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Topic: the sound is in the right hand |
John Billings
From: Ohio, USA
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Posted 23 Aug 2015 10:36 pm
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I pick very firmly, and hard Started on 5-string and soon switched to Doc Watson on 6 string. You pick hard on those instruments. I took three lessons on steel and my instructor said that I had a great right hand. Pick firmly! _________________ Dr. Z Surgical Steel amp, amazing!
"74 Bud S-10 3&6
'73 Bud S-10 3&5(under construction)
'63 Fingertip S-10, at James awaiting 6 knees
'57 Strat, LP Blue
'91 Tele with 60's Maple neck
Dozen more guitars!
Dozens of amps, but SF Quad reverb, Rick Johnson cabs. JBL 15, '64 Vibroverb for at home.
'52 and '56 Pro Amps |
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Craig Baker
From: Eatonton, Georgia, USA - R.I.P.
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Posted 23 Aug 2015 11:05 pm
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John,
Buddy Charleton told me the same thing. Said I wore my thumb pick too close to the end of my thumb. Said to move it back toward the first knuckle and pick more firmly. Must be something to it.
Craig _________________ "Make America Great Again". . . The Only Country With Dream After Its Name. |
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Steve Lipsey
From: Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 24 Aug 2015 8:14 am
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That was great advice I got from Dave Grafe, just as I was starting out: "Pick as if you mean it". I suspect that all newbies are very tentative pickers... _________________ www.facebook.com/swingaliband & a few more....
Williams S10s, Milkman Pedal Steel Mini & "The Amp"
Ben Bonham Resos, 1954 Oahu Diana, 1936 Oahu Parlor |
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Steve Knight
From: NC
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Posted 24 Aug 2015 8:48 am
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Buddy Charleton also told me to pick much harder than I thought I had to. He also stressed being really focused on what you're playing, "Play everything as if your life depended on it. One day it will." |
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Tom Quinn
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Posted 24 Aug 2015 4:05 pm
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Steve Knight wrote: |
Buddy Charleton also told me to pick much harder than I thought I had to. He also stressed being really focused on what you're playing, "Play everything as if your life depended on it. One day it will." |
-LLL- Good one! _________________ I need an Emmons! |
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MIchael Bean
From: North Of Boston
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Sean Borton
From: Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada
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Posted 25 Aug 2015 2:07 pm
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I wouldn't say the tone is in your right hand.... but I will say it is in YOU! Right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot, right knee, left knee, etc....
If you don't sound good playing through a Peavey, a Little Walter is not going to help. If you don't sound good on a Carter, a Franklin is not going to help. If you don't sound good on a Franklin through a Little Walter a new pre-amp certainly is not going to help. Stop wasting money and start practicing - or at least accept your limitations.
The best musical lesson I ever received was through a guitar player magazine article by the great rock guitarist Steve Vai.... this was back in the 80's and the lesson was so simple. (I will paraphrase below)
1: pick a note, any note.
2: Give that note 100 different voices...
3: Once you have done that, there you have it.... the tone is in YOU!
I also heard a phrase a while back that sounds unfair, but I find it to be very true. "Those that don't realize the tone is in the fingers, are not there yet". |
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richard burton
From: Britain
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Posted 25 Aug 2015 9:13 pm
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Tone is very much in the hands.
I can get very different sounds just by picking nearer or further from the bar, or harder, or softer, or any combination of these factors.
This can be a problem when I'm overdubbing a flub on a recording, as it can be difficult to match my original tone exactly |
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James Jacoby
From: Ohio, USA
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Posted 30 Aug 2015 7:38 pm
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MIchael Bean wrote: |
To quote the late, great John McGann, "Tone is in the wallet".
