Making a full-time commitment to steel guitar

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I was wondering how many multi-instrumentalists have thought of making a full-time commitment to steel guitar?
I know it's a huge proposition to consider, especially for those making income from playing other instruments.

This is intended for all steel players, pedal and nonpedal.

I've been a gigging guitar player since the 70s, even as a teen, and while I never had big breaks, I did really well for myself.
I can really remember falling hard for steel guitar around 2000. I was lucky enough to have a few people expose me to a lot of different music that I'd never heard before.
Hawaiian, western Swing, Country...I was already familiar with Lindley and Kelly Joe Phelps among a few others.
Blew my mind how much great stuff was played in the past. What happened to cause it to fall off so drastically?

Once I started playing steel and doing a lot gigs with a really great band, I knew it was a possibility that the steel could work for me.
40+ years of guitar playing was now going to take a backseat to an instrument I barely knew how to play.

Things got really difficult when I started playing C6 on electric. That was probably the most vulnerable I have been in my career. I really couldn't grasp it.
After so many years of seeing things on the guitar, I clung to tunings that were more familiar to me: C#min, A, G, E. Learning C6 was going to be a commitment.

That's what I did. I dug in. I shared my process through lessons and videos and things, which I thought could be helpful to some players making the same jump.
I also realized I could earn some money to keep the experiment alive, which is what all my endeavors have been about. The end goal is just to be the best I can.

What I am saying is that it really took a full-time commitment and sacrifice, but in the end it was worth it.
I would like to add this recommendation: start early if you can, but it's never too late.

One of the reasons I am starting this conversation is the realization that the more you invest of yourself in an instrument, the more of you that appears in your playing.
In the earlier stages we tend to emulate other players. Later on, we get our own voices. That is the best part of all. I think I have hit that milestone.
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Steve Lipsey · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

...and you have taken it incredibly far, Mike!

For me, it was learning that "habits can't be broken, but you can remove the option of falling back into them"...so I sold all of my guitars & banjos...all of the fretted instruments...made it easy to decide what to play...I haven't touched the distance you've gone, but the focus definitely has let me go further than I would have...
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Frank James Pracher · From: Michigan, USA

I feel what you are saying here Mike. It's similar to my journey with the lap steel.

For me I really had to commit to the steel, and pretty much drop guitar. Once I did that, I felt like I was able to get to the next level on steel. My right-hand technique, vibrato and blocking all improved.
Forcing myself to learn things I would have normally played on guitar really helped me find a "voice".

For me making that commitment made all the difference.
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David M Brown · From: California, USA

I have a great deal of respect for those of you that have focused only on steel guitar.

The steel will always be one of several instruments I love; it never will be the only one! It won't replace my mandolin, flute, etc..

David DeLoach · From: Tennessee, USA

You are an inspiration Mike!

Currently, I invest about 95% of my practice time on guitar. I play thru an hour of classical tunes in the morning, run thru scales/modes/arpeggios for an hour, then some fingerstyle and/or flatpicking tunes. With what time I have left, I run some lap steel songs and maybe arrange a song on lap steel (I've arranged almost 200 songs in Leavitt tuning so far).

The time available to me for practice has ebbed and flowed over the years. When I can get a few hours in each day, I'm 95% guitar/5% lap steel. But when life only affords me 30 - 60 minutes a day, I tend to be 100% lap steel because lap steel doesn't require hours of daily practice to attain super-shops make great music (at least for the arrangements I play).

When I retire from my day job in the next 1 -5 years, I hope/plan to increase my daily practice time and spend around 25% of my practice time (2 hours/day) on lap steel.

And while I'm hoping I never develop hand issues, I've thought that if I have trouble with my fretting hand, I'll go 100% lap steel, and if I have trouble with my picking hand, I'll go back to fiddle.

I wish there was enough time in the day to be 100% classical guitar, 100% jazz guitar, 100% fingerstyle guitar, 100% flatpicking guitar, 100% mandolin, 100% fiddle, 100% piano, 100% banjo, and 100% lap steel. Smile

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Bill McCloskey · From: Nanuet, NY

I can't play standard guitar anymore, and I've played since I was 16. My calluses are long gone. For me, focus is key. The last year, my focus has been 100% on learning pedal steel, but recently I've fallen in love with lap steel all over. But I've changed from only playing the Alkire tuning, to now playing E13 with a tuning that mimics my E9 pedal steel neck on 12 string lapsteel.

Right now my focus is to learn a jazz standard on the lap steel, then learn the same tune on the E9th neck and then the C6 pedal neck. So far it is keeping me off the streets and out of trouble.
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Joe Cook · From: Lake Osoyoos, WA

I haven't played my teles for a couple of years. I decided at that time that I'd had enough of playing in bands in bars. I wanted to make music that I enjoyed. I even sold my pedal steel recently, which is what I started on 15 years ago. I'm retired now and have a lot more time to devote to lap steel. I just can't get enough! It is endlessly challenging and extremely satisfying for me, more so than the pedal steel, which I really love. Great inspiration here, Mike.

