Shades Of Prioritization

[Bo Legg]

Why don't you just paint the frets onto the strings (after you get in tune of course) and that way you could also tell when a string is out of tune because the painted fret won't line up. As another genius ounce said“if at first the idea is not absurd then it has no hope.

[Brian Kurlychek]

Why don't you just paint the frets onto the strings (after you get in tune of course) and that way you could also tell when a string is out of tune because the painted fret won't line up. As another genius ounce said“if at first the idea is not absurd then it has no hope.

[Tommy Young]

I LIKE THE BEER TAB HOLDER ON THE END OF HIS GUITAR WITH THE PURDY KNOB ON IT, GREAT THOUGHT BEHIND THAT, NO SACKS AT THE END OF HIS GUITAR TO THOW AT AND MISS, WHERE IS HE GONE PUT THE CANS NOW

[Danny Bates]

Bill, Regarding prioritism...

I propose a practical, realistic, down-to-earth approach that requires only that I expose injustice and puncture musical prejudice. Almost without exception, the sun has never shone on a more piteous and repressive thing than prioritization. More than that, wowserism has served as the justification for the butchering, torture, and enslavement of more steel guitarists than any other "ism". That's why it's prioritization's favorite; it makes it easy for it to attack the critical realism and impassive objectivity that are the central epistemological foundations of the picker's worldview.

My purpose is to lead us all toward a better, brighter future. Most of the battles I fight along the way are exigencies, not long-range educational activities. Nevertheless, this forum may not be the place to develop that subject. It demands many pages of analysis, which I can't spare in this letter. Instead, I'll just state the key point, which is that if you think you can escape from prioritization's disorderly, patronizing smears, then good-bye and good luck. To the rest of you I suggest that I plan to encourage individuals to come out of their cocoons and flourish. Are you with Bill and I or against us? Whatever you decide, I once told prioritization that the idea of basing our entire society on sordid sensationalism is so far from reality, it's laughable. How did it respond to that? It proceeded to curse me off using a number of colorful expletives not befitting this post, which serves only to show that prioritization is not just conscienceless. It is unbelievably, astronomically conscienceless.

I know more about collectivism than most people. You might even say that I'm an expert on the subject. I can therefore state with confidence that prioritization behavior obsesses not with what it can do for this forum but with what it can extract from it. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the truth is very simple: Prioritization's plan is to humiliate, subjugate, and eventually eliminate everyone who wants to act honorably. Prioritization's vassals are moving at a frightening pace toward the total implementation of that agenda, which includes forcing me to shove my Emmons under my bed and quit pickin..

I have reached the conclusion that Bill must guide the world into an age of peace, justice, and solidarity. If we don't follow Bill, future steel players will not know musical freedom. Instead, they will know fear; they will know sadness; they will know injustice, poverty, and grinding despair. Most of all, they will realize, albeit far too late, that country western people used to think I was exaggerating whenever I said that prioritization's co-conspirators are the carrion birds of humanity. After seeing prioritization vandalize our night-clubs these same people now realize that I wasn't exaggerating at all. In fact, they even realize that prioritization is capable of only two things, namely whining and underhanded tricks.

Liberties are being killed by attrition. Stoicism is being installed by accretion. The only way that we can reverse these mephitic trends is to address the legitimate anger, fear, and alienation of pickers who have been mobilized by prioritization because they saw no other options for change. By the same token, prioritization abhors the current era, in which people are free to inculcate in the reader an inquisitive spirit and a skepticism about beliefs that prioritization's toadies take for granted.

Bill, I maintain, there's a time to bring prioritization to justice. Or, to put it less poetically, prioritization's most progressive idea is to inaugurate an era of wanton, loquacious absolutism. When I say that prioritization clings to revanchism like a drowning man clings to a life preserver. I'll admit that I have a sharp tongue and sometimes write with a bit of a poison pen but it is capable of passing very rapidly from a hidden enjoyment of covinous vandalism to a proclaimed attachment to conformism and back—and back again—it'd just pull its security blanket a little tighter around itself and refuse to come out and deal with the real world. I can fight only for something that I love, love only what I respect, and respect only what I at least know. An obvious parallel from a slightly different context is that it must have recently made a huge withdrawal from the First National Bank of Lies. Prioritization doesn't have any principles, or if it does, it puts them aside whenever they're inconvenient.

I'll give you an example of this, based on my own experience. Although prioritization's overt antagonism has declined, a covert form still survives and may be an important factor in fueling a tendency and/or desire to withhold information and disseminate half truths and whole lies. If I, not being one of the many neurotic stool pigeons of this world, am doomed to wander around in a quagmire of self-pity and depression then prioritization will obviously contaminate or cut off our cities' live music supply in a matter of days. Prioritization's a predator who preys on the musicians, the steel pickers, and the vulnerable country fans. It seeks their assets to support its own lavish existence. Keep that in mind while I state the following: You don't have to say anything specifically about prioritization for it to start attacking you. All you have to do is dare to imply that we should build an inclusive, nondiscriminatory movement for social and political change. Okay Bill, I've vented enough frustration. So let me end by saying that prioritization should leave us steel pickers alone.

[Stephen Silver]

Bob, please move this to where it belongs, the humor section. Bates has me busting a gut!!!!!

SS

[Mike Perlowin RIP]

Mike, here's a picture that Bill H. posted a couple of years ago showing his HUF (Hankey Upright Fretboard).

Doug, I remember seeing that picture at the time and thinking that it might be interesting to try it out. I don't know if it will work or not. Maybe it's a really brilliant innovation, maybe it's a bust. I'd like to try it and see for myself.

