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There's a book on Knutsen available (don't recall the name) and a website run by Gregg Miner

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Website - The Hawaiian Guitars Of Chris Knutsen

Book - Chris J.Knutsen: From Harp Guitars To The New Hawaiian Family by Noe and Most.

Highly recommended.

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

I've been reading your posts, and while I se where you're coming from, here's a few things I'd like to say:

Listen to "Admirable Byrd" by Jerry Byrd and tell me the pedal steel is a completely different instrument. Just because a standard guitar has a B-Bender doesn't make it a completely different instrument from any other standard guitar, and that's basically the same mechanism as a pedal.

You're right. A banjo isn't a steel guitar. It takes more than fingerpicks to make a steel guitar, it takes a steel bar. A banjo isn't played with a steel bar (heck, clawhammer banjo isn't even played with fingerpicks), and is therefore not a steel guitar. And you can play a Dobro or straight steel steel without a bar (again, listen to "Chime In" on the above mentioned Byrd LP).

Basically, "violin is to guitar as Dobro is to pedal steel" just isn't a convincing comparison in my book. Jerry Douglas' right hand playing is different from a pedal steel players. Not because his guitar lacks pedals, but because he plays in a different musical style. Johnny Sibert played electric steel guitar close to that of a dobro player, and Alvino Rey played pedal steel nothing like those who would follow him. It's the same as Jimmy Martin playing a different style of standard guitar than Grady Martin (their instruments are related, even though they're not).

Of course the two (pedal and non-pedal steel) are different, but they are still in the same musical family, they are both Hawaiian steel guitars. The gradual evolution over the first half of the 20th century is what keeps a Stella with a warped neck and a D-10 8/5 Emmons so close. It's a beautiful thing, I think. So different, yet still so close.

Most steel tunings from Hawaii were based in either E or A chords. The concept behing Bud Isaacs tuning, was he could have E7 and A6 on the same tuning. How he stumbled upon that "gliss", and why he chose to make a style of it, I don't know, but it sure did change things. However, is his two pedal Bigsby guitar that different from any other Bigsby D-8 that didn't have tone raising pedals? My point is, it's still the same musical instrument.

And on the subject as bar slants, Buddy Emmons, Lloyd Green, Weldon Myrick, Jimmy Day, and countless other "pedal pushers" consider this fine art to be a cornerstone of their playing. I don't see how one can view the pedals as playing a bigger role in steel playing than the actual steel does. If I had started on pedals, I might think a little differently, but a tone bar is more than just a vibrating capo.

Just my thoughts,

CS

P.S.
This next song is in C#.

[This message was edited by Chris Scruggs on 20 June 2005 at 12:03 AM.]

One comment made quite a few times here and in 'Bar Slants' regards having started on pedal or non-pedal. I started on pedal (after wood-shedding your grampa's stuff on b@nj0 for 5 years). A few years ago I bought a dobro and a tele.

The only thing they all have in common for me is the basic right hand technique of using finger picks and rolls.
BUT; I think differently when playing dobro than pedal; and not just a little diff but like it's a completely diff instrument.

One thing I've noticed is that some guys play pedal mostly from the perspective that the pedals give them new/altered tunings on an otherwise 'static' neck, ie: mash a pedal then slide and slant your way around to find the scale tones and chord grips you want.

The other guys, Green being the epitome, make the pedals the focal point of the actual real-time playing, IN PLACE OF, sliding and slanting around a static tuning. In other words, the pedals are dynamic within the style, not passive 'tuning changers'; so that we hear constantly changing voices harmonizing or counterpointing; glissing from tone to tone WITHIN a phrase.

This is not available in the same fundamental way on a non-pedal instrument.

For many years I had always associated a slide guitar as a being a standard guitar played with a metal sleeve or stall worn over one finger. Blues were the original venue, but later some of the rock guitarists also used the one finger slide for special effects.

At first I attempted to explain what I thought was the difference in a "slide" guitar and a "steel" guitar, but I was usually met with a blank stare, so I finally accepted that to younger musicians any and every guitar that is played with an object instead of fingering...is defined by them as a "slide" guitar.

Definitions and language seem to change from one generation to the next...and I accept that.

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www.genejones.com

[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 28 June 2005 at 04:04 PM.]