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Topic: Why is the Steel man always hidden? |
Rick Garrett
From:
Tyler, Texas
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:23 am |
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I've noticed on more than one music video lately that the Steel man is always nearly hidden. I saw one Travis Tritt vid where the steel man was playing his heart out and instead of showing him doing his thing they show another cat playing a tele with a big grin on his face. You can clearly hear the steel guitar sounding fantastic and yet here's this smiling tele player. I wonder why they do that when making video's. If the producers of these video's would actually show the steel guitar being played when heard maybe more folks would know what a steel guitar is.
Case in point, my daughter Crissy Jo brought one of her friends over to the house the other day and I mentioned to her that I had a new guitar. She looked all over the room and still didn't see my bright red ShoBud till Crissy pointed it out to her. Then this young lady exclaimed that she had never seen a guitar that wasn't shaped like a guitar.  I wonder if the producers hide the steel player because they're afraid the audience won't know what it is?
Rick |
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Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:26 am
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| Maybe they hide him because the steel player is not shaped like a guitar player. |
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Rick Garrett
From:
Tyler, Texas
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:29 am
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HAHAHAHAHA!!
Man you guys really crack me up. Good one Earnest.
Rick |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:30 am
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They prefer to shoot someone who's smiling rather than someone sitting down, staring transfixed at their hands. Besides, the cameraman thinks it's a piano and even though he doesn't know where that "sound" is coming from, he at least knows it ain't no freakin' piano!  |
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Dan Sawyer
From:
Studio City, California, USA
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:43 am
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| Jim's got it right. The director (who's calling the camera shots) didn't know the difference between steel guitar and electric guitar. He heard a guitar solo and immediately went to the tele player. This sort of thing drives me crazy. Don't they notice the player's hands? Sometimes it's so bad that they'll show the bass player during a guitar solo, or a trumpet during a sax solo. Sheesh! |
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Walter Stettner
From:
Vienna, Austria
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:50 am
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Even worse, in some cases they don't even show any musician during a steel solo, they rather show the audience or the stars in heaven or do some strange lighting effects...
Kind Regards, Walter
www.lloydgreentribute.com
www.austriansteelguitar.at.tf
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Rick Garrett
From:
Tyler, Texas
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:51 am
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Yeah man it gets me hot under the collar too. Its as if they think the audience is too dumb to know the difference. The tele guys playing rythm and grinning like a possum and the steel man is just rippin it on E9th and nobody but us notices.
I grew listening to steel guitar and knowing what it was and it still blows my mind when a young person asks what it is.
Rick
P.S. You would think a freakin producer would KNOW the difference. |
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Pete Burak
From:
Portland, OR USA
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 11:56 am
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If they could write a country hit that told a heartwarming tale of someone spending alot of time at a sewing machine, then maybe we'd see more steel!
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Ray Minich
From:
Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 12:02 pm
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Funny this question gets asked now. I was thinking about this Monday nite whilst watching a repeat of the "country music history lesson" they're playing on CMT. (Nice video of TB & Buck & the boys too... )I was getting annoyed at hearing steel but not seeing it or seeing the piano player whilst the steel break was in progress.
A video shoot typically involves several to many video cameras. Each camera feeds a monitor at the switcher. The switcher is the control box the director uses to decide which camera is going to master tape at any instant in time. Most directors at the switcher are interested in action and attractive features.
Given that the most time any single camera shot lasts for an MTV video was about 1-1/2 seconds, I think the results we are seeing is the product of nervous and clueless directors. Besides, a steel break may last 8-15 seconds, too long for the rapid-fire mentality we observe in today's videos.
Just my $0.02[This message was edited by Ray Minich on 19 October 2004 at 01:04 PM.] |
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Don Joslin
From:
St. Paul, MN
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 12:05 pm
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It's 'cuz we're all old and ugly 
Don
------------------
 My favorite baseball team is the Minnesota Twins...
-------- ...my second favorite is whoever is playing the Yankees! |
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Herb Steiner
From:
Spicewood TX 78669
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 12:08 pm
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In the music video world, movement is action, and action is life and stillness is death.
Steel players generally 1) don't move, 2) can't play with their back leaning against the lead singer or bass player, 3) can't show off their tight butts in satin stage pants (if they even have a tight butt), 4) don't usually make facial expressions or face the camera, (think GE Smith, one of the world's biggest hams) 5) don't make exaggerated arm movements (GE again), 6) etc. etc. etc.
