Introduction and questions

[Felix Wolfe]

I play, as a hobby, finger style guitar (a la Merle Travis, John Fahey, etc.) I have tried to transfer my playing to a lap guitar, and I find that there is a very limited number of frets that allow me to play the melody note, at the same time I am fretting at least two bass notes for the thumb picking.

I assume - or hope- that a pedal steel guitar would open up the fret board, and present more frets where the upper melody note could be harmonized with the proper chord on the lower strings, by changing the chord with a pedal

I should add that I play by ear,and am not a musician, and cannot rely too much on the correct theory and terminology to explain what I am after .

At any rate, given the above, I hope that someone can comment on the advisability of buying an entry level pedal steel to play what amounts to finger style thumb picking on a regular guitar.

Thanks in advance for your answers
Felix

[Donny Hinson]

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but here's my take on the subject:

As you may have already noticed, very few pedal steelers do the thumb-style playing. I believe the reason is that even a well equipped pedal steel is simply not as versatile as a straight guitar for that sort of playing. If you're into that stuff, a few steelers (Emmons, Garrett, Chalker, Murphy) have done some songs with the Travis, Maphis, Atkins thumb-picking style, but I think it's really done more as a novelty thing. (Kinda like playing straight guitar with a slide, once in awhile.)

The clip below features some Travis-style pedal steel pickin at the :40 second mark by Bobby Garrett, and it's probably about all most pedal steelers have heard or been exposed to of this style of playing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka8QyyLXpPU

[chris ivey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYglhPbzcNU

[Lane Gray]

A C6th neck can do this with some success, but you may want to add a few more pedals to facilitate it.
It's not a style that works well with the way I look at it and think, so I can't offer much guidance. Looking at a C6th copedent, it would be feasible, but you won't find many teachers.
I'll offer one suggestion; learn the theory. This instrument/machine STRONGLY benefits from a cerebral approach. And the more you know, the better you can think.

[Tim Russell]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYglhPbzcNU

Always admired Bobbe Seymour's style of that type of picking. I've attempted to emulate it with little sucess...

[Paul Stauskas]

Amazing clip of Bobby Seymour.

[Tom Campbell]

Both Bobby Seymour and Roy Thomas have instruction on finger style steel guitar.

The Roy Thomas instruction material should be easier to locate...a lot of Bobby Seymour's instruction is no longer available (too bad...a loss to the steel community)!