I hate that lick! I know it's probably just me. I have heard it done by many pros but it has become a novelty/cliche that irritates me!

OK, I feel better now.

I like all the other licks (about a gazillion) available on a steel guitar neck. It's just that one I don't like. I realize I'm probably in the minority here, but I even like Steel Guitar Rag!

Anybody else have a lick that they just don't like?

This is just another of my weird personal opinions that I get so very much joy in posting! I expect hardly anyone to agree with me, but that's OK, I respect your tastes and opinions, and also love hearing about them.

I love Lloyd, and I consider him to be one of the truly all time greatest steel guitarists in the world. But I simply do not care for that lick.

Can someone tab what you are talking about.

It's the same note, same octave, played on different strings. If written in standard music notation it would be the same note repeated about five times.

A piano player would put one finger on one key and play it over and over.

On steel we play it on different strings, so it sounds slightly different due to string guages.

example:
On E9 , in C :
1st fret 5th string, then 3rd fret of the 6th string (B pedal down), then 6th fret 7th string, followed by 8th fret-8th string, then 10th fret-9th string, then 13th fret 10th string.

Of course you can use only fragments of it, or add/remove pedals and re-adjust the bar ed fret as needed.

It's a good exersize, and like any spice, tasty if not over-used.

"Mr. Dixon, it may have escaped your attention but I retired in 1988, playing very rarely in public during the subsequent years other than St. Louis. I'm afraid your disparagement is directed at the wrong person or persons for overuse of the "ricochet" effect on the steel since I have only recently returned to the recording arena.
While I admit to giving birth to the idea I
don't believe I have overused the lick nor, in my view, do I think I should be held accountable for those who do abuse or play it ubiquitously.
If you had heard my newest CD, "Revisited", you would have listened in vain for that heretical lick. I only use it with discretion and taste, to sometimes tie phrases together, but not as an entity of it's own, except on two occasions where I played it as a signature, "Ricochet" and as the ending on another tune I wrote, "All-Nite Juke", both from my "Lloyd's of Nashville" album in 1979.
The lick that's used on many recordings of the past 15 years is also one I was using on records in 1964. That is the full tone unison raise of string 1 to match 3. I played it on a number of records for about 3 months before I took it back off, realizing the very limited variability and one lick status of it. So neither you nor B. Seymour can hold me accountable for the modern incarnation of that one either. Besides, I would never play it the way it is used on modern recordings,you will have to hold those doing most of the records accountable for that. Again, I use a better imagery for that one in one segment of "Ashokan Farewell" (the 7th bar of the third steel passage), which, in my view, is a more advanced concept of that figure; and there are numerous other usages of that particular unison combination that I have at my command. However, they involve raising the 1st string 1/2 tone with a knee lever and using a bar slant for the other 1/2 tone interval. This effectively opens the door to an entire panorama of 1st and 3rd string unison and offspring ideas,hardly any of which are accessible with the typical whole tone lever raise.
So, essentially, Mr. Dixon, I refuse to disavow my culpability for these two benign steel guitar patterns. Hell, I think they were pretty clever in their infancy, if
not in their maturity."

Lloyd's comment:

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"I only use it with discretion and taste"

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Bill Ferguson

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http://www.steelpicker.com/pictures/Carter-Peavey.jpg

Stop worrying about what makes a steel work and concentrate on how YOU make it sound"

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If You Keep Pickin That Thing, It'll Never Heal!
;)

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It is a "lick" that was way overused 7 years ago, and it's still here! I think it's a crutch for studio players that have no imagination and can't think of anything else to do. This "lick" takes absolutly no talent or expertise to play and can be played well by any beginner, any time in any key at any stage of the steel players career.

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Maybe we should all see if we can play it first and then decide if we want to use it or not.After all..ain't nuthin wrong with extra bullets in the arsenal...

By the way, this little lick is especially effective when playing Blues on the Lower Ten...

I ain't no Grand Pu-Bah..just an entry level Pu-Bah..

happy friday

"The entire purpose in using the so called "ricochet" lick was perhaps best stated to me by someone who is both highly intelligent and immensely musically gifted, Jerry Douglas.
Sometime in the 1980s, after Jerry and I had done some recording together with Ricky Skaggs and The Whites he called one day and asked if I minded if he added this idea to his playing style, explaining his thoughts. He felt and feels this pattern is a helpful "bridge" and "tie", enabling one to get from one part of a song to another in a smoother, more fluid fashion than the jagged manner of abruptly making the change.
He is correct, and that is the way he incorporates the pattern and it's the way I use it. He and I both use only bits and parts of the equation for it's intended purpose, not the whole phrase. You only use as many unison notes as it takes to cross the "bridge". And like any other lick, our recurrent recording studio theme is, as always, the caveat that "less is more".
I, of course, gave Jerry Douglas my unconditional approval. Not that he needed it, but it demonstrated to me what a thoughtful, warm, self-confident human being he was to even ask for my approval.
Jim Cohen and a few others posting on this little incendiary issue intuitively understand how to use the phrase in music, and it is, indeed, merely one small bit of knowledge to add to the musical vocabulary enabling one to play more fluently."