BJ Burbach · From: New York, USA

Mike, I'll toss the other side of the coin. I was a flat picker and played E9 pedal steel for a few years, brushed up my theory and got some good sounds, but it was clear that mastering it would be just what you said and I didn't have the drive to make a living out of it. I sold it and took up finger style, always doing some bottleneck and dobro. That was fifty years ago and I kept my day job. Now, my hands are destroyed from crazy sports and I can't play much of anything, so I broke out my Dave Tronzo CDs wanting to play some Mingus (but my wife says I sound more like Albert Ayler which actually is OK by me).
Anyway, I discovered Andy, wandered over here to hear some more and found a gold mine of really great people like you who are not only inspiring players, but really take the effort to help players at all levels and to be a real community. I never once saw anyone dismiss or taunt a yahoo like me. You guys could teach the world a lot. I am just so grateful and wish you all a Happy New Year.
(picked up an eight string, too)

BJ

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Dean Gray · From: New South Wales, Australia

Great question Mike. I am doing more gigs on steel than ever before but still derive most of my income from mandolin and guitar, both teaching and performing. I am feeling more inspired by the steel than the other instruments, but can’t drop them, nor do I really want to. But I find any spare time I have goes into technique drills on the steel.

I really appreciate your advice re “It’s never too late”. I became a professional musician in my early 40’s, after many years in a different career. I’m not the great player I hope to be but I practice and teach every day, and perform often in various settings. I never would have believed this was possible not so long ago.

Your progress with C6 has been inspiring. Thanks for sharing what you’ve learned along the way.
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David M Brown · From: California, USA

[quote="Mike Neer"]

Terry VunCannon · From: Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Life helped me on the path. I too was a guitar player since the 70s, & played in bands as a guitarist for decades. Fell in love with the sound of a lap in '77ish from hearing David Lindley with Jackson Browne. I did not really decide to learn till around 2000. Got more and more into it, even playing a few songs with bands. Then an auto accident over a decade ago left me with back pain that made it hard to stand on stage with a guitar. I decided to quit playing guitar & play lap steel only. It has led to one of the most creative periods in my life. Thank you Mr. Dave...

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Mike, you've taken the C6th lap steel to a higher plain than anyone since Jerry Byrd, IMHO. You have been fearless in going down any road that popped up in your imagination. 'if some were blind alleys, so be it - that's the artistic process. Overall, your musical quality batting average is highly impressive.

The steel became my primary instrument in a gradual, not preconceived way. The sound of Mike Auldrige's Dobro caught my 17 year-old ear before I even touched a guitar. Soon after, I took up guitar and then mandolin and later, ukulele. I'm not sure how steel guitar came to dominate but it was a gradual thing until suddenly, I was a steel guitarist with a side career writing steel guitar books and arrangements. I still play guitar but it's a frustrating experience because 14 years ago, my son accidentally closed the car hatch on my left hand, breaking and dislocating my pinky. It never healed correctly so I can no longer totally execute what I know and hear on the instrument. This Summer, I bought a mandolin after not touching one for 40 years. It's fun to re-visit the other fretted instruments but the steel guitar is where my soul lies. If my playing skills have diminished a bit from a multi-year commitment to arranging and composing, I'm okay with it as I seem to have found my niche. I still believe the lap steel is wide open for creativity and new sounds - even more so than standard guitar.
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

Steel guitar is a great instrument for healing. Personally, I took up steel guitar more seriously after the trauma of witnessing 9/11 and it really took my mind away from it. I still had to wrestle with the steel guitar, so that was a very welcome diversion.

I have had many students come to me after sustaining injuries that left them unable to play guitar any longer. If you are willing to suffer through the slow progress of learning steel guitar, good results will come all of a sudden in big chunks. The toughest part is getting over the hump.
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Mark Evans · From: Colorado, USA

The only paid work I ever did was a few years of singer/songwriting I did back in the late 70’s/early 80’s (with my trusty ‘34 Martin 0-17).

I watched arthritis take my dad’s ability to play jazz rhythm in an old man’s swing band… and began to consider how that gene might affect me. In the late 2000’s I endeavored into playing Weissenborn (dabbled with a Supro lap but just preferred the hollowneck). So lap will hopefully be my ‘play til the end of time’ music maker. Consequently I passed my Larrivee OM down to my son-in-law and now only have 4 weissenborns (and a uke) in my stable. Probably play 2+ hours a day.

My style is anything but traditional. Recently I hooked up with a fella that programs middle eastern/afro etc beats on an iPad, plays lead on an electro-uke and we ramble on long trancey jams. A blast! Ah, but I do have another player with which I play songs. And my new girlfriend lived on Ka’wai for 40 years, does a little hula… so I may have to learn a Hawaiian song.

And life is good!
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Nic Neufeld · From: Kansas City, Missouri

You've dug way in to the instrument Mike and I love it!

