How many pulls is too many?

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Greetings all,

I would like to completely rebuild the copedent on one of my D10's so that the C6 neck functions in a way that enables Barry Harris' C6/Ddim approach to Jazz phrasing. In effect, this would be prioritizing playing diminished scales more effectively than the dominant 7th (Mixolydian).

What I want is either one or two pedals to translate all CEGA notes into DFAbB notes. That means that, ideally, at least 8 pulls or drops must happen at once.

Is that too much to ask of the guitar's chassis and string pulling mechanism?

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

It might work but the pedal will be stiff and hard to push.
Erv

Bengt Erlandsen · From: Brekstad, NORWAY

Translate C E G A into either C Eb Gb A or C# E G A# and you only gonna need 4 pulls. The standard C6 setup already does this diminished 6th thingy quite easily using P5 and P6 and with the use of some additional standard levers you can find all the inversions of both the C E G A and the diminished voicing along the whole neck on the same strings. There is always a dimished voicing above and below your whatever choosen position for your minor7th or 6th chord Smile

and they are excellent for moving around to different positions on the neck.

Bengt Erlandsen
JCH D10 8+8

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Way too heavy for one pedal on most guitars. Might work on 2 pedals. Consider a lot of C6 pedal 5 setups pull 4 strings. 1,5,9&10 and pedal 8 pulls 3 strings 7,9&10 so likely doable on 2 pedals but:

You have to consider the geometry and it would likely take some re-rodding of the existing setup for optimum feel and action so some compromises likely to be made.

Consider wound strings generally easier and friendlier than a lot of plain strings.

One way to find out I guess.

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

I didn't know that Barry Harris played pedal steel?

Neutral

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Thanks for the opinions so far. I kind of prefer pedals to be on the stiff side rather than too loose, so maybe I might try adding one pull at a time and stopping at the point the situation deteriorates.

Good point about the rod geometry. If I commit to trying this I suppose the first step (other than determining the ideal copedent based on playability) would be to map out the current mechanism and then propose how the new one would be implemented.

Yes, using a different diminished chord than D Diminished at the 12th fret would require less pulls, but the big benefit in speed and agility to having only to press 2 pedals rather than needing to also move the bar I think would give so much leverage in quickly finding and learning new phrases that the copedent change might be well worth trying.

As far as I know Barry Harris has never played a PSG nor even tutored a PSG player. I suppose he chose C6 rather than any other 6th chord because it uses no sharps or flats.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Pedals 5&6 2 frets up gives you D F Ab B
What am I missing?
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Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Right Ian. But in the last post I started to explain the potential benefits of not needing to move the bar. I figure that you need to add maybe 100 ms (a 10th of a second) to play any phrase that requires a bar movement, even to a nearby fret. Not to mention the additional muscle stamina and mental concentration required. Then there is the fact that you will need to move the bar once again as you go back to the C6 tonality.

Sure, those are not huge things. But both the aspects of learning Jazz phrasing in a decent, professional way and being able to do so on PSG are quite challenging if you aim to play with heavy cats in a Jazz ensemble.

Justin Shaw · From: Ontario, Canada

Granted, but it takes time to push a pedal too, and maybe longer if it's stiff. There could definitely be a muscle fatigue component to that as well.

For the Barry Harris approach at the basic level you only need to add easy access to the flat 6. You could set a few pedals to move the A->Ab or the G-Ab. That should allow you to get the Barry Harris harmonized scale without changing positions. This will be even more straightforward if you are willing to use shell voicings of the chords in his scale, with occasional extension.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Just today I set up a pedal for a client to his specs. I told him I was very skeptical but that I'd do it and let him decide.
On a Uni E9/B6 it has two low string pulls plus it raises string 1 a whole and string 2 a half step. Those two high pulls were the killer. You nearly need to come off your seat to bottom-out the pedal. He is picking the guitar up tomorrow morning. I've told him that he can back off the nylon nuts on 1 & 2 once he realizes that this is not playable.

It also torques the cross shaft quite a bit. With the 1 & 2 pulls backed off and relaxed, I had to retune the two low pulls a LOT. This distortion of physical parts does not make me at all happy. I will clearly demonstrate the issues to the client and then let it be his call.

I have not analyzed how similar or not this may be to what you propose but I just present it for your information.

Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Thanks Jon for that interesting information. I'm thinking in general that dropping the pitches rather than raising them would make a big difference in how well the guitar's structure and pulling mechanisms can deal with the stress.

