Plank Players

[mick hearn]

Just a thought but lets see who picks up on this.

I am listening to Steel Radio and Buddy Emmons was playing "Country Boy Bounce". Now we all admire him but I think we sometimes forget that he started life as a plank player before he moved on to developing the pedal steel. Certainly this tune was on C6 and you could hear the early runs of people like Joaquin Murphy and Noel Boggs. Do we in fact forget that purchasing a cheap 6 string lap steel and emulating some of the licks from the early days may teach us more about the pedal steel and thus improve our understanding and technique.

I throw it open to you all - including newbies to the pedal steel - give us your thoughts.



mick

[slimbo]

Very true with me Mick,but not on the E9 as I learned on that back in the late 60's, but I bought a lap steel off E Bay 3 years ago for £75 to try for some Hawaiian, in C6 tuning, and as I progressed I found a liking for the C6 pedal so one does initiate the other, now I play and learn C6 pedal a lot of the time, then go back to the Hawaiian and try the same moves there and it's amazing what you can do without pedals.

[mick hearn]

Thanks Slimbo.

You mention transfer to pedal C6 but I also think that once you go into bar slants either in C6 or E13 plank you start to realise why Buddy went the way he did. The main slants to go from a 1 to a 4 on a plank does exactly the same as the A and B pedals on E9 but ignoring the 6th i.e. one pedal raises half a tone and the other a full tone - this is what makes you think of the link between the plank and the pedal and understanding becomes a bit clearer - but I could be wrong.

[Ken Byng]

I have a 10 string lap steel that Brit Barry Gaskell made utilising much of a Pro 111 Sho~Bud, incl. neck, bridge assy and headstock. It is tuned to C6 with a D on top, and I sit there playing it through a POD with cans on while wifey watches some crap programs on TV. I have learned so many single string runs, scales and various chords since acquiring the guitar a couple of years ago. The sustain is just incredible. Really helped with my pedal steel playing.

[Tony Russell Davis]

Absolutely agree! There is so much on the "pedal" C6th that you can do without pedals (by moving the bar like they used to) - pedal E9th doesn't quite work so well that way, it was developed for pedalling.