The British Steelies Society

Danny Mitchell wrote:I aim for at least 20mins a day and 2 hours on a good day, but at the moment the youngest fruit of my loins is back in the family home and the steel is languishing under the bed. So my playing's going backwards
If it's a short session I work on simple chord exercises, and on longer sessions I'll start with exercises and then try to work out whatever songs have been picked for the monthly Gartcosh meet. These meets have been the best motivation.

Great post Ken, and I was wondering, if, when you manage an 8 hour block do you spend 1 hour on each instrument

Ha. I didn't say I did a block of 8 hours Danny. The maximum that I do these days in one hit is a couple of hours and then take a break before the next session. I sometimes spend some practice time on my pedal resonator, and also a bit of time on one of my 6-string guitars. Pedal steel wise I tend to use my push pull Emmons, because that guitar makes me think a bit more laterally than my more modern guitars. I also spend at least an hour on my picking technique - mainly on pick blocking.

Nick Bidmade wrote:Great topic, Ken.
I try and put in at least an hour every day, sometimes two. Like others, it's mainly 'indisciplined' - playing tunes from tab and practising tunes for our next steel guitar meeting.
I do have some tabbed out exercises but they are either too difficult, too dull or downright boring! My attention wanders and I'm back to playing from tab or tunes I've learned.
I do run through the Winnie Winston book from time to time and this I use as a way of measuring progress - either by being able to play tunes I had previously struggled with, or playing some of the tunes quite well!
I would like some exercise pointers and some examples of exercises that have some educational as well as musical merit.
Any suggestions?

I'm not sure that I can give you the definitive advice of exercises Nick, but maybe others here can offer you help in that direction. I don't use tab much - apart from some given to me by Buck Reid of his stuff that could be considered to be extremely advanced level. To be honest I struggle to piece together much of his up tempo stuff, but bearing in mind that Buck is one of the best players on the planet, it's no wonder that I find it a struggle.

Rule number one for me when practising is NEVER go over stuff that I can already play. I find it is pointless as I am not learning anything. As I said previously, working out moves - especially on the bottom strings, form a big part of my practise time. Two other things that I do from time to time is (1) to play along with different chord progressions that I put into Band In A Box, and (2) go through my music books and check out bass lines that I can use on C6.

Scales don't provide my with a lot of pleasure, but major, minor and diminished scales can be fun. My old mate Ron Mawn spent some time with Jimmy and Elsie Crawford in Nashville years ago, and Jimmy would sit Ron down behind his Emmons guitar and ask Ron to show him a run in a minor key. He had a thing about playing minor scales.