Need some help progressing to the next step.

[Jonah Sarchet]

Hi everyone, I've been playing steel for about 8 months now and I feel as if I've gotten pretty technically sound in that span and I'm very happy with my progress. I can play parts that I learn quite easily, but I'm struggling with coming up with my own parts/improvising/playing along to songs that don't have steel in them. For context I've been playing guitar for 10 years now and I feel as if I've got a very clear "road map" in my head of what to do on the guitar, but on steel I just can't seem to find that roadmap. I would really appreciate any advice anyone has on how to "see" the fretboard of a steel guitar better and also any advice on how it theoretically relates to the regular six string guitar fretboard. Many thanks in advance!

[Craig Robson]

This is an interesting question and I'll be curious to see how others respond.

Here's how I think about it- when I'm playing lead lines on a six string guitar I am thinking about connections between three things- scale shapes (like the pentatonic boxes), chord shapes (especially triads, but also places to add notes like 2s, 4s and 6s), and harmonized scales (typically used as double stop style lines).

In probably over simplified terms, I think this same structure can apply to pedal steel in some ways. Just working in one key, G for example, think about connecting chord positions (open at fret 3, AF at 6, E lower at 8, AB at 10) with single note scale tones and harmonized scales. You could draw this out on a neck diagram in one key and I suspect you will start to see some ways to move around. In each chord position you will find the triads as well as ways to add extensions. Once you see this the next thing is to use the pedal/ lever moves, harmonized scales, and chord types (7th, dims, augs) to move between different chords. That's how I approach it. Hope it makes sense.

[Jacob Yergert]

I feel like this is where I am as well. I've been playing for like a year and a half, and I can keep up just fine. I've played steel at a few shows for a handful of songs now. I can play the composition, but I dont have any sauce. My licks are all pretty simple and don't sound particularly competent.

I just had my first kid so it's not really in the cards right now, but I might actually get lessons for the first time in my musical life. I feel like I need a guiding hand.

[Michael Stephens]

I highly recommend the Paul Franklin lessons. Doing those for a couple of years (it's a subscription) really injected all sorts of great things into my thinking about how to play, how to move beyond the initial stuff.

[Stew Crookes]

Something I found useful was to figure out how to play some of my favourite 6-string licks and solos on PSG - applying musical concepts I understood to the steel for the first time really helped me see some things that were hidden in plain sight

[Bobby D. Jones]

With knowledge of a 6 string and music.
One of the best references items that is available, Is Mel Bays E9th chord chart. (Available at the Forum Store at top of the forum page.) It shows all the Major, Minor, 7th, Diminish and Augmented chords. Pedals or knee levers to use, And strings to pick. It is a road map of the E9th neck. Then find a good teacher in person or on the internet, To help you.
Good Luck on your steel guitar journey.

[Bob Hoffnar]

You can look at the E9 tuning like its the white keys on a piano. These are some crappy vids I made a while ago for students:

https://youtu.be/VTu8wjihN7c?si=fj5F-lZZrRSwmrUJ

https://youtu.be/3uPB-hg7cUc?si=WFS9ZOlFgzCsKbct

https://youtu.be/wvLkusAaVBs?si=sLGXpRTCN6FvDyXa

You can apply the same concepts to pentatonic scales and chord patterns.

Another key to the tuning that Lloyd Green showed me is take a lick you know and learn it on three different places on the neck. Play the exact same notes and even try to get the same slides. That will help get you into the elegance of the E9 tuning and away from the limiting trap of looking at it like a big autoharp with a slide.

If you know your intervals you will not need to add pedals and levers to find the music you are looking for as much.

[Fred Treece]

If you know your intervals you will not need to add pedals and levers to find the music you are looking for as much.

This is good, Bob. The no-pedals notes and positions are the starting points, after all.

As far as relating pedal steel to guitar, I guess the most obvious thing is a fret is still a fret. It’s a 1/2 step interval on steel just like a guitar.

So any time you play a chord, if you move it up 5 frets it will be the 4 chord of the one you just played. Move it up 2 more frets, and it’s the 5 of the first one. Just like guitar.

Pedals and levers are the “fingers” of pedal steel. They change the intervallic relationship of individual strings just like your fingers do on a guitar fretboard when you change from one chord “shape” to another. On steel, you have to visualize what shape the pedals and levers create on the strings under the bar, which can make a certain degree of “position playing” possible.

