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Topic: Played a pedal steel for the first time this week! |
Dean Gray
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 26 Mar 2009 9:22 pm |
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Hey guys, after a few years of non pedal steel playing, I finally got the opportunity to play a real live pedal steel! Thanks to fellow forum member Ned McIntosh, who invited me along to his local weekly jam session, I was able to sit up close and watch him play his custom Carter D10. I also met his good friend who I know only as "Heddie", who let me sit down to his Excel 12 string (extended E9).
What a revelation to start playing PSG after thinking about them for so long. To hear the transition from the 1 to the 4 chord using the A and B pedals, and to get a minor chord without slanting or using finger pulls. I am sure I made a racket, but it was even more fun than I had imagined. The first revelation I had was that when I was completely lost, I just held down the A and B pedals, and I would be back in familiar territory, as my standard non pedal tuning is A6. It makes me wonder how many other A6 players have made the cross over to PSG and use A and B pedals down as a kind of starting point, or safety net.
The people at the jam were very friendly and supportive, and made me feel most welcome. Despite the 2 hour journey each way, it was more than worth it and I will be back soon. To make the whole night even better and even more surreal, Heddie then offered me the use of his spare steel, a single 10 Sho Bud, to learn on until I can afford my own guitar! I still can't believe it! I can pick it up in a week after he returns from a country music festival.
Thanks to Ned for all of your help and advice, and for inviting me to your jam session. Thanks to Heddie for your incredibly generous offer, I promise to take good care of your steel, and to play it every single day. And finally, thanks to b0b for providing the forum for us all, without it I would still be playing away in isolation!
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If it’s on the ground it can’t fall down. |
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Jerry Eilander
From:
Hadspen, Tasmania, Australia
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Posted 26 Mar 2009 9:48 pm
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sounds to me ,you got "The bugg".
hard to get rid off,
but a hardy "Welcome",  
cheers from "Down under" |
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Andy Sandoval
From:
Bakersfield, California, USA
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Posted 26 Mar 2009 10:17 pm
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You've definitley got the bug Dean. You mentioned A&B pedals down givin you the A6 tuning. You can also use the knee lever that lowers your E's to Eb and get B6 or lower your 9th string a half and get E6. Cool huh? Have fun with the pedal steel.  |
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Ned McIntosh
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 27 Mar 2009 3:35 am
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It was my great pleasure to be of some assistance, and both Heddie and I were more than pleased to have Dean come and visit.
Our other steel player, Nancy Ball, was also there but had not brought her Dobro or steel, so whilst Heddie and I were taking turns at backing up various artists performing various songs in various keys and time-signatures, Dean was able to chat with Nancy and some of the other C&W afficionados, drink tea, eat cake and biscuits and generally soak up the atmosphere in our "little hall on the hill".
Dean, I have to say Heddie's old Sho-Bud S10 has a completely rebuilt changer and undercarriage of Heddie's own design, and the result is a finely-balanced, eminently playable guitar. The cabinet is probably due for a restoration job, but the sound and tone is all there and it will get you off to a flying start on E9th steel with 3 X 4...enough for a lifetime.
A few day's earlier Nancy, Heddie and I were having an informal steel-player's seminar when Heddie suggested we ought to learn a tune. He kicked off "The Tennessee Waltz" on his Excel U12 steel, Nancy joined in on her Sho-Bud, and I followed. We all got to the same chords but by three different roads, and the result was melodically fascinating. Three different tones, all blending together. We might work on that for a concert night in future. Three steel guitars on-stage is a bit of a rarity in our neck of the woods. But with four steel guitars all doing the same song it'd start to look like a steel-players convention. Endless possibilities!
Well Dean, you're welcome back as soon as you can make it, and when you come to pick up Heddie's spare steel, why not make it on a Wednesday night and join us again. Wouldn't mind hearing you giving my Dobro a ride, either! I never knew that reso of mine had such a gutsy twang!
And did I see you taking some photographs out of the corner of my eye some time whilst Heddie and I were desperately searching for something to play to some song we had never heard before, in a key we didn't know existed before, sung in a manner it had never been sung before? Winging it on a steel is part hilarious fun, part sheer terror!
