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Fred Treece


From:
California, USA
Post  Posted 12 Apr 2018 8:31 pm    
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There must be someone involved with the Knoxville Steel Guitar Jam that knows a pedal steel teacher in the area. If you’re on Faceplant, maybe you can friend someone and ask:
https://www.facebook.com/KnoxvilleSteelGuitarJam/
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Rich Upright


From:
Florida, USA
Post  Posted 14 Apr 2018 2:46 pm    
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Donny Hinson wrote:
The first thing I did was to go out and see every player that was playing in my area. I watched them relentlessly and talked with them, as there were no books or tapes available for pedal steel at that time. I cannot stress how important it is to do this! Get out of the house and find someone who will spend an hour or two with you, at your place or theirs, and just absorb all they'll show you. I don't play much anymore, but I still enjoy sharing what I know with newbies, and many players will do the same if you just ask. Winking


This is exactly what I did on the NYC country circuit back in the mid-80s when I started. Forum member John Widgren was the greatest help to me, often spending his entire break between sets talking steel & showing me little tricks & riffs. He even said to me one night "Go up to my steel & play this next set with the band". I was scared to death, but did it. Years later I became that band's permanent steel player. Search him out on the forum; he is not only an incredible player, but a major font of knowledge & great mechanic on pedal steel. (& motorcycles!).
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A couple D-10s,some vintage guitars & amps, & lotsa junk in the gig bag.
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Bill L. Wilson


From:
Oklahoma, USA
Post  Posted 15 Apr 2018 9:41 pm     The Start.
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I took lessons on lap steel in the mid ‘50’s at the Cherokee Music School in Louisville Ky. My Mom bought me a Supro 6strg lap steel with matching amp. After a few lessons, we moved and had to leave my guitar for 2 or 3yrs. We picked it up on our last move to Dallas, where the steel was replaced with a 6strg Gretsch Electromatic (a gift from a cousin as we were leaving for Texas).Although the Supro was hardly ever touched again, I still have it along with a Fender Deluxe lap steel (that I just recently used on my very first recording sessions on lap steel). As far as the Pedal Steel goes, that all started in Jan. ‘74 with an MSA S-10 3x1. Tommy Bolinger at McCord Music in Dallas showed me the AandB pedals to change from the I to the IV. Other than that and some help from a session player here in OKC yrs. ago I am totally self taught and know enough to get by. At my age I’m happy to be able to play my old Emmons for a few more years hopefully.
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Terry Winter

 

From:
Saskatchewan, Canada
Post  Posted 16 Apr 2018 8:22 am    
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Good stories here! I played percussion in school band but heard a small local band play and got seriously interested in bass guitar. Loved and still love playing bass but steel interested me in about 1975 and had a rough start cause of the lack of players and teachers here but stuck with it and it absorbs me now...... Shocked
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John Goux

 

From:
California, USA
Post  Posted 18 Apr 2018 2:09 pm    
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1. Bruce Brouten DVD “Learn to Play Pedal Steel Guitar”.
2. Amazing Slow Downer by Roni Music
3. Jeff Newman’s “Right Hand Alpha”
4. Take every jam, gig and sit in as soon as you can

Bruce’s DVD has lots of great advice for beginners through advanced.

Amazing Slow Downer is a necessity for learning off recordings of your favorite players. The controls are big and easy to hit, the slower tempos at pitch are beyond helpful.
Remember, you don’t need to memorize long passages. It is the process of you finding the notes on the instrument that will speed your progress.

Jeff Newman’s Alpha is a ubiquitous right hand DVD for Palm Blocking. Before long you will need to choose your style of muting, between Pick and Palm Blocking. Jeff is Palm.
Joe Wright and Paul Franklin teach pick blocking.

Buy some practice CDs. I recommend:

Bob Hoffnar’s pitch DVD
U B the Sideman “Old Hag” “Straight Country”

Got friends that like to sing and play acoustic? Set up a regular jam with them. Take gigs and be prepared to embarrass yourself the first few times out.
All of our great steel players learned on the bandstand. From Jay Dee Manness to Bruce Brouten to Greg Leisz, the stories are consistent. They played lots of gigs.
Start gigging soon as you can.

