit you !!... You can have it set up conventional or unconventional and you have a lot of guys on the forum that have some interesting setups also, so you are not lacking in people who have in most cases " been there, done that " ....I watch some of these guys and gals play, and think to myself " that looks easy, I can do that " and then I sit down and give it a go, and realize how much time these folks have spent practicing to get things to "look so easy" ......Keep practicing !!!!...Good Luck ..Jim

James Sission · From: Sugar Land,Texas USA

The timing sounds pretty good, if I might make a suggestion that REALLY helped me and I am new to this as well. I once sent a sound track to Ricky Davis, because I knew he would be honest with me, and asked him to send me some input. He did; it was that my intonation was poor. He sent me a "drone tone" I think he called it, then he did a short lesson for me, I want to say I paid him a normal hour lesson fee of like 50 bucks...Anyway, he taught me to play up and down the neck to a specific tone and taught me how to listen for the "waves in the beat" which in turn taught me to be more aware of where I needed to place the bar. I think you would greatly benefit by emailing Ricky and asking him about it, he was certainly a great help to me although I am no great steel player at all. Please understand, I not being critical of your playing, I am just trying to make suggestions to you that helped me when I struggled with the same issues not so long ago.....James

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

Hi James Sission,

Thanks for the good advice--I'll check him out. Intonation is a huge problem for fretted instrument players I imagine. Just another of the challenges of this instrument.

Don Brown, Sr. · From: New Jersey

Hi Phil,

I don't know how feasible this may or may not be for you to do, but!

How about if you (Using no bar) record (after you tune your steel up the usual way you do) the open string normal grip combinations, and play them all open (using no pedals or knee levers) over a few times, then do the same again, using your A pedal, again, using your B pedal, then again using your BC pedals picking strings 3,4,5, as well as 4,5,6 Then do them again, using your AF combo, and again using your E to Eb lever. Also give us all of the open string grips, and use your AB pedals after you pick the string grips open, then let back off your pedals, while the strings are still ringing.

But! Your playing is in fact for the most part sounding good. Since you seem to be right on up in the higher registry (for the most part) it to me, doesn't seem that you have an intonation problem, while your steel may have? At least this way we'd be more able to help you out with the best possible answers.

Just a thought, as that way, we'd definitely be able to let you know if it in fact has to do with the steel's changer. Most folks that are off, it's usually up into the high register area much more pronounced than during the lower registry. But that was not the total case of what I was hearing.

Regardless, keep up the good work. For nine months, I'd say you're doing ok.

Don

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

Hello Don,

I'm going to do that recording of string groups with the various pedal/lever combo's you mentioned and post it on YouSendIt again. And, thanks very much for your interest and help. It'll probably be online later tonight.

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

Hello Don Brown Sr,

here's that MP3 of my tuning. Thanks again for your interest.
[url]http://download.yousendit.com/3CA164B01929E4C9
[/url]

Somehow I don't think I'm doing this url posting thing quite right.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

A little pitchy, like the others said, but the harmony and timing are good...lotta chords for fullness (I like that). It's a good job for playing months.

Rather than trying to do a whole song, work on getting the intonation right in short sections by just repeating a few bars over and over, Record yourself, and then spend as much time listening as you do playing! When you can do 2 or 3 sections real well, then tie them all together.

When you get bored with the BIAB stuff, playing backup to a record will also help sharpen you ears.

Don Brown, Sr. · From: New Jersey

OK Phil, for now, don't be overly concerned with the overtones, I was mainly wanting to see if the steel's changer was raising all the way and returning ok, which it seems to be doing.

I feel that it's quite possible that during the recording, with everything on your mind at once and striving to do a good job on the tune, that you possibly didn't have the pedals all the way down. Because as I said before, you were right on the money at the upper registry, which is by far the most critical area to sound good in.

And for what it's worth, your steel has a real nice tone.

Do the tune again, while keeping in mind to make sure there isn't any carpet keeping the pedals from going all the way down, and that you are fully actuating them and your knee levers, and I think you'll be just fine..