As a multi-instrumentalist, just thinking how to literally answer the question. I'm a bass player with a church orchestra...while technically, as you've shown, you can do some cool bass playing on a lapsteel (C13 JAS with that low C is nice), the electric bass is just a better tool objectively for that role, in my opinion (at least in my hands).

But that's an instrument less as an output of my own creativity (don't get me wrong I love playing bass)...the instruments that are my desert island instruments would probably be Hawaiian lap steel and sitar...instruments I play for -me-, mostly. And while I've tried to kind of bridge the gap with a mohan veena, there's something about pulling meend across the frets, the zing of sympathetics, the galloping pace of a jhalla...I still love the sitar too much to be a mono-instrumentalist! (granting that that means I'll never approach world-class on the lap steel)

My regular guitars are relatively neglected these days though. I should see if I still know how to play! Laughing

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Lloyd Graves · From: New York, USA

I can't imagine giving up the few other instruments I play.

I primarily play Old Time music on the 5 string, clawhammer banjo, and I do this to play with other people. The musicians in that scene are my community - local and distant. Banjo was my first real instrument and everything I learn on other instruments informs my playing on the banjo. Banjo is the instrument that will go with me to the nursing home, if that is my fate.

But I also dabble in playing the tenor banjo/guitar. That has helped me step into the swing music world, a bit. Chopping chords on the tenor has helped build my understanding of song structure, chord patterns and rhythm. I can sing while playing these instruments, which I can't with the steel. I do often realize that, by selling my Gibson archtop tenor and my no name tenor banjo, as well as my seldom-used 6-string, I would have close-to enough to buy a Clinesmith frying pan. Or a Rick D6 console (I forget what they are really called). But I also play the tenor guitar to accompany my wife's folky urges.

And honestly, I don't actually put much time into practicing and if that stuff. Probably 90% of my practice time is spent on the steel guitar now, though I'm reality that doesn't amount to much more than a couple of hours spread over each week. I do jam for a few hours with friends in the banjo every week or two, but that's also because the Old Time community is vast in Ithaca, whereas the Hawaiian steel scene is pretty much just me, as far as I know.

Do any of you know of another person that plays hapa haole swing tunes on the Hawaiian steel guitar in central New York State?

Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

Lloyds post kind of mirrors my experience.
the steel guitar has been a love of mine since I first heard it, but for me music is a social connection as much as a personal challenge and there were little opportunities to play steel guitar…sure there were people who wanted to hear ‘slide steel’ - but not my thing - I loved that golden era true steel guitar vibe…so I mainly just played for my own enjoyment.

Living in NC which is rich in Old Time string band music, with festivals nearly every weekend during the summer made me realize I was smacking my head against a brick wall in a way - not that I ever made any money from that either lol. So I’ve been scratching that gig/jam itch playing ‘serious’ old time fiddle..plus that’s my heritage in a sense.

After about a 8+ year layoff I’m happily back with a frypan on my lap - and here is the amazing part after not touching a steel for 8 years…an experiment to see how fast things come back to me after years of serious C6 study, digging all my stuff from the attic- even I’m shocked that after just a week those skills can be recalled. I don’t seem to have the ‘fight the limitations of the tuning’ syndrome at this phase of life - just play the song…well.

To Mikes original point, yes I believe the steel by nature requires complete dedication, and if I remember JB once implied it wasn’t an instrument to take up as a passing noodling exercise for guitarists, that a serious study was essential.

As I came back to the SGF I always checked the gone home section and saw where Russ Hicks had passed and I remember being at the Dallas show one year and there was a legendary late night jam where I just sat on Russ’ amp and watched him play for hours until I realized my early am plane flight was in 2 hours…that was the result of lifetime commitment to the steel, the most amazing experience to witness that level of mastery
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Peter Hughes · From: New South Wales, Australia

Gary Meixner · From: New York, USA

Mike,

The subject of your query has been on my mind a lot lately having recently retired with full days ahead of me to do with as I wish.

I too have been a musician my whole life. I have worked professionally as a solo artist, and with a number of successful, odd ball rock groups and folk outfits. I noodled with the steel guitar off and on for years but began playing with a focused effort about 15 years ago: C6, C13, or C6/A7 being my main tunings.

I find the steel guitar to be a demanding instrument requiring a steadfast dedication to technique. Despite being an experienced musician, and knowing how to practice, it is clear in order to reach my goals I will need to give the steel guitar my full commitment. I won't forsake my others interests completely but the steel will be my obsession for the foreseeable future. Even with many assets already in the bank there is no way around the hours of practice and study.

For me now, progress is slow and at times imperceptible; despite the successes I enjoyed early in life I feel I am now the best musician I have ever been. This encourages me to keep working and I am so happy to finally have the time.

Your contributions here are always so insightful and greatly appreciated. Everyone in the steel guitar community has benefitted from your generosity and been inspired by your efforts.

Gary Meixner

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