Seriously though, it's not the car, it's the driver. |
I would think, it's both the car, and the driver! An incompetent driver couldn't win the Indy 500, in the best car, and the best driver couldn't win the Indy 500 in a 54 Pontiac. I think both the player, and the equipment have an effect on the result, although I have no idea of the ratio. MHO. -Jake- |
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Stephen Cowell
From: Round Rock, Texas, USA
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Bill Davison
From: Just far enough away from Seattle, WA, USA
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Rick Vizzi
From: New Jersey, USA
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Posted 19 Nov 2015 1:46 pm tone
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love Jim Bob Sedgwick's explanation! just got a steel again after being without one for 7 years. fortunately i recorded my playing back then. i'm literally starting all over again. i can't play like i did then to the degree of progress i achieved. and that includes the tone that i was getting. i'm HAVING TROUBLE SITTING BACK DOWN AT IT because i'm afraid of how long it may take me to get back to where i was! A $4K beautiful instrument looking at me with a scowl/grin saying, "what are you waiting for?" meanwhile I'm listening to live recordings of Lloyd Green and others many hours out of the day.
here's another analogy about tone: if you sat down at Van Gogh's or Rembrandt's or any other painter's palette of paints, whether they are cheap paints or the best pigments in the world, you still couldn't paint like them. You couldn't get tone like theirs'..... but the more you SAT THERE, you'd EVENTUALLY start achieving SOME pleasant tones. REGARDLESS of the brand or cost of the paints. |
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Geoff Noble
From: Scotland
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Posted 20 Nov 2015 3:42 am
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I'm quite new to pedal steel playing, about 4 years. When I first started reading the forums, I thought that there was an bit of an obsession with "tone", and TBH I wasn't quite sure what was meant by tone from a steel perspective.
Since then I have slowly begun to understand what you guys are getting at, but I'm not sure if tone is the correct word to describe it, it's not a static quality and it's elusive.
It's almost something you feel, you know when your getting it. I concluded that it's more like a resonance thing, the strings seem to come alive when your hands are doing the right things, and then you are chasing it?
So, my take on it is that the equipment has a certain capability to produce the "tones" you are trying to achieve, it's the hands that bring out these tones, both hands. The right hand starts it but the left carries it to the end of the note. Bar pressure, vibrato, behind the bar damping etc.
A class player could play a Carter Starter and make it sound great but I reckon he/she would have to work a lot harder to do so than if they were playing an Emmons PP.
And as with any instrument, I agree with what many here have already said that there is no substitute for putting in the hard hours. _________________ "Nothing can ever be wrong about music" - D Allman
"There is no bad music, only music you don't like" - Me
YTube- http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFqsA-Ahlgr2Z2sw71WJHGg/videos
SCloud - https://soundcloud.com/just-jef/tracks |
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Donny Hinson
From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 20 Nov 2015 10:23 am
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"Contraptions" won't cure poor technique, or substitute for a lack of practice and picking skills. The device you see is an E-Bow, and it excites the strings electronically, with an alternating magnetic field. It's mostly useful for long sustaining tones, and special effects, when no pick attack is wanted. It's of little use for the typical "bread-and-butter" stuff steelers play. (It may also weaken the magnets in a pickup if it's held too close to the poles for long periods of time.) |
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Ron Sodos
From: San Antonio, Texas USA
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Posted 20 Nov 2015 10:45 am
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I haven't read all the posts in this thread so I may be repeating. I have been playing for 35 years and have been gigging professionally for that entire time. For 10 years I was full time on the road with no day job. Anyway I agree that tone is in the technique (hands etc). However I recently bought a 1968 Emmons push pull. I have been playing Sho-Buds, then a Zum and a Fessenden. They all sound sweet as can be. Well when I started playing the new Push Pull the difference was night and day. The tone is so much better it is amazing. Even people in the audience that haven't got a clue what a steel guitar is all about came up to me and said "What did you change, you sound so much better!" The guys in the band said "Wow what did you do, you sound amazing!" There you have it. The equipment does matter. |
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chris ivey
From: california (deceased)
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Posted 20 Nov 2015 12:40 pm
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Sean Borton wrote: |
If you don't sound good playing through a Peavey, a Little Walter is not going to help. If you don't sound good on a Carter, a Franklin is not going to help. If you don't sound good on a Franklin through a Little Walter a new pre-amp certainly is not going to help. Stop wasting money and start practicing - or at least accept your limitations.
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right on!
and ron...right on about the p/p....but you've got
to learn to wrench on it yourself.
it's like you're not a real harley rider unless you do your own maintenance. |
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Ron Sodos
From: San Antonio, Texas USA
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Posted 20 Nov 2015 1:08 pm
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Quote: |
and ron...right on about the p/p....but you've got
to learn to wrench on it yourself.
