Right Hand Technique, Buy Tone????

[William Litaker]

Why would he say such a thing ? The same reason I teach it.....

http://www.jeffran.com/articles.php?content=tone

[Donny Hinson]

I guess it's far easier for some to believe that you can sound like so-and-so if you just buy this or that guitar, amp, or gizmo. But truth be told, practically none of us could sound like Buddy, Lloyd, or Paul even - if were were sitting down behind their rigs.

[Larry Waisner]

Thanks for the post William. Great reading material from Jeff.
Blessings,
Larry

[George Buechley]

Great post William. It's nice that there is someone teaching PSG these days.


George

[DG Whitley]

Thanks for reminding me of that article William, it has a lot of truths in it I think.

Still, what continues to puzzle me are those who spend all that money trying to sound like someone else instead of sounding like themselves. I do not consider it much of an accomplishment to try to sound like somebody else, it's already been done. However, if you are trying to play as proficient and clean as the "greats", then that's more of an accomplishment to be proud of, in my humble opinion.

My 2 cents, YMMV.

PS: Not to steal your thread William, but sent you an email about a week ago, please let me know if you didn't receive it.

[Joey Andrews]

William, a great article by one of the masters on tone. I would believe it would be hard to dispute
Jeff Newman views on any subject concerning a pedal steel guitar. Thanks for teaching his methods, I know it has helped me. JA

[Lee Barber]

Yes, I miss Jeff. He had a way too explain things so you could understand them. The steel world lost a great teacher.
Appreciate your posting it.

[Jim Priebe]

There always seems to be confusion here. There is tone and there is feel. They are two different things really. Even Jeff has added to the confusion a bit by joining them in his article IMHO.

[Herb Steiner]

There always seems to be confusion here. There is tone and there is feel. They are two different things really. Even Jeff has added to the confusion a bit by joining them in his article IMHO.

Jim, you are absolutely correct. Tone is auditory, feeling is emotional. Big difference.

[Lee Barber]

Jeff never said that tone and feel were the same, so he didn't buy into anything. The only thing in this article Jeff wrote, that mentioned feel was how players feel about the guitar and is mechanics. Such as an Emmons black being beret than others. Herb could tell you which Emmons he likes best.
I don't remember William mentioning it either.
Though if you don't have feel I bet tone would be hard to get!

[Jim Priebe]

Lee, I certainly am not suggesting Jeff intended create to any confusion but a lot of people have interpreted it that way.
I just think the two things (tone v feel) should be treated separately even though they integrate into the final sound.
I could always get the 'tone' I wanted but it took me years & years to get the 'feel'. Coming from being mainly a 'lead' guitar player it took a lot of effort to get that out of my steel playing - probably never will completely.
There is always an up and a down side though. The skill I had already developed with using effects (which are welcomed in the guitar world) was very handy (tonewise).

[Herb Steiner]

Lee
Absolutely. My two favorite Emmonses, for tone, are the two wraparounds I own and used professionally until I got my Infinity this past June. And I have owned a lot of Emmonses.

My favorite Sho~Bud, tone-wise was a D-10 fingertip that I got from Johnny Cox. The tone was to die for, like the mid-60's Lloyd Green sound, but the mechanics and the ergonomics of the guitar were a no-starter for me. So, bye-bye. I have no idea where that horn is nowadays.

To me, feel is determined by phrasing; by the slight or great discrepancies a player plays his melodies in relation to the metronomic beat of the song. Two of the best practitioners of this are Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra. It involves the communication of the story of the song, or the lyrics of the song, through melodic accuracy or variation, and voiced as though the player was in fact vocalizing.

Anyway, that's my personal take on "feel." Y'all can come up with your own definitions of the undefineable.

[David Mason]

To me, feel is determined by phrasing; the slight or great discrepancies a player plays his melodies in relation to the metronomic beat of the song. Two of the best practitioners of this are Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra.

This is one of those things that I sometimes wish had remained a "secret of the stars", NOT to be revealed (to freshmen.... ) Technically, there's rhythmic contraction, rhythmic expansion and rhythmic displacement; but as it's now a known "trick" it usually sounds rather forced, like the "trick" of repeating a line until you and everyone else is sick and tired of it, thereby creating tension and (finally!) release. Even the greats can get ensnared by their own cleverness, as here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tuphRVH82k
at 0:35 and 0:41, that sounds more like a "mistake" to me than a stroke of genius, even willful as it was.

The interaction of pitch to tone is a fascinating area, notes played slightly sharp are heard as brighter, not necessarily wrong - up-to and until - they are. I think that the best of modern slide guitarists have a good deal to teach a steel guitarist. Sonny Landreth, Kevin Breit, Joel Harrison, fretless guitarist David Fiuszynski and of course Derek Trucks are at least barking up a tree in the same forest as steel players. People who ought to know better yak on about Derek Trucks' mastery of "microtones" - even though he's almost always playing in bands anchored by a keyboard and other (fretted) guitars; a genuine microtonal scale there would be excruciating. He's surely learned some, but that's not how he's using the knowledge.