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The steel guitar is a hard mistress. She will obsess you, bemuse and bewitch you. She will dash your hopes on what seems to be whim, only to tease you into renewing the relationship once more so she can do it to you all over again...and yet, if you somehow manage to touch her in that certain magic way, she will yield up a sound which has so much soul, raw emotion and heartfelt depth to it that she will pierce you to the very core of your being. |
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Ben Jones
From:
Seattle, Washington, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2009 6:16 am
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| Awesome , aint it? |
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Tom Quinn
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Posted 27 Mar 2009 6:49 am
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In my 20 years living in Tokyo, I met lots and lots of guys from Australia, and they were all to a man great folks. My best friend there (English) married a lovely woman from Perth. Donna is a trained singer who has made $$$ and more $$$ doing commercials, jingles and etc in Japan.
I also played some Australian embassy functions, and those folks know how to party. Then there was the time the Aussie rugby team came to a bar I was playing -- "What the Dickens." Yikes! They were huge.
Anyhow, glad to see the pedal steel finding its way down under! :- ) |
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John Billings
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2009 2:24 pm
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| Dean,,,, you just screwed up the whole rest of your life! |
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Duncan Hodge
From:
DeLand, FL USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2009 6:07 pm
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Dean, if you just shoot yourself now, before you start buying these pedal steel thingys you'll save yourself a lot of trouble and aggravation. If you buy one, you'll soon have to buy another "just to compare". Then you'll start thinking "Gee, I wonder what Brand X pedal steel sounds like" so you'll have to try that one, but the problem will be that you love the two you've got and can't decide which one to get rid of so, you'll just buy the third one without selling either of the first two, all the while loudly proclaiming to yourself and other members of the SGF that "this one is THE LAST ONE I'LL EVER NEED!!!" Then Dean, your wife. do you have a wife Dean? Well, after about the third pedal steel purchase, you won't have her for long. She will impose the "one in one out rule" which you will, of course, agree to. Then you'll have to start hiding then next pedal steel that you buy. Have you ever tried to hide a pedal steel, Dean? It's like trying to hide a body. There are only a few places that you can hide a pedal steel, or a body in your home and your wife knows where these places are. Eventually, after your wife vacates the home, all the while muttering under her breath something about "those damned things", you will admit that you have a problem and need some sort of 12 Step program for pedal steel addiction which doesn't exist. Lastly, you will probably try to lift a ZB, which weighs roughly the same as an Indian elephant, destroying your back and turning it into something resembling overcooked vermicelli.
Please stop now...for God's sake stop.
Duncan
_________________
"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."
Last edited by Duncan Hodge on 28 Mar 2009 2:19 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dean Gray
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 28 Mar 2009 1:50 pm
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Ha ha! Its too late! I am already too far gone to stop! I have been having strange dreams where chords magically morph from one to another, I am pick blocking like a man possessed all while muttering something about my next experimental copedent.
Ned, thanks again mate for everything, and you bet I will be back on a Wednesday to pick up that steel! It is such a generous offer of Heddies' that I still can't believe it. Yes I have some photos, once I figure out how to get them out of the phone I'll post them here. I forgot to mention Nancy, who plays an old Sho Bud steel also. When I asked her why she wasn't playing her steel that night she said "I just came tonight to meet you!" - I felt honoured and embarrassed at the same time!
Thanks to everybody for their replies, I really am hooked. And Duncan - that was the funniest thing I have read in a long time! My wife probably won't appreciate it though....I must admit I haven't had to hide an instrument from her yet, it's probably just a matter of time.
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If it’s on the ground it can’t fall down. |
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Duncan Hodge
From:
DeLand, FL USA
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Posted 28 Mar 2009 2:23 pm
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Well, you can't say that you haven't been warned. In any event, have a beautiful day.
Duncan
_________________
"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." |
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Tommy Shown
From:
Denham Springs, La.
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Posted 30 Mar 2009 6:59 pm
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| Dean you definitely got the bug, Tommy |
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Ken Mizell
From:
Lakeland, Florida, 33809, USA
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Posted 1 Apr 2009 7:41 pm
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He's done messed up. I see he's getting him a steel. Just wait until he gets into the various "peripherals" for the pedal steel. Like a pack seat, good cables, nice bar, amps, extra volume pedal, delays, reverbs, Match Box or Steel Driver, and so on... At least he's been playing non-pedal, so he probably have some stuff already.
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Steeless. |
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