Learning PSG is harder today than 30 years ago.

Bo Legg · Posted 21 Oct 2014 10:03 am

Despite the consumer revolution in personal technology allowing for comparatively vast arrays of more options in learning PSG, it has become harder in that the practice time needed to achieve expectations has gone past time you can give.

Simply stated. With every thing a click away on the net the expectation in achievement has placed the bar for even an average goal barely in reach of advancement in skill and volume of being par to todays standards of a great player.

I know this from experience.
It's like a football game in which they keep moving the goalpost farther away.

30 years ago when I first started learning PSG I could get by with iust pumping the A & B pedals but couldn't score a touchdown like a few players but I could at least kick a field goal (playing PSG in bars) the first year.

So I set my goal, practiced some months that turn into years only to discover they've moved the goal post past the range of my kicking ability much less even thinking of scoring a touchdown.

It's all Relative I guess but a vicious cycle at best!!

Steven Finley · From: California, USA

Bo,
I tend to agree with your assessment. Some of us are
still getting bashed out on the playing field while others give it up and end up commentators.
If the Forum is any indication, my guess is that the commentators are outnumbering the players.

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

I guess many expect too much, too soon. Some have the impression "How hard can it be? I've played guitar for years, so all I'm doing is adding pedals and levers?" Of course, reality soon sets in, along the realization that it's damn hard to sound remotely like Lloyd Green or some other pro that's been doing it for decades. Your analogy about moving the goal-posts is funny, but pretty normal, as you quickly find that the more you learn, the more you discover that you don't really know. Oh Well

Roual Ranes · From: Atlanta, Texas, USA

"the more you learn, the more you realize that you dont know" hits the nail on the head.

Ken Campbell · From: Ferndale, Montana

Morihei Ueshiba, creator of Aikido's last words were "so much to learn"

Steve English · From: Baja, Arizona

Learning to play the pedal steel is infinitely easier today than ever before.

Becoming proficient is just as difficult as it's always been. Razz

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Larry Behm · From: Mt Angel, Or 97362

KISS always works, 1960 or 2014.
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Barry Blackwood · Posted 24 Oct 2014 8:38 am

Bo Legg · Posted 24 Oct 2014 10:15 am

I know sometimes I just read the topic title.
But if you read my opening reply I defined my topic.
My point was, now days the level of ability has to match the expectation of the band.
That expectation has raised the bar so high it has became relatively harder to meet those expectations.
Sure you have it a lot easier to research today but that has now become part of the expectation. Because it is available you are expected to play close to note for note over a variety of genre and be able to play in a style of this player or that player even in a kitchen band.
You just have to work a lot harder and a lot longer now days!

Barry Blackwood · Posted 24 Oct 2014 10:49 am

Steve English · From: Baja, Arizona

I still disagree with almost everything you stated.

I don't recall in any of the countless threads asking the question "do you play it just like the record" people responding that they do.

Typically we have answered that the signature licks are honored, and everything else is personalized. So, I don't know where you got the info to base your generalizations on.

I don't believe there is any status quo on the expectations of the band either. That's also been supported many times over by all levels of players in all genres of steel guitar music on this forum over the years. The most recent being this one: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=273261. And here's another: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=273635

Just can't think of any evidence that supports any of your statements here.

If it's just "the smarter you get, the dumber you are" conclusion.......well, duh?!?
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Bo Legg · Posted 26 Oct 2014 11:15 am

Pads are pads and I never consider them part of the loosely used phrase "almost note for note"

Folks canâ€™t say Iâ€™m stating the obvious and then claim to disagree with me.

Barry pretty well stated in three sentences more clearly than I did in all my rambling paragraphs.
Quote: â€œThat has always been the caseâ€ and â€œThese are just consequences of the society we live in. Deal with it.â€ Unquote.

The signature licks get harder and vastly more of them as the years go by. So goes the expectations as well.

Yes Iâ€™m stating the obvious here and complaining about having to deal with it.

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

The days when one could seriously hone one's chops at work, four or five hours a night and six or seven nights a week, are not likely to ever return. It's much harder to really develop on any instrument when confined to the practice room, where one's own discipline and motivation must take the place of a working schedule and a real-time set list.

On the other hand there is much more good instruction and general information available to aspirants and novices today, and I can only imagine how much faster I might have developed had the Steel Guitar Forum been available to me forty years ago.

Combine these circumstances with the emergence and de facto standardization of contemporary 3+4 and 3+5 E9 10-string copedants, the instrument now has the musical capability to have a useful place in many genres previously out of bounds, so that one may learn to play the pedal steel guitar today without ever playing "country" music at all. Think about it...

Bill C. Buntin · Posted 27 Oct 2014 2:12 am

Maybe there are just too many options. Too many resources. As stated above, most any answer is but a few mouse clicks away.

As far as honing skill by working 4 to 6 nights per week? It can still be done, but you have to really hustle to do so.

I don't know that I agree with the statement that the licks and sounds being produced are more difficult to follow. To me, they are just different. My point here is that many of us very likely are of the age where we were expected to copy a lot of commercial "Pete Drake" work (particularly playing the Top country hits from 30 to 40 years ago).

Nowadays, commercial country has changed so that, even if you find a band who wants to employ a steel guitarist, you very likely will sit silent, or double on guitar or whatever your other instruments might be. But when you must respond as the steel guitarist, your response has to be more "concentrated".