The way, and time, you slip in and out of the correct notes - what I would call "inflection" - lord, there's whole universes contained within that alone. Inflection (pitch) + phrasing (time) = either genius, or, disaster. It's the same thing that makes one great classical violinist instantly distinguishable from another, though they all play the same basic Bach-Beethoven-Tchaikovsky-Brahms cover-band tunes. There's more to be learned from a fine instrumentalist's slow playing than fast, in my reckoning.

[Ken Campbell]

It's always gonna be about what you didn't play. Stuff needs room to breath. Knowing this and practicing it are lifetime journeys. Thankfully.

[Tom Gorr]

Yes.... Feel in a song or part is as Herb describes.

Feel of an instrument is how you sense that it responds to your playing. Its amazing to me how guitR amps in particular have such vastly different feels. From saggy and loose to tight and bold. Then your can change the mids to make a guitar feel like your playing elastic bands to something that is so hard to pick that you swear you wont make it through the night. All that is just psychoacoustical feedback...but it is a powerful influence on the player.

Similarly...
My MSA U12 has a saggy and loose feel to the plucked string...and the Shobud feels tight bold and crisp. Fessy is right in the middle.

[Donny Hinson]

If you could sit right next to, or directly in front of, all the great players of notorious fame, as I most certainly have after 40 years of playing and living in Nashville, you could undoubtedly see the answer in a heartbeat. They all play, or have played every kind of guitar made. They have all played every kind of amplifier manufactured. Yet, they all have this wonderful thing called tone...

Everybody wants to buy some tone. It ain't for sale! It isn't a thing. It is a sound, like a spirit. You can't hold it, see it, steal it buy it, give it away, or understand it. You either have it, or you don't.

I think these are the two key paragraphs in Jeff's article. It's sad, but it seems that whenever "tone" is discussed, it always winds up being a discussion about brand names. Just for the record, I think Buddy had a great "tone" before the Emmons guitar ever came along. I think Paul had a great "tone" before the Franklin guitar ever came along. And, I think Brumley had a great "tone" before the Anapeg guitar ever came along.

Personally, I find what a player can do is far more interesting and useful to me that what he can buy. So is you wanna impress me, stop blabbering about what you got and play something.

[Charlie McDonald]

To me, feel is determined by phrasing; the slight or great discrepancies a player plays his melodies in relation to the metronomic beat of the song. Two of the best practitioners of this are Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra.

This is one of those things that I sometimes wish had remained a "secret of the stars", NOT to be revealed (to freshmen.... )

I know what you mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tuphRVH82k
at 0:35 and 0:41, that sounds more like a "mistake" to me than a stroke of genius, even willful as it was.

It's hard to tell, as it's Willie's style, which we're accustomed.

In this example, found by Joachim Kettner, shows the Herb's interpretation carried to the extreme,
"Nuages" played by Willie and his sister; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcB97_Hv9yk
'Nuages' is 'clouds,' evocative of the rubato movement of misty things, played against Bobbe's firmer rhythm on piano.
If done by an amateur--well --but Willie is evoking the story, a tone painting, "communication of the story of the song,
or the lyrics of the song, through melodic accuracy or variation, and voiced as though the player was in fact vocalizing."--Herb

[William Litaker]

Gotta say Donnie you are a man after my own heart.."play something".
I gotta saying that I use for for that...."always something to say..."never nothing to play"

[Charlie McDonald]

“Those who say don’t know and those who know don’t say.”--Buddy Emmons

[Tom Gorr]

Open letter to b0b:

Time to shut the place down.

[Mike Neer]

When I try to copy a player's thing, I always opt for the feel and spirit of it, and the subtle things, rather than the tone. Too many variables in the hands.

[Charlie McDonald]

That's OK, Tom, it's back to tone.

I was thinking Mike, about Willie playing 'Nuages,' certainly different from the way you play--
but it's the effect of what Herb was describing, Willie just playing the thing, and his tone is the result.
Two different interpretations of clouds, both well played.

[Stuart Legg]

I'm not trying to be argumentative here and I realize that Mr Newman was only referring to tone but I think he would agree that playing well is important to the whole equation.

Playing with good tone but playing badly is like farting in Sunday School and worrying about the tone of it.

Both good tone and playing good would be nice but if I had to choose I'd rather hear someone play good no matter the tone.

If you are playing consistent with the right hand, I mean by that equal attack with thumb and fingers with good blocking then no matter how you hold your hand or where you place your hand, 10" in front of the pickup to behind the pickup you will have good tone.

I didn't say you would have the best tone just that you will have good tone.

[chris ivey]

Open letter to b0b:

Time to shut the place down.

oh, is this your thread now?

[Tom Gorr]

Always glad to hear from ya, chris ol pal.