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Topic: What I Wish Somebody Had Told Me |
K Maul
From:
Hadley, NY/Hobe Sound, FL
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Posted 26 Feb 2018 10:37 am |
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I think Mr. McFadden is outta here. Too bad.
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Kevin Maul: Airline, Beard, Clinesmith, Decophonic, Evans, Excel, Fender, Fluger, Gibson, Hilton, Ibanez, Justice, K+K, Live Strings, MOYO, National, Oahu, Peterson, Quilter, Rickenbacher, Sho~Bud, Supro, TC, Ultimate, VHT, Williams, X-otic, Yamaha, ZKing. |
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Jim Park
From:
Carson City, Nv
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Posted 26 Feb 2018 3:54 pm
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| May the door not contact his posterior |
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Willis Vanderberg
From:
Petoskey Mi
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Posted 27 Feb 2018 3:10 pm
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Well I wasn't going to comment on this post but feel like I really need to. To start with I am eighty five years old. I started my musical career at age seven with trumpet lessons. Six years later I picked up my dads old LOO Gibson six string. I loved the guitar and never played the trumpet again.
After two years of picking with two friends we decided three flat top guitars were too many.
At this point I put ten dollars down on a BR-9 Gibson six string lap steel and matching amplifier. I payed three bucks a week until it was paid for.There were no teachers in our area at this time. I did talk with the Honalulu Conservatory of Music and decided I didn't want to learn their play by the numbers system. I tuned the steel to an open E tuning as that was like my flattop.
I listened to every Eddy Arnold record we had and learned to play Roy Wiggins and Billy Robinson ting-a-ling style. This kept me busy for a few years.
Then one day I heard Jerry Byrd playing Lime House Blues. That tuning was a hell of a long way from my opens E tuning.
When I was 15 years old my band and I played at buck lake ranch at Angola Ind. on that venue was Cowboy Copas and some other Nashville folks. Roy Ayers was the steel player. He spent two plus hours talking to me about the steel guitar. I learned about the A-6th tuning.
There was still no written information available to me on the steel guitar.
I moved up to a double eight string Fender custom with legs. I continued playing this until 1951 when I joined the Navy. I was at sea the first time I heard Webb sing " Slowly I'm fallen ". Like everyone else I wondered how in hell he was getting that sound. Right after the Navy I bought a Multi Kord six string. A couple of years after that I bought a brand new Fender 1000 and a Fender dual showman amp. Still no teachers in our area.
Many guitars later I am currently playing A Mullen D-10, 8 & 5.
I have almost every steel guitar magazine, Jeff Newman instructional material and a lot of others. I have had to unlearn a lot of bad habits left from playing the old lap steel.
I will never be a speed picker. I love ballads and strive for tone and smoothness. I love my Emmons P/P and it will be the last one I sell.
Even though I had some musical training I have learned a lot more since I started playing the pedal steel.
At eighty five I am still learning and don't understand folks that want to learn a bunch
of " Licks " and then quit learning. I guess my rule of thumb is this " You don't have to quit learning just because your not in a formal education system ". This Forum and the shared knowledge from a wide range of players is so valuable . I have learned from folks who hardly know how to play. I wish there had been printed material or a decent source of instruction in my early years but, that didn't stop me from learning.
God bless bob for this Forum and all you folks that contribute and support it. I just hope the beginners of today appreciate all the resources that are available to them.
There was a time when steel players hung curtains in front of their guitars and didn't want to share their secrets with anyone.
Old Bud still kickin, still pickin. |
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Skip Ellis
From:
Bradenton, Fl USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2018 4:59 pm
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As Jack Stoner said above, I can play 95% of what I need to play with the A&B pedals and the E lower and raise knee levers. There's a lot of other stuff on there and you should learn what it does but you can play an awful lot of great music with just those 4 things.
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2013 Brook Torridge, 2014 Martin 000-18, two homebrew Teles, Evans RE200 amp, Quilter 101R head, understanding wife of 45 years. 'Steeless' at the moment but looking...... |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2018 5:30 pm
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| Willis Vanderburg, the last paragraph of your comment is solid gold. Thank you for telling your story. |
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Chance Wilson
From:
California, USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2018 9:29 pm
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Write a holiday hit and invest wisely before going on tour and stop when the money runs out. Make sure to play for children and charity; 21 and up drinking establishments 6 nights a week did not help me to become a well rounded positive person. I chose Spanish guitar at age 6 because I’d never seen anyone play steel and you can’t duck walk while sitting behind a piano. If I had seen Little Richard’s chrome tipped oxfords in the Girl Can’t Help it or these guys,
https://youtu.be/-rkqLGTg0rE
I’d probably have chosen piano as a kid. I like sitting these days, but I’m tempted to make a Mummies style pedal steel video to share it with a different audience. |
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