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You are correct. I have already screwed up the 4th string on the E9th neck. I am working through it now. Learning the hard way. But I guess the hard way is the best way. LOL |
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chris ivey
From: california (deceased)
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Posted 20 Nov 2015 1:13 pm
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it will get simpler once you mess with it a little. |
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Donny Hinson
From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 23 Nov 2015 7:21 am Re: the sound is in the right hand
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Ted Barnhouse II wrote: |
I've always heard that the sound is in the right hand. If that's true why is there so much attention given to the "toys" to improve our sound or get the sound we want instead of the right hand? |
Maybe...because it's easier to buy stuff than it is to practice regularly to become a better player?
I also think this impression (of players buying a lot of gizmos) gets skewed, somewhat, because the many players who aren't constantly buying stuff just don't talk about it.
YMMV, though. |
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Georg Sørtun
From: Mandal, Agder, Norway
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Posted 23 Nov 2015 9:03 am Re: the sound is in the right hand
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Donny Hinson wrote: |
I also think this impression (of players buying a lot of gizmos) gets skewed, somewhat, because the many players who aren't constantly buying stuff just don't talk about it. |
+1
A few years ago a fellow player asked me why I used no effects - not even the EQ on my NV112 - when playing live.
My answer was that I wanted to hear every little mistake I made, in order to correct them and also to find ways to intentionally utilize them, with my playing technique.
Along those lines: the less the electronic equipment masks and shapes what comes out of my PSG, the better. Gives me, or forces me to apply, more on-the-fly control over the outcome. |
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Ian Rae
From: Redditch, England
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Posted 23 Nov 2015 10:02 am
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I'm with Georg. When I was learning to be a sound engineer in the early 70s there were very few effects available and we relied very much on the choice and positioning of microphones to get the desired result. In later years when there were a lot more knobs on the board I still made sure that the basic sound was right first, rather than taking any old noise and trying to force it into shape.
Likewise if you want to upgrade your hifi but you can only afford to do it in stages, start at the source end - there's no point hanging fancy speakers on a cheap amp.
While I'm still training my right hand I don't want anything to obscure what I'm doing. In years to come if I need a more commercial sound I might consider a bit of delay, but I secretly hope it won't be necessary. _________________ Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Jamie Mitchell
From: Nashville, TN
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T. C. Furlong
From: Lake County, Illinois, USA
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Posted 26 Nov 2015 10:16 am
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Isn't great tone the magic ingredient that all steel players strive for? It is for me. I'll admit that I've spent more effort on achieving great tone than developing a great vocabulary of licks. At the end of the day, it's about both. If you have been playing long enough, and you have a mind to, you can "pull" tone out of the strings and the instrument. On a good day, I get pretty close to being able to do that like I hear it in my head.
For those who spend time thinking about what gear will make them sound better, I remember going to a steel guitar show, I think it was the TSGA in Dallas. I heard a bunch of great players with the latest in boutique amps and tweaked steel guitars and effects all sounding pretty much the same - give or take. And then...Johnny Cox gets up with a Sho-Bud Maverick with no pedals and plugs into whatever amp happens to be there and blows the doors off the place with by far the best tone of the show. He was pulling a great tone out of the strings and the instrument.
One of my all time favorite players is Mike Smith. I think he has a unique and wonderful unmistakable tone. I've watched him up close and he plays really hard almost attacking the strings. His instrument speaks. That's what I aspire to. |
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Tom Quinn
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Posted 26 Nov 2015 10:36 am
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chris ivey wrote: |
Sean Borton wrote: |
If you don't sound good playing through a Peavey, a Little Walter is not going to help. If you don't sound good on a Carter, a Franklin is not going to help. If you don't sound good on a Franklin through a Little Walter a new pre-amp certainly is not going to help. Stop wasting money and start practicing - or at least accept your limitations.
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right on!
and ron...right on about the p/p....but you've got
to learn to wrench on it yourself.
it's like you're not a real harley rider unless you do your own maintenance. |
I do my own maintenance because I am in fact a real Harley rider. I used to wrench my first P/P but jeez I'm too old to mess with the obvious shortcomings of my most recent one = change the copedent. Great guitar, levers are in the "wrong" place... -L- _________________ I need an Emmons! |
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Ian Rae
From: Redditch, England
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Posted 26 Nov 2015 11:11 am
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To me, what T.C. is highlighting is that while equipment can facilitate good tone, it cannot create it - only the player/instrument combo can do that. _________________ Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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