Question/help!! Rock, blues et

Scott McRee · From: Georgia, USA

Hey friends,

Anyone here play a lot of rock, blues stuff on their steel?

If you do, could you PLEASE reach out to me? I'd greatly appreciate it. My number is (770) 598-5111. Or feel free to direct message me yours. Thank you very much. Merry Christmas!!

Regards
Scott

John McClung · From: Olympia WA, USA

Hey Scott, long time no talk. My fave position for blues lines: 2 back from an open chord, pedals A+B down, string 7-6-5-4 are a 4-note minor 7. easy to wiggle around in that region for other good notes. Call if you'd like a workshop lesson on that topic.

I still have the Ritt, still finalizing the copedent and adding a knee lever. I'm nothing if not slow...and busy teaching!

Professor Twang
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Scott McRee · From: Georgia, USA

Hey man!

Hope you're doing well! Thanks for that info man. How have you been? Merry Christmas.

Scott McRee · From: Georgia, USA

Bump to top. Would love yalls feedback. Thank you

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

It helps to have a copedent that can tune to a pentatonic scale in several positions. I have mine set up with a G lever (on F# strings), a C# lever on strings 9 & 2, and a D half-stop on string 2. I get all 5 positions with that and the B pedal. It’s nice to be able to switch between minor and major pentatonics for chromatic lines here n there too.

For chords, what John said. BC combinations work too, for swingy sounding harmonies. And AB+E lower for a different 9th voicing.

Blues and rock are about attitude. So you have to know where the notes are, but you have to make people feel them, not just hear them played. That’s bar technique, picking technique, and tone.

If I was a better player, I would do a video demonstration.

Nahhh, I probably wouldn’t 😎

Listen to this intro instead
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MYUPEcUBZyQ

And this outro
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VE6-uc1zr3s

Somebody just posted this in a discussion of the Dickey Betts instrumental tune Jessica. There is a pretty long steel solo by the great John Hughey, who I believe is also responsible for that intro on the Osborne Brothers tune. It’s the last cut on the list:
https://www.wolfgangs.com/music/dickey-betts/audio/2391-1830.html?tid=22578

And then for something really scary
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EPjfqS5NvCY

Notice that Robert Randolph uses a dobro style bar. He does NOT play in position. The lighter weight bar helps with that. He slides around A LOT, and borrows vibrato and single-string technique from his sacred steel roots. Like I was saying - Attitude.

Merry Holimas.

Jim Palenscar · From: Oceanside, Calif, USA

...and from that point if you release the pedals and swap the E lower to the E raise you have a D7(57)- so-
fret 1 AB w 7th string- 1m7
lower E's- 49
raise E's and release pedals 57
- pretty cool w/o moving the bar Smile

Phillip Hermans · From: Berkeley, California, USA

Lots of good comments about pentatonic scales here, I would just add the preponderance of power chords in rock music.

Unfortunately on standard E9 neck you don't have the low end of a 6-string. But you can do the inverted power chords (Perfect Fourths)

Example:
Power chord: Strings 8 and 5
"Inverted" power chords: Strings 10 and 8
Those will come in more handy than traditional 3rds n 6ths country style harmonies

You can also do a blues shuffle rhythm pattern:

Strings 8 + 5, Strings 8 + 5A

Of course a fuzz-tone with single-note pentatonic licks will probably be plenty

Scott McRee · From: Georgia, USA

Thanks everyone! Id love if there are some players that came from 6 string guitar that can chime in here and just keep adding on to these comments about how they try and make their steel sound like a guitar when they want it to from playing style, to picking style, to pockets and positions, tips and tricks etc. Thank you. Merry Christmas.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I've been playing blues and old-school rock and roll guitar since the 60s. Especially blues. Blues is not about scales. Rock and roll is not really about scales either. The Three Kings, Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, the great slide players like Earl Hooker, Robert Nighthawk, JB Hutto, Fred McDowell, Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor, and lots more, didn't play a bunch of linear scales. Lots of single notes, small riff fragments, double stops, a lot of slurring/bending/sliding of notes, expressive vibrato, fairly basic chords for the most part.

Listen to the great slide guitar players. If you ignore the diatonic strings not in the E chord, then E9 is an Open E tuning similar to the typical Vestapol Open E chord a lot of slide guitar players use. If you don't like the fact that you don't have the low E in that chord, think about tuning strings 9 and 10 to B and E, respectively, instead of D and B. Then you have Vestapol Open E plus the G# above it. You can then do any strict slide moves that can be done in that tuning, and also have the pedals and levers plus the ability to slant the bar. The standard so-called 'box patterns' of slide guitar apply. Jesse Ed Davis, Duane Allman, Johnny Winter and lots more mined a ton out of those box patterns in Open E - not just blues but lots of blues-oriented rock and roll.