Boiled down to gravy - for me - playing music live is just not a good creative outlet any longer.

20 years ago, I wanted to copy Curly Chalker. IT is difficult. Today, it is still difficult.

Ollin Landers · From: Willow Springs, NC

Joachim Kettner · From: Germany

I'm just an average player, but it's not so bad on mid- tempo songs but I really suck on fast ones. So I have to say that the learning material available in the mid eighties were enough to get me started. If I had to start today I could not do it, I would not have the patience and motivation.
There was something in the air, or better in my feelings, that made me learn it. Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle and Vince Gill who just started releasing records had a lot to do with it.
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David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

What sorts of steel playing jobs are going unfilled because there aren't enough proficient steel players to fill them? These expectations for the talent level of newcomers -
A) who is it doing all this expecting? -
B) and how much are they paying? Laughing

I was under the impression that the majority of "new steel" playing is in the Americana/alternative field, and many of the people playing there are working with internally-generated expectations for steel as a kind of color instrument and have no intent or desire to be "proficient" in terms of duplicating every Paul Franklin lick. They are first and foremost band members, and secondly, musicians who are adding steel to their toolbox.

Now surely, there will be some certain percentage of dabblers who will experience the "setting of the hook" but I don't think it's at all necessary for them to be emulating another steel guitarist at all - they just want to play music on such a monstrously-groovy tool, not "play steel guitar" with the hope it turns into music. And their idea of "chops" may seem quite alien to someone who's come up the other way.

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

Dave Grafe put it well when he wrote:

"The days when one could seriously hone one's chops at work, four or five hours a night and six or seven nights a week, are not likely to ever return. It's much harder to really develop on any instrument when confined to the practice room, where one's own discipline and motivation must take the place of a working schedule and a real-time set list."

I definitely don't consider myself to be all that good a player but I do remember honing chops on gigs when playing 5-6 nights a week.

So, I think in one way it's harder to learn because those days aren't coming back. Ever. On the other hand, the instructional material that's available now is incredible which makes learning easier and better.

Barry Blackwood · Posted 28 Oct 2014 9:13 am

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

The instrument hasn't changed much, it's just that in days of yore people didn't have all that media information available and didn't hear steel guitars so much, so the competition was thinner. Nowadays you can hear and see the best by just clicking on the internet.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02lz4-gQCTQ

Money shot at 2:15, Bjorn Charles Dreyer

This may strike some as tragedy, heresy or a sure sign of the End Times, but: there are thousands of steel guitarists who don't want to be Buddy Emmons, and they don't want to play the music he played. And the proportion of infidels rises higher and higher as their age decreases, becoming a vast majority of the players under 35 years old. They may listen to the "Black Album" or "Live" and admire the chops, they may even pick and choose some licks to learn, but to a 25-year-old, Emmons and Chalker and Jernigan and Franklin are not deities that govern expectations - the "best" - they're merely steppingstones. And they're not reading this - they're practicing. Laughing

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

For anybody who is serious about learning, I think it is easier to learn now than ever. There are exponentially more resources, pedal steels are significantly more available and less expensive (in constant dollar terms). It is no longer a small, closed society.

Yes, the bar is higher for the 'typical' player. There are a lot more players, and more opportunity for someone serious about learning to really woodshed and get it together. OK, it implies one needs to focus on practicing. Yes, there are more distractions in the culture now. Yes, as we get older, we tend to have more issues and most older people find it harder to get that focus time. Yes, if you're old and only like traditional country, it's tough to find steady gigs. But if you're younger, in school or college, or out there single working a day-job, or a musician who plays at night and has time during the day (yes, there are younger musicians out there who live, eat, and breathe music still), and are willing to play what most people want to hear, there are few limits. It's all a matter of what you are willing to sacrifice for a particular goal - in this case, becoming good on the PSG. But it's the same for any goal.

So I think this depends entirely on the perspective of the learner.

Also - the bar may be higher for the 'average' player - there probably are more good players out there than 30-40 years ago. But is someone gonna really tell me that the great active players 30-40 years ago didn't set a similarly high bar as the great active players today? I dunno, man. There has been evolution in playing, no doubt. But do you really think that Emmons, Chalker, Anderson, and many others didn't set a frighteningly high bar for the typical player? And there were nowhere near the resources back then to figure things out, as there are now.

It's always been tough to be a great anything, and probably always will be.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

Like every instrument, you get out of it what you put into it. Some steel guitarists never play any other instrument, and by concentrating on one tuning, one instrument, they can become a lot better on that particular instrument.
Others of us play many different instruments, of which the steel guitar is only one. We like diversity, but the trade-off is that we never become experts at any one instrument. As the old saying goes, "Jack of all trades; master of none." But some of us like it like that.
I like to be able to record an entire band of myself in many different styles, so all I have to be is proficient in each instrument, not a virtuoso. Also, there are many who just play at home for their own amusement. They'll never be up there on stage performing at the Hollywood Bowl or at the Grand Old Opry, so, as long as they enjoy themselves, they're satisfied. Winking

(Except for that guy the other side of the partition wall with the electric organ and rhythm generator, and the youth at the end of the garden practising on his drum set till the wee hours of the morning.) Crying or Very sad

Ryan Dalton · From: Toms River, NJ, USA

Dave Potter · From: Texas

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