Music theory

[Tim Toberer]

I think its funny that in the steel guitar world, we still seem to be trying to decide if music theory is a good idea. It would be nice to get beyond that and start sharing more musical ideas, questions etc. I have lots of questions! Here is something I have been working on. Whether you think a diminished tuning is a good idea or not, using the diminished chord as a conceptual tool is very useful. One way is looking at a chord in relation to all 4 inversions of the diminished chord. I don't know a fancy way to make a graphic or anything, but this was the easiest way I could find to show what I mean.

To explain further, basically this is the same 4 notes looked at in 4 different ways. This is the A6 inversion with the 5 on top. In my tuning it involves pressing 2 pedals lowering 4 strings 1/2 step. To make the graphic make more sense I show it raising the top 2 notes, which is the same as lowering the other 2. These same notes could be looked at as a M6 chord, a m7 chord, a Major 9 no rt. chord or a rootless dominant 7 chord with 9,11 (no 3rd which is more useful for this chord IMHO). This is a good way to get more mileage out of voicings and use them in different ways. This can be done with any chord and I believe it will be very useful for finding some hidden chords.

[Fred Treece]

Pedal Steel Guitar World consists of three continents - Mechanics, Technique, and Making Actual Music On The Contraption. Each of those three is further divided into (or better, united by) several countries dealing with a variety of aspects pertaining to it.

For my area of interest, I kinda agree with your point, Tim. I feel that there is an over abundance of discussion on mechanics and fingerpicks and tuning and such on the Forum. And, for all the talk about having this pedal or that lever for this or that chord, there is not enough discussion about applying more encompassing musical concepts, or how you practice, and the learning process.

I think this has a lot to do with the kind of person who takes up pedal steel. Many do seem equally interested in all 3 of those main areas of focus, if not more so towards the mechanical and technical. It’s something I have accepted over time, and it has done much to increase my knowledge of things I am only tangentially interested in but realize are all part of the process of growing with the instrument.

[Tim Toberer]

I want to add to my earlier post after looking at it again, this is really a very obvious application of upper structure triads. Or at least a similar idea. When you play a M6 chord consists of a Major and a minor triad. When you apply these triads outside of the typical root associated with them, you can find them. This is an area I am just getting into and it sounds very intimidating, but really as you can see it's kind of simple. I am still wearing diapers with this stuff, and not really using it much, but here is a deeper dive if interested. https://www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-p ... tructures/

[J D Sauser]

I must say that in my opinion -besides the aforementioned tunability issues of symetric tunings (like a "diminished tuning" would be)- since the intruduction of pedals and especially a near pedal dependend tuning as E9th was designed to be, PEDAL steel guitarists which ventured into the instrument without growing into it from non-pedal, tend to seek tunings which “play-across the strings” with the least possible bar movement.
While I enjoy my minor third intervals a lot because they do keep bar movement in “thighter” lines managable, I learned to really come to see an advantage of having minor third string pairs shifted 1 or 2 frets up or down the neck because they are separated asstmetrically by major third intervals and that second in the middle of a typical C6th tuning. Much of my playing choices are decided based on expression… string to string, string to string WITH bar movement or playing two notes on the same string, sumilar to sax player “thongue” a bote or not. I do quite a bit of “zig-zagging” with my bar, often by choice because of expression, whereas I could play it “straight across) on another position. And at time evidently vice-versa.

There is a resin piano gospel, jazz and soul players like the key of Eb. There’s a LOT of sliding off black keys in that key.

I think that the essence of what I am trying to say is, that in my opinion, the BE C6th is extremely well laid out for diminshed playing, in the whole-half/half-whole (2 parallel diminshed arpeggios a fret or respectively two frets away from another).
And E9th offers much of that with A&B down (A6th) or the E’s lowered.

… JD

[Fred Treece]

In E9 tuning there are 3 whole tones sandwiched between a pair of minor 3rds (strings 10-5). Another minor 3rd on top with strings 1 and 2. I really like that there are so many different types of intervals in the open tuning.

I do not feel that E9 is “pedal dependent”. The logic of having so many diatonic intervals and triads to choose from in the 1-4-5 major chord positions as well as one or two frets above or below makes moving the bar as much of a legitimate option as choosing a lever or pedal. It is also equally fun.

[Tim Toberer]

PEDAL steel guitarists which ventured into the instrument without growing into it from non-pedal, tend to seek tunings which “play-across the strings” with the least possible bar movement.

… JD

This is definitely true for me. Coming from guitar, you are used to the luxury of being able to make chords with no avoid notes. With steel guitar, pedal and non pedal, you have to develop so much picking hand technique, including wearing the cumbersome picks. (I only wear a thumb pick, same as guitar) It is easier if you are coming from a fingerstyle or classical guitar background, but it is still way more involved.