Justin, I see the merit to your observation. But I feel such a proposal doesn't really give enough "bang for the buck" concerning the high power all of Barry's observations can give. This whole expedition for PSG is yet a work in progress. I do not want to short change any eventual possibilities until things are fully flushed out.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

This is all very interesting. I've only been playing for about ten years, but the distinction that has formed in my mind is that E9 is pedal-intensive, and you can do a lot without moving the bar; whereas C6 is not so much about individual pedal movement, and the bar hand has to be a lot busier while still accurate. Trying to limit bar movement with extra changes feels somehow contrary to the idiom. But then I don't have to deal with any heavy cats! Smile

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Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Actually, I like bar movement just as much as using pedals. They both take about the same time and effort to perform.

The issue is, in my mind any way, that the C6 copedent just doesn't lend itself to consistent ways of playing melodic lines. Pretty much everywhere you start playing a phrase moving the bar, you get locked into a place where you need to hop the bar - mute and pick it up before you move somewhere else. You will be playing a phrase that makes sense in a way PSG players are accustomed to but that does not coincide with the way Jazz pros approach the idiom.

With the proposed C6/D dim on the 12th fret change, the essential framework is right there before you. You may want to do a lot of chord note enclosures when soloing. You then never need to get confused if you can always resolve the chord note on the 12th fret (if you are playing over chords in the tune that map into a C6/D dim setting for example).

Comping also becomes a lot more consistent and straightforward.

Brett Lanier · From: Madison, TN

If you’re playing a 4 chord with pedal 6, just add pedal 5 for a diminished to bring you back to 1. No bar move in that scenario.

There will always be awkward moves on steel. If the solution is to add a new pedal or lever then you’ve already put yourself in a corner. With good right and left hand technique, you can make things that seem impossibly awkward sound smooth.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

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

I agree. Anyone who wants to play jazz on pedal steel should listen to and really STUDY Buddy’s landmark album “Steel Guitar Jazz”. He played that album using the old (G on top) C6th tuning, and he only had five pedals and ONE knee lever on the tuning!

IMHO, you don’t need a special tuning and tons of levers and pedals. You don’t need a special scale with every note at one fret. What you need is to be able to see what’s already right in front of you, and you need to know how to use it!
Winking

Paul Sutherland · From: Placerville, California

The more raises you put on any pedal, the more the cabinet flexes, and everything goes more and more flat. Lowers counteract raises a bit, because they are lowering the pressure on the cabinet, but not by a lot.
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Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Fair enough Brett, Fred and Donny. But... even though Buddy's and other's work and results were unbelievably innovative and worthwhile, that never put them into arena of the real Jazz pro's, as far as I'm aware.

Sure, wonderful things can be done with the instrument as it exists today. But that does that mean that far better things cannot be done pending some essential changes. I'm not talking about adding a pedal or two. I mean completely rethinking and restructuring how you play the instrument in C6 mode. That means doing the simple things in a simple way and not locking yourself out of doing the more complicated things that require more attention and that should not be impossible or incredibly awkward on the instrument.

I think mindset is really the issue with the C6 history. The historic "greats" were just happy doing what they could achieve, as you say, adding a pedal or lever at a time. But probably none of them had the education or imagination to really, really dive deep into what makes the Jazz idiom tick.

So, I think I'm proposing something "out of the box" with an aim to develop something new and powerful - rather than to continue on in "old familiar ways". I understand that that might not be kosher in the mind of some Smile

P.S. A 4 chord is relatively rarely used in Jazz (except when playing Blues). It's usually recognized that some form of II, V, I pattern is most common. So it makes sense to make sure that playing that pattern is facilitated with all possible options and enhancements, doesn't it?

Justin Shaw · From: Ontario, Canada

If you want to do things in a completely different way you are of course free to do that, but the proof will be in what you produce. Sacred steelers adopted the pedal steel and their ideas provoked lots of thought and discussion. Crucially they produced very good players of their style of music including a longstanding tradition in many churches and also many commercially successful professional players, with lots of great released music.

If you want to play C6 completely differently, that's up to you, but the original question and poll were about 8 pulls on one pedal. You can't change physics, and as you can see from the poll, most people don't think 8 pulls is going to work. If you are changing everything, why stick with the same tuning and pedals at all? If you want 8 pulls on one pedal, why would it not work to split some of those up so that you had, say, 3 pulls each on 2 adjacent pedals, and then a knee with 2 more on it? It's no longer clear to me what your goal actually is.

Also you keep mentioning "real Jazz pros" and that kind of thing. I'm not sure who you're talking about but Buddy Emmons was certainly a Jazz player. You seem to be saying that previous C6 players, even the most famous and talented ones ever, weren't good enough to really play "real" jazz. If you are convinced that you want a pedal with 8 pulls, and that doing so will help you make music that is "real" jazz, then go ahead, and lets hear the music.

