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Topic: Steel guitar jealousy |
Curt Trisko
From:
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
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Posted 25 Apr 2014 9:19 pm |
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My main jamming buddy is a music-school-trained guitarist who plays one of his electric guitars when we jam. He likes to play a lot of single-note runs. I always think that electric guitarists would get jealous of the pedal steel guitar and the things that it can do, but this guy doesn't. He'll occasionally say something about how I can pull off simple licks that are impossible for him to replicate (and that are hard for him to conceptualize). I'm sure he also notices that it's extremely easy for me to do licks that require a lot of skill from him, and that I can do them with embellishment. Still, he has no desire to learn to play or even mess around with a pedal steel. Maybe I hold the pedal steel up so high that I've lost touch with guitarists.
On the other hand, I'm jealous of the versatility of tone that he can get out of his guitar that I can't get out of my steel. I don't play six-string guitar. No matter what I'm playing or even if I'm playing with effects, people say I either sound country or like Pink Floyd. I can't get the acoustic-type tonal qualities that he can, the sounds he gets from strumming patterns, or the percussive qualities that guitars have. We have incredible control over our sound within our tonal range, but it's a limited range.
I suppose it's a good thing that he's perfectly happy with electric guitar and doesn't think less of it because of pedal steel. You'd think that for someone that likes to play runs, the pedal steel would be part of a natural progression of that style due to its superior mechanical abilities and tuning. |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 26 Apr 2014 10:04 am
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I've been playing guitar since I was very young. I gigged a lot, studied a lot, taught a lot, etc. I started getting serious about steel guitar 10 years ago. I don't play pedal steel, by the way, but that wouldn't change my following thoughts.
I've stopped playing guitar pretty much, but my steel playing has become the vessel for my all of my guitaristic ideas. I approach the steel now as I would approach playing guitar. To me, it is the best of both worlds. I've spent an awful lot of time in my life learning about music and I've invested 100% of myself in it--I'm taking it all with me into steel playing, from technique, to playing styles, to sounds and effects, etc. I'm not interested in satisfying anyone else's expectations of what the steel guitar should be.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Curt Trisko
From:
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
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Posted 26 Apr 2014 10:28 am
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Mike, I think my friend is the same way. He sets his own goals for himself based on what he wants to get out of the guitar. He's talked about how he didn't like music school because it detached it him from his own musical sense and prevented him from internalizing the music he was playing. I think the kind of guitarists he looks up to are people like Pat Metheny and John Scofield.
A couple of times we've listened to a song that has a guitar solo followed by a pedal steel solo. He definitely noticed that the pedal steel parts sounded like silk compared to the electric guitar, and he appreciates it, but he just leaves it at that. The fact that I don't play six-string and that he is not all that interested in pedal steel is probably a good thing because it creates space and respect between us. I can't tell him how to play guitar and he can't tell me how to play steel. |
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Curt Trisko
From:
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
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Posted 26 Apr 2014 11:00 am
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| I should add that what my friend wants to move on to next, musically, is developing is singing abilities. I haven't heard him sing yet, but I guess he's just becoming comfortable enough to start sharing it. I'm curious to see if his singing becomes an extension of the ideas he puts into his guitar playing. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 28 Apr 2014 7:29 am
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The basic problem lies in that tonal flexibility in electric instruments comes a LOT from switching pickups off and on, and also by turning the tone knob.
Most steels lack a tone knob, and most steels only have one pickup. If you have the tools, and are willing to take the hit on resale value, you could rout out the neck and put a pickup in the neck about where the thirtieth fret (or thereabouts) would be. And put in a tone knob (or get one of those volume/tone pedals).
Sadly, the mechanism itself precludes one of the cooler pickup ideas I've seen: a piezo in the body of a guitar. You could mount one on a pedal steel, but I have no doubt that the pedals and knees would prove louder than the strings.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Curt Trisko
From:
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
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Posted 28 Apr 2014 9:11 am
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I would love it if there was a pickup which would express more of the natural sound coming off of the strings. I remember when my steel came in the mail and I first raked my fingers across the strings. It was in tune and the sweetened tuning, the body, and the string gauges created a sound that I will never forget. It instantly hit home that the pedal steel wasn't just a variety of guitar, it was a world unto itself.
I've talked about it with the friend I mentioned in this thread and he casually suggested that if I wanted to capture it, I could try recording with my amp in another room and a microphone on the strings. There's a only a few discreet changes on my steel which create enough mechanical noise that could interfere with that. |
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Jerome Hawkes
From:
Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 28 Apr 2014 10:35 am
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seems like i once saw a pickup in the fretboard - somewhere around the 24th fret. was that Desert Rose that built a Delta Blues steel?
i think National lap steels from the late 30's also had a pickup in the upper fretboard and a selector knob tone control
someone could probably make you a floating pickup (like on archtop guitars) that you could attach to the end of the fretboard that wouldnt require alteration - plenty of room between the strings. you would have to do some wiring mods, but those are reversible.
there is also this for ultimate envy - cept its only for 6 strings...pretty neat though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRVubcj2BRI
personally, i can get a pretty good tonal range by just moving my right hand - you dont have to lock it down right over the pickup.
_________________
'65 Sho-Bud D-10 Permanent • '54 Fender Dual-8 • Clinesmith T-8 • '38 Ric Bakelite • '92 Emmons D-10 Legrande II |
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Sid Hudson
From:
Virginia, USA
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Posted 28 Apr 2014 11:00 am
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I play both.
This time my better judgment prevails!
I'm stayin out of this one. |
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Don Drummer
From:
West Virginia, USA
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Posted 28 Apr 2014 11:13 am
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| Mike Daly used a Boss Acoustic Simulator on Rock Of Ages. It required some post production as this pedal is a little noisy. |
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Curt Trisko
From:
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
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Posted 30 Apr 2014 4:52 pm
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It's reassuring to see that I'm not the only person who has thought about wanting to make the steel sound more acoustic. I can see why that tone may not work in a band setting, but I do most of my playing by myself with no other instruments.
I bet most of the guys on here played six-string before learning pedal steel. Was learning pedal steel a choice because of the limitations of a guitar or did that have nothing to do with it? When talking to people who don't know what a pedal steel is, sometimes I tell them it's like a super-guitar. That's sort of the thought process that makes me assume that guitarists should naturally be drawn to pedal steel. I'm not really a musical type of person, but I can also see why a guitarist could be completely satisfied with a mechanically limited instrument. I suppose it causes you to be that much more fine in your playing to get the sound and feel you want out of the instrument. |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 30 Apr 2014 5:00 pm
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There are many more possibilities on standard guitar for chords, simply because you are using 4 fingers on the fretboard rather than 1 bar and several pedals/knees. A pedal steel player could not possibly keep up with a guitarist (more specifically, a very competent guitarist) in that respect--fingers moving in all directions, notes crisscrossing, etc. Even for improvisation, guitarists are able to play scales easily in any position, whereas it's not so easy for the steel guitarist.
Still, I prefer playing steel, and non-pedal at that.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Curt Trisko
From:
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
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Posted 30 Apr 2014 5:05 pm
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You mean like shredding?
http://youtu.be/DRMDo09r4Jg
That's so far outside of my musical taste that it didn't even occur to me. |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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