This problem is precisely what led me to the diminished tuning. I was trying to keep a bass or rhythm part going with a melodic part on top similar to Travis style guitar and I would have to drop the bass part anytime the melody deviated too far from the root position. With Travis style you are jumping around on the inversions a lot to keep the bass lined up with the melody, so the diminished tuning actually works very well for this style. My arrangements involve mostly finding whichever inversion lines up with the melody the best.

For Non pedal I like an 8 string A6 with an E on the bottom or C6. I also have a 7 string (12 string 12 fret I converted) for lap playing I keep in a super low E6 with a B on top. I go these anytime the pedal octopus is just too much.

[Andrew Frost]

I would not underestimate the theoretical knowledge it takes to do ambient type playing effectively. The timing and the feel for what notes create the desired sound might seem easy, but there is substance behind it.

Yes this is true Fred. Much like quality minimalism in any artistic field. And I'd venture to add that one can hear two notes from a steel player and get a sense of where they are coming from, and the depth of their relationship, or lack thereof, with the instrument. There is a lot travelling on one's tone.

[Tom Spaulding]

Practical Theory For E9 Pedal Steel

[J D Sauser]

I want to add to my earlier post after looking at it again, this is really a very obvious application of upper structure triads. Or at least a similar idea. When you play a M6 chord consists of a Major and a minor triad. When you apply these triads outside of the typical root associated with them, you can find them. This is an area I am just getting into and it sounds very intimidating, but really as you can see it's kind of simple. I am still wearing diapers with this stuff, and not really using it much, but here is a deeper dive if interested. https://www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-p ... tructures/

Btw. Tim. I am no expert... but did try to understand your photographed chart but fail miserably.
So pardon if I shoot beyond what you were trying to demonstrate if I say this:

Analyzing in DEGREES (which is what I see you are using) is GOOD. But what ever you are or not trying to do, on any visual instrument like Keys and fingered stringed instruments are, the INTERVALS in between each degree also speaks a ton as to not only "Where To Play" (once you know the intervals in between each two string on you guitar) but also understanding substitutions and alternated positions to play which may not entirely belong to the particular chord in mind.

I'd still love to understand what you tried to convey with that chart. I am not even sure if it's a question an example or etude.

... J-D.

[Tim Toberer]

Btw. Tim. I am no expert... but did try to understand your photographed chart but fail miserably.

... J-D.

Don't do that I am no expert either, but here is what I am trying to show. It is harder to explain than it is to utilize, part of the problem with music theory in general. Yes it is all the same intervals another way of conceptualizing this same idea. Basically it is the same 4 notes, could be any notes really, but lets say F# A C# E. Everyone who plays a 6th tuning knows that this set of notes can be thought of as an F#m7 chord or A6 chord. Then if you play these chords against different bass notes or root, you get different chords. Most players soon find the rootless major 9th position often thought of as the second home in a 6th tuning. F# A C# E as rootless DM9. A less common use of these same 4 notes would be as a B11 chord minus the Rt and the 3rd B D F# A C# E.

If you don't understand how this relates to the diminished chord I get it. For me since this is where I am starting from I use these 4 inversions to figure out where these are hidden. Of course you could play any of the other inversions with any of these chords. Same notes.. I guess this is kind of how I am using the parental forms idea. Since my tuning starts as diminished, these chords can give birth to whatever chords I need to find at the time. The further away you get from the root, the harder they are to find, but this method helps me "discover" them. Some may be more useful than others. I like pairing things down to 4 notes or less which for denser chords means usually losing the 1 and the 5 or sometimes the 3 or other notes. I could understand if you don't see the point of comparing them to diminished, it is just a tool, I suppose you could start from anywhere, but for me this idea is seeping into how I think about harmony in general.

[Fred Treece]

Parallel tuning in two octaves is the general idea with E9 and C6, so the dim7 open tuning shares that similarity with the standards. It simplifies visualization of the fretboard.

Leavitt tuning, which I believe was mentioned earlier in the thread, is an interesting non-pedal tuning that starts off like a dim7 in the lower register but goes kind of dom9 in the upper. I tried it on my Stringmaster D8 before I started on pedal steel. With no roots or “home” position, I found it very difficult to visualize the neck, but the extended rootless chordal possibilities were plentiful.

If I was using a straight diminished7 tuning, I think I would want to be able to shift into Leavitt.

[J D Sauser]

Btw. Tim. I am no expert... but did try to understand your photographed chart but fail miserably.

... J-D.

Don't do that I am no expert either, but here is what I am trying to show. It is harder to explain than it is to utilize, part of the problem with music theory in general. Yes it is all the same intervals another way of conceptualizing this same idea. Basically it is the same 4 notes, could be any notes really, but lets say F# A C# E. Everyone who plays a 6th tuning knows that this set of notes can be thought of as an F#m7 chord or A6 chord. Then if you play these chords against different bass notes or root, you get different chords. Most players soon find the rootless major 9th position often thought of as the second home in a 6th tuning. F# A C# E as rootless DM9. A less common use of these same 4 notes would be as a B11 chord minus the Rt and the 3rd B D F# A C# E.

If you don't understand how this relates to the diminished chord I get it. For me since this is where I am starting from I use these 4 inversions to figure out where these are hidden. Of course you could play any of the other inversions with any of these chords. Same notes.. I guess this is kind of how I am using the parental forms idea. Since my tuning starts as diminished, these chords can give birth to whatever chords I need to find at the time. The further away you get from the root, the harder they are to find, but this method helps me "discover" them. Some may be more useful than others. I like pairing things down to 4 notes or less which for denser chords means usually losing the 1 and the 5 or sometimes the 3 or other notes. I could understand if you don't see the point of comparing them to diminished, it is just a tool, I suppose you could start from anywhere, but for me this idea is seeping into how I think about harmony in general.

THIS always has been my issue with the word "Substitution"... suggesting that one could play a different chord in lieu of another. And THAT is the problem with TheoriES... it's only one of many ways to look at the same thing. I long wondered HOW on earth a different chord or really, many different chord could be played over a particular chord. Well, "Common Tone" is another word which appears... and then you finally realize the all use the same notes which to each chord are different degrees, but the intervals match.

Diminished example... which play a #IVdim over to go from a IV back to a I (typical Jazz Blues twist found in buried in Jazz Standards all over)?
Well, we look at IV7th (Blues) and realize that besides the first two notes (root and Maj.3rd) they are alle minor third intervals following, from the Maj.3rd up to the 5th and from the 5th up to the b7th... a Diminished chord! The only shift is the ROOT really. One moves (raises) it to the "right" (up) just "a notch" (half step) and then they are ALL minor thirds apart... hence built yourself a #IVdim, aka. IV7b9th... really the motion and directional tension built up helping to not just do what the IV7th tends to do (going up a 4th to a cheap quick and easy resolution) but to go up a 5th from the IV back to the I... it's that root going up half that drives that motion as it get's within a half step of the target chord's 5th degree and that's the cream of resolution!

Others can jump in and bring about a whole different explanation (theory) of what just happened... then then, BB waltzes in (again him, yes!) and say "it just sounds goooooood" and who's to argue with him about that... he's made a living, and a pretty good one, one might add on that one move.

Barry Harris has a different take on it, and it helped my and now also my son better understand and use the diminished much more and in more surprising ways:

A diminished represents 4 diminishe, as each represent a Dominant with it's root raise half, that same one chord, can not only double a 4 dominants but also will lead to 4 different resolutions (aka. "Targets"), as such they could also be preceded y 4 different ii-minors!
But what if you take it a step further and allude to a particular dominant with a minor chord (which in turn suggest a Target I-chord a further 4th up, but instead, in the middle of it (the diminished) decide to take another "exit" meaning the Target I-chord a 4th up from one of the other 3 dominants that diminished chord can stand for.
Unheard of? Well... (to paraphrase Ronald Reagan)... WELL, not so fast!: look at the TriTone! TriTone means 3 whole steps (away from the normal dominant)... 3 whole steps are also 2 min.3rds stacked away!
Look at the "BackDoor" Dominant! it's right in the middle of a TriTone... 1 min.3rd above the suggested Dominant and likewiese 1 min.3rd below the TriTone!
Often in Jazz -in some standards even written out- the ii-minor is actually a 4th below the Backdoor Dominant, so now the "entry point" and he "exit point" are being switched in the "diminished Shaker"

Diminisheds RULE, man!

But that's just one way to look at it.

So, how important is it?
Well (Reagan again!), let me say this:
There are many kind of musicians (as to approaches).
But as far as the ones reaching an enviable level of proficiency, I think there are 2 main catergories:

The Buddy Emmons'ses of this world
and
The Maurice Andersons of theis world.

It would seem that like many in Jazz and Blues and Country, BE became extremely fast proficient just listening and playing. And he did that on a novelty instrument in in styles where it had not yet broken ground. He acknowledged later that only in his LA days he confronted himself intensively with theory.

Maurice almost immediately CONSCIOUSLY devised maps, systems, studied intevalic and analyzed chords and he did that to a point of a mad scientist. He could be stopped in the middle of a solo and asked to play the last lines again, and he could, even thou he was not playing rehearsed and if you asked him, "how did you come to play this over that?" he could answer and explain, like I kid you not he did once to me: "I hear the bass going this way" (played the bass line on the steel) "... and then I felt it could only go two ways, so I set myself up so I could play no matter which target it was going to". You would expect AI to do that.
We discussed that and he acknowledged "Buddy" being able to come to conventions, play here and there all day and then do a show at prime time and leave with buddies and keep jamming, while he (Maurice) after a set was "wacked".

So, how do we know which one we are, the BE or MA kind'a musician?
Simple!: If one of us was the BE kind, we weren't posting on this thread and where playing our heart and soul out somewhere.

We are left with only HOPING to be an MA kind'a player... we need to understand, we need help... THEORIES, explanations... and even with all that, most of us will never reach the level of Maurice's and similar "knowing" player's proficiency.
But it's our only way forward.

Just "Beware the theory you choose!". If it doesn't help you play better, find a better explanation.


... J-D.

[Fred Treece]

Right JD. Context is everything. Learn a ton of chords and all their fancy extensions if it floats your boat, but learning how to get from one to the next in a musical context is the real trick. To know and not be able to do is to not really know.

[Tim Toberer]

Barry Harris has a different take on it, and it helped my and now also my son better understand and use the diminished much more and in more surprising ways:



Just "Beware the theory you choose!". If it doesn't help you play better, find a better explanation.


... J-D.

I have to look at every chord type as being related to diminished because of the nature of my tuning. I am starting to see diminished as kind of the connecting tissue between all the related chords and scales etc you find in typical tonal music. I think Barry Harris's family of 4 dominants concept is what you are talking about. This is a deep concept I feel like I am only scratching the surface with now. I think it may relate to what your father in law said JD about it somehow all being diminished. Maybe he really meant somehow it's all Dominant. Diminished is kind of the gateway to accessing all these related dominant sounds and keys, what Barry called "playing with your brothers and sisters". This concept is also at the heart of why I think a fully diminished tuning works so well.

Context is everything. Learn a ton of chords and all their fancy extensions if it floats your boat, but learning how to get from one to the next in a musical context is the real trick. To know and not be able to do is to not really know.

I totally agree with this, but a person will never learn to use them, if they don't first learn they exist and where they are. I like to read about advanced theory and watch videos like the one I posted earlier in the thread about upper structure triads, not because they are instantly changing and improving the way I play, but as a starting point to hopefully gain access to these techniques. It can take a long time to get these things into your playing, but you have to start somewhere.

[Fred Treece]

It’s good to have a method to follow. I studied the Ted Greene guitar books, which covered literally everything. There is no chord voicing (among thousands) or single-note phrasing concept that is not demonstrated in a musical example for context.

[J D Sauser]

... I think Barry Harris's family of 4 dominants concept is what you are talking about. ...

Yes, and I think everybody interested in more sophisticated harmony should look this up on youtube (it's free), and it's even cute how he explains it, "playing with brothers and sisters".
It may be "deep"... good things don't seem to be the shallow ones. I managed it with pushing "pause" and making graphics. I am -trained as an engineer- rather inclined to need to see things graphically, thus I don't deal as much with written material as my long posts may suggest.

Pause, and go, and go back to it and play with it...
ALL theories are only as good as they make you PLAY with MUSIC. Some will work for some people and there other theories which I will walk away from as soon someone starts going off with them... likewise, I just don't seem to be a good candidate for meditation or yoga. But it does seem to work for others.

... J-D.

[Dale Rottacker]

I don't deal as much with written material as my long posts may suggest.


... J-D.

You keep your long posts coming J D ... I for one enjoy them

[Fred Treece]

It can take a long time to get these things into your playing, but you have to start somewhere.

You can learn one basic concept and start using it right away. Like voice leading a 9th in every chord of a 1-6-2-5. Or leading the same note over each chord, or playing the same 3 or 4 note riff over the progression, or repurposing a dom9 chord as a m7b5, or a dom7#5b9, or understanding the Buddy Emmons turnaround in “Night Life” as a 1-6-2-5 with tritone substitutions.

These are the kind of things you would find in any theory method, but not in a steel guitar method because of the different tunings and copedents.

[Duane Reese]

The dim chord is indeed mysterious, with the magical property that any of its four tones is a valid leading note (including to another dim), so it's a powerful musical tool if used sparingly, hideously melodramatic if not.

They can sound absolutely heavenly, in the right context. Half-diminished (or m7b5) has amazing utility, notably on the bV and VII chords but also in some unusual places too.

I used to be pretty lean on theory for the first few years, but when I got some materials and really sat down and learned it, I found that it made music sound better. That's not what I expected, but it did. My music tastes also widened as a result.