This is how a chord chart like the one in the aforementioned Mel Bay book can help. At first, it just looks like a bunch of random gobbledygook. But the positions of the different major and minor chord configurations represent the “connective tissue” that pedals, levers, and movement of the bar can create.

Visualizing and committing the fretboard layout to memory is Huge for playing pedal steel, as it is for guitar. But don’t forget about coordinating right and left hands, blocking/muting, foot and knee work…When you get into a rut, try to play music that challenges your technique.

[Bud Angelotti]

but I'm struggling with coming up with my own parts/improvising/playing along to songs that don't have steel in them.

Jonah, try playing along while the TV is on. Play along with the music on the TV as it changes constantly. It's really fun too and will bring you down different paths.

[Nate Biehl]

Jonah, try playing along while the TV is on. Play along with the music on the TV as it changes constantly. It's really fun too and will bring you down different paths.

This is a great technique that I feel like I’ve heard from a number of pros.

A similar technique I use to learn any new instrument is I hit shuffle on my entire music library and try to come up with something useful I could play to accompany whatever comes up. It could be anything; a riff that toggles between two notes, a little section of the melody, as long as it fits somewhere it counts.

I don’t restrict it to familiar or common keys or genres that traditionally feature the instrument I’m drilling. To me, the more unfamiliar wide ranging the better, because that helps me develop styles on the edges of my ability beyond mimicking what I have heard others do.

[Fred Treece]

Jonah, try playing along while the TV is on.

If you have a TV in your music room

[Paul Strojan]

I find that transcribing sheet music into tab is a really good exercise for learning the fretboard and connecting what I hear to what I play.

[David W.D. McCormick]

I would recommend Jeff Newman’s “Just Play the Melody” course - someone put it on YouTube recently. Really helped me learn the connective tissue on the fretboard.

[Pete McAvity]

As stated previously: Paul Franklin Method. Absolutely comprehensive. One hundo.

[Barry Anderson]

These are all great ideas. Really learning harmonized scales (3rds and 6ths), particularly in the horizontal plane, was a major thing for me, and provided the bridge between chord pockets that I always heard people doing but could never figure out. For me, this learning really took off when I started playing with some friends on a weekly basis just hanging out real casual and playing through old George Jones songs, etc. No pressure to get ready for a gig - just having fun so it was/is ok to learn through the process of sucking.

To that end, I'd say pursue everything mentioned here, but also find some friends who you won't feel too uncomfortable learning in front of. In my opinion there is no better learning tool than playing with others.

[Andy Henriksen]

This was sort of mentioned above re/ 6-string guitar licks, but one thing I’ve been trying to do lately is taking a cool lick from a cover song, and really trying to analyze what’s happening - what notes are involved and why do they sound the way they do relative to the chord progression.

Once you’ve done that, e.g., “a-ha, so this lick is really just bringing a bit of dominant 7th chord energy, but it’s really just these 2 notes that are doing it,” then try to find opportunities to add that lick to appropriate places in other songs. Ideally, you tweak things a bit, rather than copy/paste, but regardless, when you can start to place old licks in new places, you will be building up your musical vocab, enabling you to say more interesting things with your guitar.

[Bobby D. Jones]

One thing you have to remember when playing along with recorded material. (You Tube, Records, CD's. TV)

With all the different tunings, Knee lever/Pedal setups and Mechanical set up combinations possible.
With your guitar and tuning, You may never be able to duplicate, Some licks and phrases on your steel guitar. The way they were originally recorded. With your tuning and setup, You may be limited to playing something that just fits.
Mansion On The Hill by Buddy Emmons.
He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones, Pete Drake on steel. Can cause a lot of sleep loss.

[Colin Boutilier]

One thing you have to remember when playing along with recorded material. (You Tube, Records, CD's. TV)

With all the different tunings, Knee lever/Pedal setups and Mechanical set up combinations possible.
With your guitar and tuning, You may never be able to duplicate, Some licks and phrases on your steel guitar. The way they were originally recorded. With your tuning and setup, You may be limited to playing something that just fits.
Mansion On The Hill by Buddy Emmons.
He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones, Pete Drake on steel. Can cause a lot of sleep loss.

Something I try to remember, which I've brought from my 6 string career:

Being unable to quite copy someone else, due to talent, technique, or equipment is what created MY sound.

My goal on the steel is to do a poor enough job imitating Moon, Paul, etc. until someone goes "hey, that sounds like Boutilier on the steel".