I wish I had a tenth as much talent as either of these two fine gentleman.

I'm leaving in a few hours to play this weekend. I'll try to play this lick with special feeling just for those of you who don't care for it

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God Bless,
Steve Stallings

www.pedalsteeler.com

The F# to G# change has much more to offer than just the one unison lick. I doubt very seriously if players whom I believe truly play with extreme intelligence, Buddy, Tommy, Rugg, etc. see it as a shallow one lick change. Players like me who enjoy playing more complex chord structures do gain alot from having this change. Slanting the bar does not give the full harmonic possibilities.

players eventually have to play the licks (Lloyds or the F# to G#) as I have when the artist and producer plays the demo and says I love the steel part. I have to admit I never say no because I like the phone ringing.

Also I agree that unisons are a great connecting source and know one used it or hid it better than the soulful Jimmy Day.

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Roger Rettig

Perhaps Paul Franklin misunderstands my position on the F# to G# change. I raise my F# a 1/2 tone, using the bar slant for the other 1/2 tone raise when I need it. I would defy him or any other player to determine, without seeing my bar move, that I was not using a lever to raise a full tone when I desire that change.
Now, I've been doing this a lot longer than Paul and I know the full capabilities of
each. The way I actuate the F# to either G or G# has tremendously more mathematical possibilities than his way, which I discarded as ineffectual when he was 13 or 14 years of age.
How many ways have you heard the full tone pull played on recordings in recent years?
Those who were not part of the Nashville recording scene in the 1960s, '70s and 80s can only guess at what we were experimenting with, and discarding when we felt they were dead end directions.
I have found, since returning to sessions,only one single producer who didn't ask me to play my own ideas, but a generic formula instead. I think the times are in the midst of change and, while I'm not wanting nor trying to be the top session player anymore - and I was for at least ten or twelve years, despite what you have been told on here in the past by those who wouldn't know - it is my goal to again play steel on records that has an originality and interest.
And if Paul will review this thread he will find that it was Bobbe Seymour who was dissing the way he and others play that lick on records. I was responding to Bobbe.

It's just a lick guys and no disrespect is intended and this thread was intended to be partly in fun. I did not perceive Carl's comments as disrespectful toward Lloyd Green and I am sure he did not intend it as such.

If I recall, Chuck Berry was doing this lick on guitar 45 years ago.

Johnny Cox, I'll be steelin' all your lick on that wonderful record (except one)!

Lloyd Green, I have your "Revisited" CD in my computer right now. It's already a classic!

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The way I actuate the F# to either G or G# has tremendously more mathematical possibilities than his way, which I discarded as ineffectual when he was 13 or 14 years of age

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Just one little question...how many of you out there have a half-stop on that change, so that you can get both G and G#?

..I've seen some poor attempts at eloquence on this forum that look like someone is pulling big words out of the dictionary and stringing them together in a disjointed, stilted soliloquy in a half-butted attempt to make people think they are more intelligent than they really are...

...there's no mistaking the real deal...

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This one can be done on a guitar but not very easily

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This is not true. A historical note. The "ricochet lick" (playing a note on one string, and then sliding or stretching into the same note on an adjacent string) dates back to the guitar playing on "Johnny B. Goode" as performed by Chuck Berry in the late '50's, a seminal recording that redefined guitar-playing and popular music. It has always been a staple of rock, blues, and jazz guitarists for decades.

Btw, the best version of the "ricochet" lick I've heard is on Lloyd's version of "Borrowed Angel" from Revisited. The way you can really hear the tone change when he moves from the lighter to heavier strings is just perfect! Thanks for that record, Lloyd, truly one of my very favorites!

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The "ricochet lick" (playing a note on one string, and then sliding or stretching into the same note on an adjacent string) dates back to the guitar playing on "Johnny B. Goode" as performed by Chuck Berry in the late '50's

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Jeff, I just have to comment on this! As a die hard Django Reinhardt freak, I can say that Django used this lick first! On this excerpt from "Django's Tiger" (31. jan 1946 to be exact!), you can hear it at the end of Django's phrase!

Django phrase

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that Django used this lick first

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Thanks Niklas. I listened and you're certainly right. So basically this lick was played back in 1946, pre-dating Chuck Berry by over a decade. I wonder who Django got it from.

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Jeff's Jazz

[This message was edited by Jeff Lampert on 31 October 2003 at 08:49 AM.]

That's it for sure. I suspect it was also played on many other instruments, long before.

It seems to me that given any instrument that can play the same note at many different places, it is only a matter of time before a skillful player will discover it sounds cool to string them together.

The real artistry comes in knowing how (and how not) to apply it. The end goal is to create music.

Back to the original question,

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"Anybody else have a lick that they just don't like?"

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