Any College Programs for Pedal Steel Guitar?

Anthony Parish · From: Austin

There are many great college programs for music performance with concentrations in various instruments (guitar, bass, piano, voice, etc). Do any programs offer performance training in pedal steel guitar? Haven't seen any.

Tony Parish

Bill McCloskey · Posted 13 Oct 2022 12:47 pm

I think most people graduated from hardknox.edu.

Berklee had some things going on with lap steel when Bill Leavitt was Chairman of the Guitar Department there. But I haven't heard of anything recent.

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

Been a long time since my college days, but I'd venture that not too many institutions would support a class that would comprise of five or less students. I couldn't imagine getting more than that, even at Julliard, Vanderbilt, or Berkley.

I'll make a guess and say that guitar, bass, piano, violin and voice are all about 1,000 times more popular than pedal steel. Whoa!

Howard Parker · From: Maryland

Does Mike Ihde still teach at Berklee (not Berkley).

I think there's also an offering at East TN State Univ but not positive.

There are a number of higher ed. programs for bluegrass instrumentation. In addition to the 2 above I'm also aware of courses in steel guitar offered at South Plains College in TX.

I believe there are others as well.

h

Ian Worley · From: Sacramento, CA

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Donna Hammit, Bill Anderson's steel player attended some college where she studied steel guitar as her choice of instrument.
She talked backstage about the class at a show about 2002, When she appeared with Bill Anderson at the Sagebrush Roundup.

It may have been East Tenn. University,

Jon Voth · From: Virginia, USA

Also Henry Johns of Navy Band "Country Current" went there and studied with Mr. Dingus, he's been hired & out of school maybe 5-6 years I'm guessing.

I have all my PSG degrees from Youtube University.

Christopher Woitach · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

For a couple years I taught a kid steel guitar at the college where I teach, as a music major. He had a disability with his left side, and could only play on his lap with bottleneck slide on his finger, so he could hold it. He did pretty good for a while (he was able to play a few jazz tunes) but ended up moving. He was the only that ever asked, but as long as the student could meet music requirements they could probably study steel there (Western Oregon University)
_________________
Christopher Woitach
cw@affmusic.com
www.affmusic.com

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Belmont College in Nashville maybe.

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

It is common for a music program in college to be called jazz studies or studio composition. Your choice of instrument. Pedal steel is quite welcome. There are no big classes with a bunch of oboe players sitting together. College is not structured like that. Classes for Performance degrees are often ensemble based. If you can play jazz or want to learn how to play jazz you can play in the jazz ensembles. Both small daily workshops and the larger performance based ensembles.
Instrumental studies are with a private teacher that is chosen by the student. You could study with a steel player or piano player or who ever would help you reach your goals.

There is a Western swing class in a college in San Antonio run by a steel player/professor. There is also an experimental music dept run by a steel player at Princeton. I’m sure there is more.

I’m also aware of several doctorates given to musicologists bases on the ethnographic studies of the pedalsteel.

I’m actually looking into a structured college program to get my jazz playing to be a little bit better than pathetic. I always get started and then end up chasing gigs around and get distracted.

College is great. I totally enjoyed it. It has opened doors ( and keeps on opening doors )

I think if you want a degree in pedalsteel you would do it through a jazz studies program. Or an instrumental based commercial music program .
_________________
Bob

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

I think the OP's question was more along the lines of college training in pedal steel; that is, learning the instrument on an advanced level. Of course there are a gazillion college music courses out there, but they don't teach pedal steel. I see the training that Paul Franklin (and others) do in the "Modern Masters" series as what an on-line, college level pedal steel course would and should be.

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

South Plains College in Levelland TX, just west of Lubbock, has (or had) a western swing band called the "South Plains Playboys," though I don't know if participation in it applies to an Associates Degree there. SPC is a 2-year community college offering associates degrees in art, business management, nursing, and transfer programs to 4-year colleges and universities.