John

John
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Bobby Nelson


From:
North Carolina, USA
Post  Posted 18 Apr 2018 3:03 pm    
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There is a great music store in Claxton Tn. on the Clinton hwy, that would probably be a good bet you could find a steel teacher out of there. The old guy (if he's still around and running it) Also sells stuff at dirt cheap prices. It's a great place to visit even so if you are in Knoxville.
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Pete McAvity

 

From:
St. Louis, Missouri USA
Post  Posted 19 Apr 2018 7:19 am    
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Around 2005, my neighbor told me one day that he had "grandpa's old guitar" in the basement and asked if I'd be interested in it. I told him that grandpa's old guitar is my favorite kind of guitar, so he brought over this little case which I knew contained a lap steel. 6 string 60's perloid Valco w/ legs which I played out with a band about 6 weeks later. From there I found a Miller 8 string w/ 2 pedals and one knee lever. Had it set up E9 without the top 2 ("chromatic") strings and played that out. About a year later I talked to Casey Preston when he came through with Drag The River, towing a GFI D10 Ultra & he highly recommended GFIs for quality and quantity in an S10. Got a new GFI Student S10 (3&4)within that year (thanks student loan, folks!) and played a hundred or so gigs with that before getting an Excel Superb D10 and a Kline U12 (all purchased from Scotty's here in STL). Now I have everything I need, but still itch to get what I want.

That said, if I were to start again today, I would get a quality E9 guitar, (GFI student or Stage One steels come highly recommended here & are in the $700-&1k range used w/ case), at least an Ernie Ball volume pedal (or get into a Goodrich passive, used about $100, cost goes up dramatically for other makes/ active pedals), and a clean amp w/ lots of headroom. Searching for opinions on amps here is a good way to spend a week, but Boss Katana, Roland Cube come up a lot in the low end cost category, then Fender Twins and Nashville 400s in the more expensive used cat., then you can go crazy after that.

AND- I think the best bang for your buck instructionwise is The Paul Franklin Method OR a quality local teacher. TPFM is NOT inexpensive, but is exhaustively comprehensive.

Earmark a good $2k minimum for this endevour.
_________________
Excel Superb D10, Kline U12, Sarno Black Box, Goodrich L120, Boss DD5, Baby Bloomer, 1965 Super Reverb chopped to a head, feeding a mystery PA cab w/ a K130.

They say "thats how it goes". I say "that ain't the way it stays!"
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John Goux

 

From:
California, USA
Post  Posted 19 Apr 2018 3:29 pm    
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1. Bruce Brouten DVD “Learn to Play Pedal Steel Guitar”.
2. Amazing Slow Downer by Roni Music
3. Jeff Newman’s “Right Hand Alpha”
4. Take every jam, gig and sit in as soon as you can

Bruce’s DVD has lots of great advice for beginners through advanced.

Amazing Slow Downer is a necessity for learning off recordings of your favorite players. The controls are big and easy to hit, the slower tempos at pitch are beyond helpful.
Remember, you don’t need to memorize long passages. It is the process of you finding the notes on the instrument that will speed your progress.

Jeff Newman’s Alpha is a ubiquitous right hand DVD for Palm Blocking. Before long you will need to choose your style of muting, between Pick and Palm Blocking. Jeff is Palm.
Joe Wright and Paul Franklin teach pick blocking.

Buy some practice CDs. I recommend:

Bob Hoffnar’s pitch DVD
U B the Sideman “Old Hag” “Straight Country”

Got friends that like to sing and play acoustic? Set up a regular jam with them. Take gigs and be prepared to embarrass yourself the first few times out.
All of our great steel players learned on the bandstand. From Jay Dee Manness to Bruce Brouten to Greg Leisz, the stories are consistent. They played lots of gigs.
Start gigging soon as you can.

John

John
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Roger Childress

 

From:
South Carolina, USA
Post  Posted 24 Apr 2018 7:09 am    
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I’m going to tell how I got into steel guitar 30+ years ago. My dad decided he wanted to learn to play one, so he first bought a Sho-Bud Maverick. He found he wanted something better, so he bought a Sho-Bud Super Pro. Well, he was sitting at it one day trying to play a certain lick( I can’t remember what it was) and was having a difficult time with it. I then asked if I could give it a try. Five minutes later, I was playing the lick the way it was supposed to be played. My dad then said a couple of bad words about me just sitting down and playing. I played for several years in my teens then walked away from it. Now, I am back at it, relearning every thing I learned back then. I think the difference for me today compared to 30 years ago is my knowledge of music theory. Just my opinion, but I think that to play music well, a person has to have a decent grasp of music theory. Know how chords are built. Know how to turn a major chord into a minor chord. How to get a 7th chord. Things like that. And listen closely to music. Train your ear to hear things that the average person doesn’t hear. My two cents
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David Cubbedge