I was skeptical about wrist levers until I tried one. But once I did I liked it. Now So Cal steel guitar legend Blackie Taylor has one on his guitar. He saw mine and also liked it so much he added one to his rig.

You never know what's going to be a really cool new innovation till you try it out.

[Connie Mack]

damn prioritism!!!!

man, i never realized it was such a scourge.


maybe it;s also partially responsible for global warming.




i'm calling my congress critter right now!

[Bill Hankey]

Mike,

Through an act of kindness, Doug B. has simplified showing the concept of the "HUF" (Hankey Upright Fretboard). Originally, the fretboard was an extra board that was a gift from a friend. The framing of the steel was cut to Sho-Bud single 10 specs, and that made the temporary Sho-Bud fretboard desirable. I had cut through the plastic to rid the excessive width. The actual width has been reduced considerably since the photo was taken nearly 10 years ago. It has become quite obvious that the concept is very useful by increasing the visual advantages, and overall pleasure derived while playing the instrument. I submit that the ultimate fretboard would be introduced as a laminate of attractive wood or other material to be placed in the place of the raised fretboard. It would extend to the front edge of the instrument. The fret markers would be featured as a raised "BROW", just beyond the first string. The skilled hands of a woodworking professional would simplify the project. The final application would allow for selecting from a series of markers that denote positioning of the "bar". Mike, it would involve just minutes of your time to experiment the concept. Start by obscuring the frets on your steel with a sheet of paper or similar material. This action would be followed by placing a thin strip of a material of choice along the edge of the first string, slightly tilted away from you. You MUST include accurate spacings of markers, and always know precisely the exact location of the 12th fret position. There can be no guess work in the process of ascertaining through the use of harmonics. Simply use any means to know its proper position. Mike, your brilliant mastery of the steel guitar has been thoroughly acknowledged. Sadly, I must accept the cruel terms of talent. We must learn to accept that which cannot be changed. On the other hand, concepts usually are somewhat versatile. I feel that the "HUF" is an escape from a dreary outmoded system of visual anguish.

[Mike Perlowin RIP]

Bill, I won't have time to experiment for a few weeks, but I'm going to give it a try and will let you know what I think, yea or nea.

[Bill Hankey]

Danny B.,

I've already lowered the bar several times to make undefined allowances thusfar in these exchanges from coast to coast. Your discourses are mingled with the grandiloquent responses of those who labor trying to write simple messages. Your absolute prowess as a writer, opens new challenges, and now any attempt to confer with your diversified statements will require raising the bar to a higher level to conform with your sagacious approaches to "standard" English. Your writing style eclipses my original prioritization intent. The "bar" has been placed at its highest level. Go for it!

[Drew Howard]

Nice test bed guitar, Bill!

[Bill Hankey]

Drew,

Thanks! Everytime my steel "hears" an electric drill, it shudders.

[Bo Legg]

The topic was "Shades Of Prioritization".
Never fails, always somebody has to start talking about Steel Guitars.

[Connie Mack]

hey bill,
all kidding aside, i think your idea is very good. i have been trying to play "blind" more and more lately. it seems we steel players really don't need such a big ol' fret board. i wondered if there are any fully blind steel players. in my own musical experience, looking at what you are playing actually inhibits the mind just a bit. if there could be less there on the fretboard to distract, i think one could benefit more. i was even thinking along the lines of "feeler" markers as frets instead of visual markers. either way, imagine how much prettier a steel might look with all that extra space to show off a complex burl or grain pattern, or whathaveyou....

of course it's not going to go over with everyone. old habits die hard. keep at it though.

[Scott Shipley]

<bump>

[Gary Lee Gimble]

<bump>

GLG wrote....

you are kidding, right?

[Bill Hankey]

Connie Mack,

I've tried playing blindfolded. There are two prerequisites involved in succeeding at doing this. (1)Your guitar must have the necessary changes, and 2, you must not be tone deaf, or be a victim of weak pitch memory. Even if a player is slightly off the mark due to pitch memory, remaining close to the "tree" will allow any player to perform this feat. There are dozens of songs that can be played note for note without moving the bar. No matter, blindness should not be a deterrent to playing pedal steel guitars. I have a great arrangement of "Slowly", that I play blindfolded.

[Bill Hankey]

Scott S.,

Do me a favor by placing those 6 strings back in their case. b0b has reminded others that this a steel guitar forum. May your brevities rest upon those thoughts..

[b0b]

Hey Bill, at least it's not a b@#!0.

[Bill Hankey]

b0b,

Thanks b0b for the cheerful post. It's really nice when you comment with a sense of humor. The b@#!o may become an endangered "species" in time. Time goes on forever. Will the b@#!o survive the test of time? Sadly, only posterity will know the answer.

[Scott Shipley]

Bill H., please leave my briefs out of this thank you.

And, I not only play BANJO, I enjoy listening to it (depending on who's playing it of course). Seems to me you find less ignorance towards PSG on BANJO forums than you do on here towards their instrument of choice...............and may I remind you that I was merely quoting b0b and not bringing up any other instrument, six string or otherwise.


Just in case I get punted for that, I've enjoyed it fellas!

[b0b]

Don't worry, Scott. We're actually a very tolerant bunch. Heck, I played a lawnmower just yesterday.

[Pete Finney]

Heck, I played a lawnmower just yesterday.

Probably got a better tone than I get from my banjo!

[b0b]

Hey, at least it was tuned.

[Paul Graupp]

bOb: Didn't you have a tuna fish somewhere on the Forum about ten years ago ?? Was it easier to tune than a...

(Aww heck !! I can't make myself write that... ):x

Regards, Paul