Comments on: Respect: Pedal Steel Guitar

By: Jeremy Fuksa: Creative Generalist

Jeremy Fuksa: Creative Generalist — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:43:50 +0000

I’ve got years of experience with guitar and can easily sing the parts I hear.

I guess it all comes down to an intimidating looking instrument coupled with a friend who once said “Dude, pedal steel is crazy tough. Unless you plan on being a serious performer, I’m not sure why you’d pick it up.”

That’s my take on it.

By: John Dowdell

John Dowdell — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:46:49 +0000

Do you have any experience with other plucked stringed instruments? A lot of guitar can carry over. Can you sing the parts you hear?

The pedal steels can be approachable, but they’re often idiomatic too… the tuning you use can influence a lot of the things that are under the hand and easy to play. It can be an achievable goal. Depends on the habits you grow.

Ditto Baxter on lap steels though… here are two good links to the subculture:
http://www.well.com/~wellvis/steel.html
http://steelguitarforum.com/

By: Baxter

Baxter — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:46:33 +0000

Pedal steel is wickedly, notoriously, insanely difficult to master. Lap steels, on the other hand, are fairly simple. Easier to store and cheaper too.

Of course that could be equivalent to saying you love clarinet and me suggesting a recorder…