The British Steelies Society

I’ve been working on a tune recently that requires playing my 3 lowest strings open at the same time as playing further up the neck. As I’m extended E9, the larger intervals on 12, 11 and 10 make this quite possible without too many clashes. Till now, I found the easiest way to avoid fouling the low strings is to turn the bar round with the round end pointing towards me. The downside is that the rest of the bar is then too long and feels awkward. Solution found! Now that Ben Burrows is back in business, I’ve just ordered a special shorter bar with two round ends which should also allow me to keep 1 and 2 damped if required. WIll report back if the plan works.
Cheers
Calum

I could definitely see that working Calum. I imagine it would be quite comfortable in the hand, too. A sort of Push You-Pull Me, double ended affair? I'm sure I've seen something like this being demonstrated by two young ladies on the internet.

Calum
Danny's use of the Internet did not extend to the Bobby Semour interview I posted earlier under the heading
" watch and weep."
This video is from Mike Ihde interviewing Bobby Seymour, it's well worth viewing and puts a new " slant " on how to use a steel guitar without or even with pedals!
The link below is from Mike

go to http://www.vimeo.com/319548120

My understanding of the method you are trying to adapt is one that is very similar to the style that Bobby used in his playing, he uses open strings and the tip of the bar, are you attempting to try the " Cheuchter " version and hold your bar on the strings while using pedals and levers as well as the open strings?
Please keep us informed of your endeavours on pedal steel and any visits to the Internet for further help from Danny's young " ladies " push pull double ended affair!
As a P. S. to this post I think you really do need to get out of the house a bit more and cultivate worms in the garden
Cheers
Robert

Sounds like an interesting idea Calum, I like to do a similar thing, especially with the low B, sounds good combining the open low B with the bar on fret 7. Often it's tricky not to touch the bottom string with the end of the bar, could be the solution to that.

Keep us informed how you get on with this

I believe Mr Emmons has a technique for this: from 5:28 to about 5:45

Sid
Thanks for posting the video, Buddy Emmons was a master of everything including his expertise with the bar, the width of the slants and his method of spinning a heavy bar like that on the strings, give new meaning to " bar control "
I can't wait to see Calum doing this and using his open string technique as well at Gartcosh in a few months time, certainly will be an all ticket event, if he can pull it off!

Amazing playing on the vid Sid though not my cup of tea musically. However, strangely enough, I have also been working on the trick Buddy used there. I have a looper pedal in the board plus my tape delay pedal can also loop. The trouble is finding an available appendage to work it in time. I’m going to try a palm lever ‘footswitch’ and see if it can be made to work. In the meantime Robert, don’t start selling any tickets unless its to see a bubble bursting big time....
Cheers
Calum

Wow Calum, you don't like an easy ride, do you? I believe Buddy Emmons was given to double-footing some of the pedals for the back neck, so presumably you could hop off the volume pedal to operate the looper with a bit pf practice... Or get a special bluetooth-enabled bar with a couple of buttons on it? I know I shouldn't encourage you, but I really want to keep pushing until we find out where your limits are...! Will there be a live web broadcast from Gartcosh that we can subscribe to?

As a side note, I did a research project a few years back involving artificial neural networks (geek city!), and there have been many developments in 'mind control' for prosthetic limbs e.g. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5726621, so maybe you could get a 'Doctor Octopus' kind of set-up with some extra appendages - though watch out in case they become self-aware

Bluetooth Bar! Let me say that again. Bluetooth Bar!! Sheer genius!
I tried the on and off the volume pedal thing with the looper on the floor but its really hard to control the volume when your size 10 lands on it again. Also, I might be wanting to include a swell in the first part of the loop so that means an extra leg and you know what happened to the last guy that tried that.......
Back to the machine......
Cheers

Here’s one I made earlier as they used to say. Not polished or anything till I see if it works. My record on polishing inventions when they are working happily is not good however.........