The more I study the Pedal Steel Guitar the more I realize the most important part…the player. As I look at the beauty of the Pedal Steel Guitar with the nice finish I can get lost in the craftsmanship that it took to create the machine. But as it sets there all alone it is merely furniture. It takes the human hands to create music on this machine. To help train your hands I use drills with specific movements. Here is an example of an alternating move using animations. The key is learning them slowly as individual moves and then speeding them up gradually. The body can understand more complex things and then when you learn to speed up the correct movement you will see improvement in your playing. With all of the moving parts of the pedal steel guitar it is best to separate and conquer. Learn small things slowly and then proceed from there.

As you weave you way through the strings, pedals, knee levers, bar, and everything else that combines to play a pedal steel you need to see that everything is a factor. BUT, the biggest factor is you… Your hands make the strings vibrate and create the sound. As you learn scales and licks you’ll find that each one is depending upon the ability of your hands to make the proper movements. The moves you need to know come with repetition.

I created 32 moves for your right hand years ago and tell students to work on making the moves without thinking about them. Proficiency and economy of movement is the KEY to playing a steel. The pedal steel adds the legs into the mix with the manipulation of the pedals and knee levers, but the hands are the key even for this learning process. There’s no need to push a pedal or knee lever if the hands are not in control of the strings.

To learn more about the movements that I’m talking about you need to look at DVD#1. It contains the right and left hand videos that help you develop the playing technique that you will need. These are not licks but drills that train dexterity. A lick is a combination of many techniques and I try to learn them separately rather than all at once. If you are trying to learn by using licks then you have to learn 3 to 10 techniques at the same time. That is when the body overload occurs and you make a mistake. Most beginners don’t know what went wrong. Was it the wrong pedal, string, knee, fret, etc.

The bottom line is that the human body is the key to playing any instrument. The pedal steel guitar is just furniture without the human body to manipulate the strings. Start to study movements that combine to create licks and some of the mystery of mastering this instrument will start to shine through. Of course it still takes you and lots of time to program the “machine” which is you.

Ever thought about playing the steel guitar right down to the knuckle? What involvement does the knuckle have? They can say a lot about your tone and your touch when you learn to play. Some players use the wrist to drive the fingers. In other words when they want to play one string with their thumb it takes their entire hand moving to accomplish this task. This also causes the other fingers to be away from the guitar. I always advocate keeping things close to your work.

You’ll have to analyze how you play your guitar. First how do you position your right hand? Is it in the Traditional position with the flat side of the hand along the pick-up? Is the top of the hand flat? All of these are factors in how you play your steel. The first thing you are told is that the traditional method is the “only” way to play but if you watch players’ hands around the world you’ll see a bunch of different ways to play. My latest video goes into this subject with great depth. It is called WebCast #13 PIck/Palm Blocking Concepts II. Get a copy and download it and you’ll see all the ways to hold your hand. All the ways to block.

Notice above that I put hand position and blocking in separate sentences. They are separate techniques that have to work together. Of course we also have to talk about picking the strings with our Thumb, Index and Middle fingers. We have the choice of our fingers, wrist, and forearm to help attack the strings. You’ll have to take a look at yourself and see where you position your hands, how you block and everything else that goes along with trying to learn to play pedal steel guitar. Of course you can get a one-on-one Skype lesson .here

We are now streaming a lesson every once in awhile that are geared towards the E9th Pedal Steel Guitar. This instruction is viewed online with Quicktime Player and then the student gets to login and download the video to their hard drive. You can then watch it as often as you wish.

There are currently 10 lessons already recorded and available for purchase. You can check out the WebCast Lessons at the shopping cart. They start out giving my basics, we get into the right hand to start off, then the left. then we put them together. This Pedal Steel Guitar learning method is based upon many years of studying what works best and what are the possibilities.

Watch the video clip to see what happens when we talk about scales. See how charts are seen on the screen to help the student learn the scale patterns that are necessary to becoming a better Pedal Steel player.