But if you feel you might have a problem with intonation, (which I seriously doubt that you do) you can work on that as you go along. Because once a person is aware, they can then overcome whatever it is that's not quite right. It's when a person fails to see flaws in his/her own ability, is when it's impossible for anyone to help them, simply because they feel there's nothing wrong to begin with.

From reading your post, it's evident you are not one of those individuals at all. So you'll make out fine.

Keep on practicing, as you've got a great start to becoming a great player..

Don

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

Thanks Donny and Don B.,

I really appreciate the critical feedback, as I'm quite serious about learning to play the steel. Donny from Balto, I'll keep that in mind about working it up in sections.

Don B, I know what you mean about not being able to hear, or not wanting to hear, your flaws--that ain't me. I'm after the real thing--not a facsimile, and objectivity is the only real way to get there. I'll revisit the tune and keep working on it.

P.S. I like the tone too. I run it through a BlackBox into a NV112 with the Burr Brown chips, and a little hall reverb from an effects unit.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Phil, that was great. thanks for posting it.

You obviously have a good feel for a few inversions and you use them well, especially for such a short time at the Instrument.

The pitchy thing is very common, we all did it, maybe still do !

Just to embellish on what Donny and Don stated..

IF you were here with me I would say for the next step, go backwards, play the exact same song or songs that you know and now pay extreme attention to fret positioning, meaning keep your bar strait and in the right place.

My humble advice would be from here on out to spend the first 15 minutes of each practice session playing familiar songs a with focus on PITCH and bar positioning. Then move on to new songs or phrases.

There is an exercise you could do for a few minutes each practice session which would really help.

Starting at the zero fret, no bar, play your string grips in single string fashion,
10,8,6
8,6,5
6,5,4
5,4,3

then move the bar to the first fret and repeat, then the 2nd , the the 3rd..etc.. all the way to the 12th fret then reverse the exercise back to the zero fret.

Now I doubt you will get to the 12th fret but if you do this for 5 minutes a day I would almost guarantee that at the end of two weeks you will be a different player .

Bar control , fret position control and right hand control, all in ONE.

Oh by the way, when you are doing the exercise, if you make a mistake the rule is to START over from the beginning !

also do the exercise with string grip triads ( all 3 notes together) as well as single string picking. Makes for excellent right hand motor dexterity.

I did this exercise with Guitar scales when I was 15 or 16, I still do. I never actually make it to the 12th fret but the point is still the same. After a few attempts to play real clean I am easily 10 minutes into the exercise and thats enough for me Sad

good luck, keep up the good work

tp

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the exercise advice. I've been thinking about just some such exercise and doing it along with a sine wave drone tone. I think I'd need that tone for reference because I can't see the frets. I think it would also be helpful to train the brain to a correct pitch/fret relationship sort of thing--don't want to input bad information.

I've also been considering recording an interval training track for myself, wherein I would have to move up or down a 4th or 5th or flat 3rd interval etc along with a drone track, but am not quite sure where to start with that. Blindness adds a certain dimension of complexity when making large jumps on the fretboard as there's no visual reference.

I believe the brain can be trained to know the exact physical fretboard distances involved in intervals of all sizes, and can even adjust for the changes in distances according to fretboard position (3rd to 8th fret as opposed to 15th to 20th fret even though they're both 4th intervals). Odd as it may sound, I find that conciously "thinking" the interval of a 4th, and being mindful of the Key, as you, say, move from the 15th to the 10th fret, programs these relationships into your mind and makes them available for recall as reliably as any visual reference. I could be wrong,, but I have some experience on another instrument that supports that idea, and so that's what I'm banking on.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

well Phil, if you can train your brain you will be way ahead of me !

My brain is currently on strike !

Phil Halton · From: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA

Tony Prior"well Phil, if you can train your brain you will be way ahead of me !

My brain is currently on strike !"

Can it do that? Isn't that illegal? You might want to check that out with the D.A. Smile

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