The proudest moment in my music career, thus far, was playing a small club gig in Halifax where they have outdoor speakers to the patio. A handful of people came into the bar, purely because they heard a slide solo over the speakers and knew it was ME by the sound. That's when I knew I had something.

[Aron Odin Kristensen]

I have been playing steel for about 1.5 years, and guitar for about 13 years. I am very happy with the progress i have made both in my own playing and in my musical career after i started playing steel, and i am very grateful for this forum and all the wisdom on it. I do have an opinion on this matter that seems to be kind of unpopular in the steel-guitar world. It seems to me that every beginner is told to pick up these courses that teach everything from stock phrases to bar technique, and so on. Many of these courses can be a great springboard for establishing good technique and understanding how a steel player moves. I have personally subscribed to both The Paul Franklin Method and Doug Jernigans Patreon, and i have studied Jeff Newmans courses that are available for free on Youtube. What you usually dont get from those courses is the musicality of the phrases. They are mostly presented as mechanical movements. Yes, they do often contain some musical backing track to demonstrate the licks, but naturally we are not as familiar with that musical context as we are with our favorite music (we will get back to this later). Understanding what is being played is one thing, but understanding what, when and how something should be played is a completely different beast. In my experience that is the root problem when you are competent at reciting a solo or melody, but can not comfortably make up phrases on the go. I am no master of this myself, by any means, but i am constantly working on it and enjoying that process.

Think of all of the steel legends, and all of their discographies. There are thousands and thousands of albums where the best of the best are playing this instrument. All of the answers are in the music. By learning what the masters are doing, you will learn how to navigate the instrument. You will learn their language.


The method that i learn the most from is;

1. Learning EVERYTHING by ear. This trains a skill that ALL musicians wish they were better at. I notice that i learn much more deeply when i have to sit and figure something out for a while. This makes a huge difference for me. While figuring out what is being played, pay attention to what chord they are playing it over. This is where the number-system shines, as the ideas that you are learning, for example, over the 5-chord is easily transposable to the 5-chord of any other key. Theoretical understanding is crucial for mapping out where the chords and scales lay on the fretboard. Also, pay attention to where the phrases fall rhythmically. Zooming in and catching these details, and then sitting with them and practicing them up to speed for a while, really helps to internalize the musicality of the phrases. This internalized sense of melody and harmony will naturally show up when you are improvising or playing your own material in the future. I prefer to focus on specific steel players for an extended amount of time. That way i get a better understanding of how they approach the neck. At the moment it is John Hughey for me, and i am working on the album "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. It is very helpful to listen A TON to what you want to transcribe, before sitting down to do the work. Learning from something we have heard thousands of times is more achievable than learning from something we heard in an instructional video.

2. Practicing. After you have figured out what the steel player (or any other instrumentalist, for that matter..) is doing on the record, its time to work it up to speed, while trying to preserve all of the details. At this stage is not yet time for us to sound like ourselves. We want to sound as much like the record as we possibly can. When it is time to play we will naturally sound like ourselves. This stage is all about repetition. Play it until you cant get it wrong. The repetition helps to internalize how it all fits together, musically.

3. Reframing. Take the phrase you have learned (or pick a phrase from a solo you have learned) and play it over other tunes. Find similar songs and figure out where the phrase would fit. This is where we thank ourselves for playing attention to the chord changes that happened under the original phrase, as we need to find the correct chord quality to put the phrase over. It will sound strange at first, especially if the the chord change is in a different spot, rhythmically, than it was in the original song. This is a good thing! It means we are taking language that we learned by ear, and we are developing our fluency. If it feels unnatural to play it over a different tune, then practice that for a while! In no time the phrase will show up when you are improvising, and it will start to merge into other phrases.

4. Repeat.


Those are the four steps to my method. I also have to mention that playing an instrument is supposed to be fun. If you enjoy watching video courses and getting some cool tips and tricks here and there, than do that! I do that too, but from my personal experience, the lessons from that type of educational content has not made me improve as much as actually sitting down and putting in the hours, and working on my ear. As far as i am concerned, any time spent sitting at the steel is time well spent. Do what you enjoy!

[Doug Taylor]

Aron Odin Kristensen That is great advice!!

[J Fletcher]

That's some good solid advice from Aron , that applies to most of us no matter what your level of playing is . It takes commitment and focused work everyday . Then you naturally progree to the next level . Jerry

[David Farrell]

Aron,

I agree. I tell beginners to put on their favorite/or any music & play along by ear. Seat time & playing by ear is largely how I've learned in the last 8 years.