From:
Toledo,Ohio, USA
Post  Posted 24 Apr 2018 8:30 am    
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This is how I got started. In 1976 My brother and his room mate were in college and had a little acoustic combo with a bass player. I wanted in, but my brother told me too many guitars, but if you learn how to play this, we can add you! "This" was a short-scale D8 Fender Stringmaster, straight steel, no pedals! I must've done well because I was suddenly in the band! We were playing a lot of old country, 50's stuff, so the Stringmaster fit right in. About a year later I bought two Fender 400 pedal steels for $100! Again, eight strings and four pedals, which only three worked, or maybe I just didn't know what to do with the fourth! The band ran its' course, but another local band doing road-work needed a PSG and so they hired me! That was in 1978 and I am still playing with those guys today! Around 2000 I had an opportunity to upgrade my PSG and I bought a S10 Emmons. Finally in 2013 I got my first D10, another Emmons. So, although I am self-taught, there's only so far one can go that way, so in January I signed up with the Paul Franklin Method online instruction. I have learned so much from that course in the last three months!! I highly recommend it if you can afford it. Good luck with your PSG journey!
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Red Emmons D10 fatback #2246D with sweet Hugh Briley split cases, Black Emmons S10 #1466S, '73 Fender "Snakeskin" Twin Reverb, Peavey Nashville 400, Line 6 Pod XT, Fender 400, Fender Stringmaster Double-8, too many guitars, one bass!
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Wally Moyers


From:
Lubbock, Texas
Post  Posted 25 Apr 2018 7:59 pm    
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My musical journey started years before I was even born. My Dad, Wally Moyers Sr., a great steel guitarist, was already playing with artists like Waylon Jennings, Bill Mack, Slim Whitman, and many West Texas bands.
At 9 years old my dad gave me my first 6-string electric guitar and taught me a few cords. A year later, I was in my first band playing the rock-n-roll music of the day. I continued playing with these bands touring all over West Texas until late 1969 when the band I was in broke up. I was telling my Dad about the band breaking up and that I needed to find something else, when dad, (who was playing with Texas legend Tommy Hancock at the Cotton Club in Lubbock, Texas) said, why don’t you start playing with Tommy? I told my dad, “Tommy doesn’t need another guitar player, he plays guitar” then Dad said “No, I mean steel. I’m quitting”, I told him, “I don’t play steel!” Dad said, “Sure you do, set down here....”. This was on Wednesday, and that Friday at the age of 16, I played my first steel gig. After that weekend, Tommy offered me the job where I played steel for two years. Those two years taught me how to play Texas Dance Music and was a great opportunity to play with some great musicians.
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Franklin

 

Post  Posted 25 Apr 2018 9:25 pm    
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.....I teach all of the right and left hand techniques at the PFM...I just shot a video this weekend playing with a guitar pick and fingertips instead of using a thumb pick and finger picks.....I believe new and older players are helped best when they are presented with all options. I want players to visualize and hear the differences upfront so they don't waste precious time heading in a direction that is not right for them.
Paul
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Doug Jones


From:
Oregon & Florida
Post  Posted 26 Apr 2018 4:08 am    
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It started 1970, my senior year in high school in St Louis. Loved the ZB tone on Teach your children. The lead guitarist in our Country Rock band had a Fender 400 and was taking lessons from Scotty. I borrowed that steel for 2 weeks and was smitten, yet frustrated and gave it back. It wasn't until 1976 that my interest peaked again. I would go to bars and critter clubs that had steel and would pester the steelers on break. Finally, one guy said "You have a good job. Why don't you buy one, start playing and if you don't like it, sell it!". That was 1979 and have never looked back.
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Stephen Rethmeier

 

From:
Nashville TN
Post  Posted 8 May 2018 7:04 am    
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Jeff Harbour wrote:
The "Deluxe Pedal Steel Guitar Method" by Dewitt Scott (Scotty) got me from nothing to being very comfortable with the instrument and eager to teach myself anything, all within a couple months or less.


This turned out to be the most effective resource for me based on how I learn and my mental pacing. I started with onsite lessons from John McClung before he moved out of the area. He was great but I wanted something that I could use and access at irregular times (relative to my crazy schedule). I also played PS in a band right away and played on Sundays at church to keep up the pressure. You can make adequate pedal steel sounds pretty quickly with the kind of knowledge in Scott's book. Good luck!
_________________
Williams S12 Ext. E9 keyless, Williams S12 Ext. E9 keyed, Telonics TCA 500C, Quilter Steelaire, Magic Fender clone, 1937 Model 59 Rick 6, 1940 Epiphone 7-string Zephyr, Oahu 6, 8+/- regular guitars, Kawai baby grand, two cats...
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