Generally, we are either too old, too fat, or too boring... or any combination of the above... to get any screentime at all in current music videos. But then again, one will slip through ever' so often. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in awhile.
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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association
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Gene Jones
From:
Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 12:25 pm
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It's an ongoing mystery.....to paraphrase Waylon's song: My Mama always wanted to know why they always showed my hands, but never my face?
www.genejones.com [This message was edited by Gene Jones on 19 October 2004 at 01:28 PM.] |
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Bob Storti
From:
Matthews, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 12:39 pm
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Hey Herb - You know the old saying: "Old and Fat is Where It's At!" (except maybe on TV) I guess we all can't be handsome like Don!
Bob |
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Archie Nicol R.I.P.
From:
Ayrshire, Scotland
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 2:48 pm
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Hey, Don. Less of the old and....?
Sorry, You got it spot on. |
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 2:50 pm
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Back when live television first hit this area, it was not uncommon for the steel guitarist to be playing his heart out, while the cameraman was focused on the fiddle player on the other side of the stage, busily engaged in extracting his boxer shorts from somewhere dark and forboding. If not the fiddle player, the accordianist or whomever that might be engaged in picking his nose, also on the other side of the stage. Believe me, those were the days!
These comments are not intended to reflect poorly on any "local players" that might have been either living or dead at that time.
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 3:21 pm
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| Liberal media bias ! |
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Herb Steiner
From:
Spicewood TX 78669
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Garth Highsmith
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 3:59 pm
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| . [This message was edited by Garth Highsmith on 09 January 2006 at 08:47 PM.] |
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Gene H. Brown
From:
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 6:20 pm
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Back in about 1970 or so, I worked a weekly TV show in Portland, Oregon with Susan Raye for about a year and a half.
The producer came over to my steel on the first day of shooting and hung an advertisement sign on my steel that covered the complete front and I said "why are you covering up the front of my steel"?, he said "We don't want those rods or whatever they are to be on camera" I thought that was pretty funny at the time, but went along with it, had no choice.
Gene |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 19 Oct 2004 9:32 pm
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I know when I saw Lyle Lovett on a TV show lately Mr Reid was RIGHT out there, and musically too, despite a string section.
It was refreshing.
Lyle has a great band.
Also Dierks Bently had Gary Morse stuck right out in front, and he was the only one that didn't have to wear a bent up straw hat.
I remember BC telling me that the "old school" was for the Steel Player not to move noticeably so as not to detract from the atrist.
Some of them hide at home of course..
EJL
EJL |
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Sonny Priddy
From:
Elizabethtown, Kentucky, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 20 Oct 2004 3:03 am
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I Have Had young guy's Ask Me What Is That? I Say Steel guitar They Just Look At Me. The Other day Two Young Guy's Ask What Is That I Tell Them And One said He Though A Elect, Guitar Was A Steel Guitar. Oh. Me. SONNY.
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Tony Prior
From:
Charlotte NC
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Posted 20 Oct 2004 3:51 am
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I don't think it's Liberal Media Bias at all..
but it could be...
Tele' Media Bias !
I recall Buddy stating once that way back when on the Opry shows it used to drive him nuts that during his Steel solo's they would show the Fiddle player on TV !
I guess some things never change..
and Ernest above had it almost right..most Steel plyers are not shaped like Guitar players ! Maybe thats the problem !
[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 20 October 2004 at 04:52 AM.] |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 20 Oct 2004 4:11 am
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I think it's somewhat akin to when they show someone like Kenny Chesney or Montgomery Gentry (though I don't think either one's Montgomery, or Gentry) undulating around with their acoustic guitar during the solos, as though the notes were actually coming out of the star even though their fingers aren't moving. It doesn't MATTER anymore - nothing is REAL anymore.... maybe we need to stop watching TV, still hoping something good is going to happen if we just watch long enough....
(And that "Gentry" guy's unnatural relationship with his mike stand is one for the shrinks for sure) |
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Ray Minich
From:
Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra
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Posted 20 Oct 2004 5:39 am
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| Garth, if they showed a picture-in-picture shot of the steel players hands, knees, and feet, they'd have to sell the clip as an instruction video |
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Theresa Galbraith
From:
Goodlettsville,Tn. USA
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Posted 20 Oct 2004 5:54 am
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| I think it's a conspiracy! |
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