The curious case of the vanishing steel parts

Chris Tweed · From: Cardiff, Wales, UK

I have encountered a really frustrating problem with recording steel parts. I have just been sent an MP3 demo of a song as preparation for recording pedal steel on a final version. Iâ€™ve listened to the song a few times now to get familiar with it. In fact, Iâ€™ve listened to it so much itâ€™s playing in my head half the time. And therein lies the problem.

When I hear the song in my head away from the steel, I can think of some pretty good fills and lines to play, but as soon as I sit down at the steel, they vanish. Either I canâ€™t remember them or as soon as I try to work them out I forget them. Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have a remedy?

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

This is a good thing....you are building parts from your imagination rather than licks and randomness.

How did Mozart and all the great composers do it...producing the scores for every instrument in an orchestral work...?

They transcribed the music in their head straight onto paper.

Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

As they come to you, don't just hear them, SING THEM. Preferably aloud. Preferably repeatedly.
The more of the brain that gets in on the act, the more firmly persistent the memory.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects

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

I think most would agree that thinking about something is a lot easier than doing it! When you're not playing, you're listening to the music and just thinking about what you might play. But when it comes time to actually play, your brain gets tied up with all of the physical stuff you've got to do. So, you're concentrating not only on the music, but also on what you're doing, along with how whatever you're doing sounds. It's a lot more complicated.

This is all part of the normal learning process, and it will get easier (with repetition) as you progress. In the meantime, start simple. First, just play the chords behind the melody. Do this until you don't have to think about where you're going next, you just automatically go there. Next, add a few fill-in notes that are on the same fret as the chords. Then, add some simple A&B pedal moves at those same frets. After all this is ingrained, then you can try adding those fills.

Remember that smooth and flowing playing comes only when you're not thinking about every single thing that's going on. Cool

Rick Barnhart · From: Arizona, USA

Stephen Cowell · From: Round Rock, Texas, USA

Famous quote from (I think) Johnny Gimble... if you can hum it, you can play it.
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Craig Baker · From: Eatonton, Georgia, USA - R.I.P.

Chris,
Rick has the solution. Buddy Charleton told me he would hum and sing a tune he had in his head over and over, until he could get to a cassette recorder. Then he would capture the tune so he wouldn't forget it.

Craig Baker 706-485-8792

cmbakerelectronics@gmail.com

C.M. Baker Electronics
P.O. Box 3965
Eatonton, GA 31024
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Chris Templeton · From: The Green Mountain State

Yes Craig. Especially these days, with small, cheap digital recording devices easily available.
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Excel 3/4 Pedal With An 8 String Hawaiian Neck, Tapper (10 string with a raised fretboard to fret with fingers), Single neck Fessenden 3/5
"The Tapper" : https://christophertempleton.bandcamp.com/album/the-tapper
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Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

And, since most of us have smartphones, there's a recorder in our pockets.
If you can't find, can't figure out, or don't have a sound capturing app, you can certainly shoot a video, and it doesn't matter what the pictures is, the sound is the main thing.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

When 'we' want to copy some famous lick by some famous steel guitarist.......we first have to remember the song and then sit down so we can then learn to play that memorized lick in the proper place.

In the studio, you not only have to recall the phrase you just memorized but now, you have to produce that 'item' you just set to memory.

I think one is merely compounding their problems by doing this. JERRY BYRD told me, they merely skimmed thro' each new song just once, in order to get an idea what's coming down the pike. They then set about recording the song...just one take.

They felt it was much more 'live' and 'natural' to do it that way rather than sounding like a memorized number.

I believe one should let each song dictate the possibilities for fills and solo's. You can eliminate a lot of problems by NOT attempting to play somebody else's "personal" thoughts and emotions.

Chris Tweed · From: Cardiff, Wales, UK

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried the â€œsinging itâ€ method this morning and it worked! I have used this method before as well as recording it, but I always had trouble specifically with steel parts which I could hear harmonised in my head, but couldn't vocalise. I may have to live with that.

The main issue, as several have suggested, is increasing fluidity so that translating between imagination and steel becomes second nature. Requires a lot more seat time I suspect.

Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

Sometimes.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects

Bud Angelotti · From: Larryville, NJ, USA

Teach Your Children.
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Just 'cause I look stupid, don't mean I'm not.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Improvised or imagined parts?

On any given song or day it may be a tossup. Over a career... using tbe imagination is more developmental.

Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

I'll listen to the demo several times. If a part suggests itself, I'll try to learn it before it disappears.
Usually, that DOESN'T happen to me, and I'll improvise a different line each time that place goes by. If engineer/producer/artist lights up over one, I'll try to learn what I just played and play it again.
The session cats amaze me by improvising stuff that doesn't sound cookie cutter, and do it hour after hour.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

John Booth · From: Columbus Ohio, USA

I have a recording app on my cell phone.
They don't get away from me too often
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Jb in Ohio
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Chris Templeton · From: The Green Mountain State

Buddy E. would sometimes say with a smile, "there's another crease in the cerebellum". I believe that area in the brain changes by practicing, Not only by physical practice, but also by mental practice.
Here is an article about that http://www.bettermovement.org/2010/moving-better-by-just-thinking-about-it/.
_________________
Excel 3/4 Pedal With An 8 String Hawaiian Neck, Tapper (10 string with a raised fretboard to fret with fingers), Single neck Fessenden 3/5
"The Tapper" : https://christophertempleton.bandcamp.com/album/the-tapper
Soundcloud Playlist: https://soundcloud.com/bluespruce8:

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I've always believed in mental practice, so that when you're at the instrument you can turn your attention to the physical.

I mean any instrument, but the pedal steel is so very mental (nothing much to see - ask the audience) that it's an ideal candidate.
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Daniel Policarpo · Posted 9 Apr 2015 10:27 am

From the classical era up through the Renaissance, they used to really work at "the art of memory" according to mnemonic principles and techniques. Students were expected to memorize or recall the information from lectures, in part because paper and books were expensive to produce, but there was a greater point to it,also. Benefits were provided through organizing memory impressions and improvement of recall, but the art of memory was also felt to promote the development and generation of ideas and creativity. Advanced students could build a large set of rooms or vast library, a museum in their mind and fill it up with information like we fill our homes with so much junk from wal-mart. Ideally, the practitioner could retrieve the most esoteric of information learned years prior as easily as opening a drawer and picking out a screwdriver.

This practice could be traced to Aristotle teaching that we don't comprehend ideas and concepts without associated mental images to mark their impression. If you do that, it's all right there. Frances Yates wrote a pretty interesting book on these methods and their development called... "The Art of Memory".

I use a little Olympus digital recorder. Mr. Green

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Interesting history Daniel

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Good article, Chris T.

The book The User Illusion by Tor Nortranders explores the 'thermodynamics of thinking,'
the nuts and bolts about what makes this brain stuff like plasticity work.
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Those that say don't know; those that know don't say.--Buddy Emmons

Chris Tweed · From: Cardiff, Wales, UK

This may be what I need to follow to build up the creases in the cerebellum:

http://arbanmethod.com/wyntons-twelve-ways-to-practice/

I will never be a Mozart (or even a Beethoven, who never got to hear his final compositions because of his deafness), with the ability to transcribe directly from thought process to page. However, it seems that the more deeply internalised the connections between imagination, body, steel and sounds the smoother the journey from imagined melodies to actual sounds should become.

Unless â€¦
"imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the imagination of the imaginer" from Watermelon In Easter Hay by Frank Zappa.

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