chimes

Larry Adams · From: bixby,ok.usa.

help!!! trying to learn how to do chimes

Carl Kilmer · From: East Central, Illinois

I have problems with them too. I call the harmonics.
I used to be good at them, but since my accident and
having to learn to play from the begging again it's not
easy for me anymore. Sometimes I can play them fairly
good and sometimes I can't even start to play them. Confused

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Chris Walke · From: St Charles, IL

yeah, me too. have no problem with harmonics on lap steel, where I tend to play with a higher gain setting. But for cleaner PSG tones, harmonics are SO quiet. Do you just turn up the amp more and use less on the volume pedal until it's time to hit those harmonics?

John Ely · From: Minneapolis Minnesota, USA

See this video from Bob Hempker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku_FwTTzo_I
And this from Rick Alexander:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnZIGSr0kX4
John
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Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

I've seen a lot of steel players chime with their middle finger-that's how I do it, and I think Paul Franklin chimes using the pinky finger.

Brett

Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

I use my ring finger - small hands. The finger you use depends on how big your hands on. I started with my pinkie when Jeff Newman showed mt at his symposium in LA in 1977, but it just didn't sound clean. Alan Akaka advised me to use my ring finger in 2007, and it works much better, though I'm not very good at it. I've been using palm harmonics on my non-pedal steels. It looks cool, and the sound I get is much fuller.
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Paul Sutherland · From: Placerville, California

Bob Hempker's video does a real good job covering the basics of chiming.

I find palm chiming the easiest, but the tone is more muted. The finger chime is the brightest but somewhat awkward, and hard to do multiple strings at once. The knuckle chime is the hardest for me to do, but then I haven't been trying to do them for very long.

My advice is learn them all as they each have their place in the music. The more techniques you know, and have mastered, the more options you have to play the music that's dancing around in your head. (Oops; there I said the dirty word, "technique".)

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

Chimes, also called harmonics, are done by lightly touching the string at the same time you pick. The "touch-point" can be 12, 7, or 5 frets above the bar position. The 12th and 5th fret up touch-points yeild the same note one and two octaves above a regular picked note. The 7th fret up touch point yeilds a perfect fifth an octave up. Don't get discouraged! It can take from several months to several years to learn to do this technique really well.

Note: The string can be picked on either side of the touch-point with equally good results, and any part of your hand/fingers can be used to touch the string (fingertips, knuckles, finger edge, fingernail, or palm). Each of these will likely give a slightly different tone to the chimes.

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

I chime using my pinky. Curled under. My fingers are long enough, that I can cover three strings between the knuckles. Pick between the pinky and bar with my thumb. It makes for a clean and loud chime. If I gotta cover more strings, I use the back edge of my palm. Sometimes I chime by just banging the string at the "chime point" with my index pick. It depends on what works for what I want to hear. YMMV.

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

How does Larry Sasser do it here at 1:43
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zCgO_yy10Q
Is he raking the ring finger knuckle along the 3 strings together with the thumb pick. This is to me the ultimate in nice harmonics.
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Jim Bates · From: Alvin, Texas, USA

Unfortunately we all do not have the same finger sizes (short fat, long skinny, BIG fingers, etc.) so each has to try which fits the hand. Also, I use three finger picks so pinky or palm is the best for me.

For the absolute cleanest, clearest and most consistent chimes listen to Bobby Koefer. Of course he plays a non-pedal Fender deluxe T-3 which does NOT have the fuller middle and bass of a pedal steel.

Thanx,
Jim

Jim Bates · From: Alvin, Texas, USA

Unfortunately we all do not have the same finger sizes (short fat, long skinny, BIG fingers, etc.) so each has to try which fits the hand. Also, I use three finger picks so pinky or palm is the best for me.

For the absolute cleanest, clearest and most consistent chimes listen to Bobby Koefer. Of course he plays a non-pedal Fender deluxe T-3 which does NOT have the fuller middle and bass of a pedal steel.

Thanx,
Jim

Jim Bob Sedgwick · From: Clinton, Missouri USA

Bent.. You are correct. Larry's using the first knuckle of his ring finger, lightely raking across the strings, 12 frets above his bar. You'll also find that the more treble your guitar is set (within reason), the easier and cleaner the harmonic becomes. Hope this helps.

Micky Byrne · From: United Kingdom (deceased)

Bent...good clip there, I use my ring finger. Now branching slightly off tread, you know how us musicians sell stuff then later regret it?? Well, that guitar Duane Eddy is using is a Guild DE 500 (Duane Eddy model) I had one in Sunburst, and sold it in 1970 and added money to get a Telecaster. Those Guilds are like gold dust now...Oh well Confused

Micky "scars" Byrne U.K.

Jim Pitman · From: Waterbury Ctr. VT 05677 USA

Interesting - Had a gig last night but left my kit bag with good bar at home.
In my pack-a-seat, I keep this improvised bar made from a piece of chrome drum hardware tube filled with washers that a guitar tech made me when I dropped my bar off the edge of ferry boat I was playing a gig on.

That drum hardware thing would not chime one bit. It's lighter. Ive learned you need a dense heavy bar to chime. It was so ill toned I wound up playing "slide style" with lotso distortion to get through the night.
Gotta get me a spare real bar.
Ohh...the affects of getting old!

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

Whatever happened to the original method of steel players chiming with the bottom of the palm of your right hand?

I know that chiming with a finger is the current trend and it looks more sexy, but is it better?
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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Jeremiah Wade · From: Bladenboro, NC

You can also chime in another manner. Use you right thumb pick to touch the string (5, 7, or 12 frets above your bar) and pick the string with you right middle finger pick behind the chiming point. Then tone is full and this method even works with bigger hands.
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Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Ned McIntosh · From: New South Wales, Australia

Palm harmonics was the first way I learned, right out of Winnie Winston's book. The good thing about them is you can get a full chord harmonic, very useful for an ethereal or "haunting" sound.

There's a photo in the book of Julian Tharpe doing fingertip harmonics, so I learned them next. The problem with my long arms is my right elbow sticks out sideways like a 747 wing when I do harmonics this way, which is a problem on a crowded stage. They have a different tone to a palm-harmonic, but you can very precisely pick a series of non-adjacent string-harmonics using this method. If you need a series of harmonics to mimic a door-chime (for example), this method works really well!

A few years ago I was talking to the great Aussie steel-player Michel Rose and I told him I was amazed by the tone and power of his harmonics. He showed me how he does it...using the knuckle of his little finger ("pinky") to stop the string and picking the harmonic with the thumbpick. He explained how the hardness of the knuckle gives a distinctive tone to the harmonic that is different from either palm or fingertip harmonics. It is the hardest of all the techniques, but the tone is something else when you get it just right. You have to be very very accurate where that knuckle touches the string.

So I try to use them all, but mostly I play palm-harmonics or fingertip. The knuckle harmonic requires a lot of practice...but the sound is very, very nice!
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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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