SPC at one time offered a program in Bluegrass, taught by Allen Munde and the late Joe Carr, but that was probably decades ago. No mention of that course of study is mentioned in the SPC literature I've seen.
_________________
My rig: Infinity and Telonics.

Son, we live in a world with walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with steel guitars. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg?

Tommy Mc · From: Middlesex VT

Howard Parker · From: Maryland

There is also this (in part) from The The IBMA Foundation.

"The Mike Auldridge Memorial Scholarship, created by Howard Parker, will benefit individuals studying the resophonic guitar, steel guitar, or acoustic guitar on the college level with a bluegrass or roots music focus. The deadline to apply for Mike Auldridge Memorial Scholarship (along with all IBMA Foundation-hosted college scholarships) is June 1, 2025. Forms will be online at Bluegrassfoundation.org by March 1, 2025"

Jay Coover · From: Nashville, TN, USA

You might try calling Belmont -

School of Music: 615.460.6408
_________________
GFI Expo S-10 3x5
Goodrich 120

Lee Rider · From: Fort Bragg, California, USA

I take lessons on Patreon from Rich Hinman who teaches at Berklee in Boston. Looks like they have some courses for steel guitar but I don't actually see a major for it:

https://college.berklee.edu/faculty/rich-hinman
_________________
Bowman SD10 push pull 3x5, Modified Hudson PedalBro, Sarno Tonic preamp, Evans FET 500. with Altec 418B, Standel Custom 15, '67 Showman with D-130F in cabinet, Ganz Straight Ahead, custom Wolfe 6 string dobro, '52 Gibson Century 6.

Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

Dan Beller-McKenna · From: Durham, New Hampshire, USA

Places like Berklee, MTSU and maybe Belmont are the most likely to embrace the idea. I can tell you, having taught in a "standard" college music department for over thirty years, that there are a lot of obstacles for having non-band -orchestral instruments in the curriculum at more traditional music programs. My colleagues "say" they would like to open the curriculum up to other types of music, but a) there is less than zero money for hiring new instructors and b) the band, orchestra, and choir director are fighting to keep their ensembles populated and are nervous about diverting resources to instruments that they can't have in their groups. My department is particularly old fashioned, despite a desire to modernize, so it might be less likely than others to find a way to include new instruments.

That said, I did get to give pedal steel lessons to an interested (and excellent) student last spring in lieu of his piano lessons (but he is in our most flexible degree track, otherwise it might not have flown). This fall he decided he'd rather transcribe classical music for banjo, so we've been playing Bach inventions on banjo and dobro this semester, which has been a blast, rekindling long dormant synapses from my years of studying classical guitar.

Jay Coover · From: Nashville, TN, USA

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

I’ve got a PHD from Neon University. I’ve got the scars to prove it.

Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

Peter Ellman · From: North Carolina, USA

Matt Perpick · From: Brooklyn, NY, USA

As Lee mentioned, Rich Hinman teaches guitar at Berklee and has a couple of steel students. I believe Kevin Barry, the great lap steel player, also teaches there. It would be amazing if those program could grow.
_________________
Listen to the Steel Podcast: https://tinyurl.com/steelpodcast

Dave Magram · From: San Jose, California, USA

There's also Jordan Stern (“Professor Honky Tonk”) who wrote in March, 2023: "I am a music education professor…I have just started a country music program at Texas State." https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=3140357&sid=2c4e040dd5dc7a060e8c46e1f7575941

Jordan does an amazing job of analyzing and re-creating several honky-tonk classics at: https://professorhonkytonk.com/

- Dave

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

Okay class, let us start with the basic Steel Guitar Theory of Relativity:
M/T=P squared. Where M= Music. T=Time. And P= Poverty.
This man was formerly with The Dept. Of Energy as a Nuclear Physicist. He chose to play steel guitar for a living instead.

Forum Index > Pedal Steel	Goto page 1, 2 Next	Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic