Chord Construction on the Pedal Steel Guitar

Don Ricketson · Post by **Don Ricketson** » 25 Nov 2004 9:12 pm

With all due respect. It doesn't matter whether horizonal or vertical. The scale notes and the intervals are the same. Things don't change in time of need. They've always been this way. Glad b0b has sent out over a hundred of those books. Wish he had a hundred more...Don.

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Mullen D10-8/5
Sho-Bud S10-3/4
Evans Amps
"Making The Stars Shine"

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 26 Nov 2004 3:16 pm

It doesn't matter whether horizontal or vertical...

I wish the guys who invented classical musical notation a couple hundred years back had felt that way. I can't even imagine how that system would work in the horizontal. Pitch flows up and down, time flows left to right...It's worked that way for centuries, why change it now ?? Conventional TAB also follows this classical structure. It's not a big thing for chord examples but I wanted to point out my conclusions which have frequently been misguided and/or mistaken; no more; no less !!

Regards, Paul

Don Ricketson · Post by **Don Ricketson** » 26 Nov 2004 10:28 pm

Paul, I don't know enough to even argue about it. The only thing I have ever read about it was the boolket by Tom Bradshaw and it made very good sense to me. Maybe someday I'll see your big yellow book and see it another way. I hope so. I need all the help I can get. Thanks, Don.

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Mullen D10-8/5
Sho-Bud S10-3/4
Evans Amps
"Making The Stars Shine"

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 27 Nov 2004 12:46 am

Paul, those perceptions are rather arbitrary.

Time is thought to flow forward, because we walk forward, and time passes.
Mostly because our eyes are on the front of our face, and from gravity putting us on our personal plane / arc.

But if we move vertically, time would also pass in that direction.

If we are in a spqace ship and are moving from earth,
we are moving head first vertically in time as well as place.

Yet as the world revolves our progress
while walking forward and playing guitar,
could acutaly be moving backwards and down 3 miles.
Yet we would still percive our progress iin place and time as moving forward....

Pitch moving up also is rather arbitrary.
Why is it, that :
low frequencys or better stated slower frequencies
are thought of as lower in height?

And high frequencies or better stated as faster frequencies
are thought of as higher in elevation?

If we play a keyboard in that space ship. and because of weightlessness it is at an angle in which slower frequencies
are played moving AWAY from the earths gravity field, this would negate the UP metaphor.

The chinnese read completetly inverse to us,
and I believe also in their music.

If the staffs went top to bottom,
it might actually mean faster frequency notes were placed more right and the slower more left,
like on a piano, or when you sit behind a guitar.

(Interestingly on a guitar higher pitches are lower, or closer to the earth than the lower pitches....
But scored in the inverse.)

And time could scroll by like a piano roll.

And equally valid way of looking at time and freqency based information.
[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 27 November 2004 at 02:04 AM.]

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 27 Nov 2004 2:04 am

^ bizzarre doubled post ^[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 27 November 2004 at 07:03 AM.]

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 27 Nov 2004 7:38 am

Don: An argument would be the last thing I'd want to see. It is a good conversation and David has taken a nice position as well. Tom published the Big Yellow book and had given me a lot of copies but I don't have any more or I would surely send you a copy. b0b still has a few for ten dollars but it is mostly articles about pedal steel guitar with the harmony subjects taking a lesser portion of the book. Don't feel shy about wading into this subject. All I knew when I wrote those articles for Fender/Fretts in the 60's was what you now know. I just had a large portion of curiosity and pushed it as far as I could.

David: You raise some interesting points especially those pertaining to the Chinese form of writing. I was in the Orient for several assignments with the military and the direction of writing and the use of idiograms was a big stumbling block for my learning the language to the extent of reading it. Anyone can learn to parrot mimic the speach/talk; even babies do that. But while I was in Japan at the time, their use of Chinese idiograms in their printed media was extensive. I can visualize the thoughts you present but I was speaking of notation and it's hard to make the correlation to that format. Nevertheless, I appreciate your input and always look forward to your posts.

Regards, Paul

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 27 Nov 2004 10:14 am

Paul thank you for the kind comments

I was also refering to notation.
It is totally possible to create a viable music notation on another axis than the standard.
And with a little time, we would read it with the same facility... or lack of it.

My point was illustrated buy the chinese method of writing text.

To some extent our chord charts or the Nashville Number System is a form of ideogram for musical chord communication.

And if the chords are dense enough full musical melodies embedded into the chords. Jazz dioes use this a lot.

I can and have read linearly DOWN a page of chord symbols writen for a session.
Seem the ONLY paper she could find was and old cash register roll.
And it was easier to write along the roll than try to hold it flat left to right.
Then she taped it to a door.

I did the track in pretty much the same way,
just the reading was a bit odd.

But this was a top to bottom read ideogramatical representation of music.

Still it makes you wonder at what time in our developement, that it became standard that
the greater pitch repetitions became considered "higher notes".

Would it have been because of the mathimatical reasoning of a higher order of number?

Don Ricketson · Post by **Don Ricketson** » 27 Nov 2004 11:32 am

(quote) [The chinnese read completetly inverse to us,
and I believe also in their music.]

Yeah, but that's natural to them because they're upside down.

Good discussion, but it got over my head. I think it was the ride into space head first.

I'll probably keep thinking horizontal unless I can find one of Pauls Big Yellow Books.

------------------
Mullen D10-8/5
Sho-Bud S10-3/4
Evans Amps
"Making The Stars Shine"

[This message was edited by Don Ricketson on 27 November 2004 at 07:49 PM.]