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

Admittedly, I don't know very much about music theory. But Barry calls this "his scale", and his students (which appear to be advanced players) even have difficulty grasping the theory of it and playing the scale with chords. This would indicate to me that very few players in the jazz world use this particular scale Question

Okay, so it's just a major scale with an added flat 6 (C-D-E-F-G-G#-A-B), but if I were fixed on incorporating this on a pedal steel, and I wanted all those notes at one fret so as not to have to move the bar, I'd think it would be easier to add an extra string instead of changing the notes on 8 other strings with pedals. I don't know, I'm just reflecting here because you seem to say the standard C6th isn't suitable for "real jazz". Therefore, it would make sense (to me, anyway) to make this scale the basis of your open tuning, and then work what you thing the useable jazz elements of standard C6th into it, instead of the other way around.

Of course, if all this sounds dumb, I'll just withdraw from this discussion and play some chess. Confused

Here's Barry's explanation of the scale:
https://cochranemusic.com/barry-harris-6th-dim-scale-diminished

Bill Cunningham · From: Atlanta, Ga. USA

Steve,

Get with Rick Schmidt here, on FB, or check his YT page. He has studied application of Barry Harris harmony on steel. I think he wrote a paper on applying it on both necks.
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Bill Cunningham
Atlanta, GA

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Good call, Bill.

Here’s a previous thread on the topic. Entries from Paul Franklin, Rick Schmidt, Christopher Woitach, Jim Cohen, and others:
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=331172&start=0

And another, which drew somewhat less attention. https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=3017416&sid=c7f995aba0cd6f8651a89d7f384c280d

I strongly suggest reading through that material before do something drastic, difficult to play, and potentially damaging to your guitar.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I haven't read all these posts yet, but what strikes me already is what PF says about the intervalic approach and how much time he feels he's wasted on scales.
Even with pedals, steel guitar has never been developed with rapid scales in mind - they are not in tne character of the instrument and its obvious strengths lie elsewhere. Compare the trombone - it was evolved to play sonorous chords to bolster a choir. Rapid scales are possible nowadays with improved slide engineering, but only by dint of hard work, not by modifying the instrument. (You can put valves on a trombone, but they kill the sound.)
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Steve Sycamore · From: Sweden

Thanks for all of the additional comments. I'll locate and read the material you mentioned about Rick Schmidt, Bill. Thanks.

Just to clarify a bit, it's not really "the scale" from Barry Harris that is the interesting item. It's more about having a uniform and consistent approach to using triads and chords or arpeggios. And also how to use diminished and 6th chords as building blocks which you can combine and modify in ways that are relatively easy to visualize and think through in a split second. (And being able to know where you might use them)

I think it was Pat Martino who came up with the nice analogy of having a sort of musical slide rule when you use diminished chords as building blocks for either other chords or for scales.

And right Justin, I no longer consider using only a single pedal to produce the desired results, but rather at least 2 pedals plus a knee lever to get the full package of changes. Dividing the pulls not only might help the guitar mechanics but should also be a lot more flexible in being able to apply different voicings and, as I said before, different building blocks for the full range of chords and scales that should be possible.

I guess lastly I can clarify that I was not implying that any of the PSG Greats were not masters and fully professional. But what I consider a Jazz specialist and top pro to be is someone who might be invited to play at the Montreux festival, for example. Or someone who could tour with Chick Corea, for another example. I think those arenas are world's apart from what most PSG players are involved with. I could be wrong in that I've never heard of something like those examples happening. The situation is probably similar to playing in a well known symphonic orchestra. The amount of shear study, concentration, practice and even being embedded in the culture for either playing situation is pretty intense. It doesn't leave you with much time for anything else Smile

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Mark O’Connor played at Montreux, as did Danny Gatton. I don’t know if there was a steel player in their band, but there very easily could have been, since they had done recordings with a couple of the best who ever lived. If I’m not mistaken, Jerry Douglas played at Montreux. I think the Time Jumpers with (Paul Franklin or Gary Carter) could do an appropriate set at there and be well received.

It could be that the jazz world is short changing itself by excluding pedal steel from the ranks of accepted instruments, rather than the instrument’s players not being up to snuff with their chops. Jazz fans have already missed out on the Buddy’s (Emmons & Charleton) and Maurice Anderson, Tom Morrell, and so many others that could have opened their ears to a new and glorious sound for the genre.

Good decision on your pulls.

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