Then the A+F inversion and A+B 2nd inversion give you similar open chord patterns with the 1 in different positions. If you toggle the A-pedal up in the A+F position, you get the b7th chord 3 frets up. That 1=>b7 and b7=>1 move is pretty widely used in blues. B plus E-lever 2-frets down from the normal 7-fret-up position gives another 7th chord, and adding the A-pedal gives a nice 9th chord. I use that with the 6th string G#=>F# lever (split with the B-pedal sometimes) to get a lot of smooth jazzy-bluesy sounding moves. Part of this stems from, as already stated, the fact that raising the 7th string from F#=>G with the A+B pedals turns a 6th chord into a b7th - I do that with the 6th string G#=>F# split with B. Just those 5 changes - A-pedal, B-pedal, E=>F lever, E=>Eb lever, and G#=>F# lever (split or not with B-pedal) give a ton of blues stuff.

To a certain extent, I try to stop thinking about E9 pedal steel as an E9 pedal steel. Don't be afraid to move the bar like a slide guitar player would move the slide. Don't be afraid to play single notes and gliss up and down the neck. Don't be afraid to pick up the bar and drop it somewhere else - the Shubb-style bars with a cutout were already mentioned, and they can be useful when I want to pick up the bar a lot. Double stops, expressive vibrato. The blues 3rd is frequently not exactly major or minor - a lot of times it's slurred, or there's a bend from b3 to 3. The 5 note is often slurred flat. I already mentioned the common 1=>b7 and b7=>1 moves. Call and response - i.e., don't constantly be playing - wait for the vocal and then respond. Again, listen to the great blues players, especially slide players. Listen to steel players like Freddie Roulette and the Sacred Steel players. Lots of them don't use pedals at all.

I honestly have trouble getting a lot of musicians I know to consider pedal steel in blues and rock and roll. I think they just have it stereotyped. And let's face it - how many times have you heard pedal steel players just not sound like blues or rock and roll players. Completley move out of the box of standard country E9 pedal steel playing.

This is not the only way to approach this, obviously. But I think it's a good way to start.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Learn pentatonic and blues scales. One blues scale is a minor pentatonic with a b5 added. There are others, but that one’s the Big Daddy-o. Learn the chords and chord fragments. Learn how the notes in the scales sound with the chords. Play along to 12-bar blues backing tracks. Listen to the music of the masters. Compare notes. Copy solos. Get a soul. It’s simple music, but it has power and it’s not easy if you do it right.

Marshall Woodall · From: New York, USA

Lots of great words of wisdom. I particularly like Dave's ideas of just thinking outside the "E9 Box" and just having a sensitivity to what defines style. I am currently playing (hacking) on a steel that what was previously setup in a 10 string extended E9 tuning giving me the low E and B root fifth combo Dave also mentioned. I love this setup for it's flexibility and tonal range. The key here being a good half stop on string 8 to allow for the critical E to Eb to D drop that ties the whole thing together. There are a million ways to approach it all I guess and it really comes down to how you react as a musician to what ever context you are in. I love these kind of discussions.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

There is so much the E9 “box” has to offer, I would say make sure you’ve exhausted the possibilities before thinking outside it. Maybe thinking outside the diatonic country box when you’re playing blues and rock, is more to the point.

You are right on, Marshall. There is more than one way to reach any goal in music, and the forum is full of people who have tried just about all of them with varying degrees of success. We only really know our own systems, which are no doubt continuing as works in progress. Hopefully sharing what we can in a few short paragraphs will help players like the OP who want to learn.

Scott McRee · From: Georgia, USA

Keep it coming! This is great conversation.

Steve Lipsey · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

I've been using the same no-pedal positions used on pentatonic 6-string guitar blues/rock...a slidey pentatonic that sounds more like guitar than pedal steel...just have to skip a few strings to do it on the low strings, the higher strings work fine...root on the B strings...

Or play the normal vertical scale but 2 frets back, which puts you into Dorian Mode, a very rock/blues sound (makes the 3rd and 7th be flattened). That uses pedals, which is a different sound, more related to the pedal steel vibe...

And of course, use an overdrive pedal (I have that and a fuzz pedal). I put the mini Ibanez 850 FZmini and TSmini pedals under my steel on a little pedalboard (along with a couple of other mini pedals), they fit nicely and are easy to hit there with your foot...
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Bud Angelotti · From: Larryville, NJ, USA

Dave said -

Phillip Hermans · From: Berkeley, California, USA

Just noticed Joe Wright had a page on "rock licks" using the BC pedals:
https://www.pedalsteel.com/joe/Members/tea/bc/bc.html

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