It appears as I think back over the evolution of the lap steel guitar that lap steel players tend to fall into basically 1 of 3 groups:

1. Those that never slant

2. Those that ocassionaly slant.

3. Those that slant often.

Western swing players generally fall into the first case, more or less.

Dobro players generally fall into the second case more or less.

Hawaiian type and "Popular" players generally fall into the 3rd case.

There is a reason for all three cases IMO. I will explain.

Western swing players tend to play a lot of big chord "notes". IE, every note is a chord in practical terms. Tom Morrell is a case in point. EVEN, when they don't play full chords, they play the "positions" where the chord in all likely hood is found. Don Helms is a prime example of this. I will talk about this further on in this post.

Dobro players tend to favor the "stevens" type bar. As such this bar does NOT lend itself to the highly versatile and often fast "slanting" that is so easy to do with a round bar. Also, the "steven" type slanters often use the entire hand to accomplish slants, instead of just using the fingers. Thus the slants are rarely used for sustain; rather it is used just to get the next notes in a passage of music. The late Bashful Brother Oswald was an example of this.

Jerry Bryd of course, is the master of the 3rd type of slanting. He also is the world's absolute master at the "split slant" (as he calls it). IE, two strings straight while the 3rd string is slanted.

Now, it is here where the use of the slant really tends to "identify" the type of music one is playing. The following is a prime example of what I mean:

C6 tuning. (E on Top) Key of G

1. Bar at the 14th fret picking strings 2 and 3 or the 3rd and 5th tones of the G chord. B and D.

2. Slide and slant the bar up to the 16th and 15th frets respectively; and get the next major 3rd notes typical in music. In this case C and E.

This movement soooooo often done by Hawaiian and "popular" style players is fluid and "sustains" the musical passage. And so typifies how JB plays.

On the other hand, western swing players and many Dobro players will rarely EVER do this. Rather; they will simply:

1. Mute the strings after picking strings 2 and 3 at the 14th fret.

2. Move the bar back to the 12th fret and get the next major 3rd, by picking strings 1 and 2.

Don Helms did this almost exclusively when he backed HW. So do western swing players do this almost all the time. Dobro players fit somewhere in between. On the other hand players like JB, rarely ever does this.

In summation, the slant (or lack thereof)tends to identify the type of steel guitar playing one is doing; more or less. If you are a new player to lap-steel, listen for this distinguishing aspect when you are hearing lap steel played in various types of music.

And by all means learn to do both. Unless you are content to play only one type. There is basically nothing wrong with this. JB and DH, et al, have made lifetime careers out of doing it only one way. But I still believe it might be better if one learned both ways.

God bless TM, BBO, DH, and JB, plus all the other lap steelers, and ALL of you,

carl

Instructional videos by various artists - approx. $39.50

Carl Dixon's insight - priceless

[This message was edited by HowardR on 12 January 2003 at 11:08 AM.]

Be happy to. The "split slant" appears at first to be impossible. But Jerry Byrd and others proved this not to be the case at all. Here is an example of two of Jerry's favorites:

1. Strings 1 and 2 at the 12th fret, and string 4 at the 11th fret. (D9th chord)

2. Stings 2 and 3 at the 14th fret and string 5 at the 13th fret. (G7th chord)

You can see it more clearly by using the C6th standard tuning (E on top):

E
C
A
G
E
C

with the split slants it looks like the following (picked strings in bold):

E
C
A
F#
E
C

F#
D
B
A
F
D

Now the big question? HOW did JB and others do this with a straight bar?

You simply make use of the rounded nose of the bar. So you slant the bar in such a manner that you obtain the bottom slanting strings; then the rounded part (or nose) of the bar catches the top string as though it were not slanted at all.

Jerry says that you have to experiment with different size AND bullet shaped bars to make the slant true.

Interesting bit of trivia. For 40 years I could always get the D9th type slant perfect. I could NEVER get the G7th type slant to sound right. UNTIL my dear friend Garland Nash showed me a clever little trick a fews years back. He said to press the bar down on the "middle" string, in this slant, so it sharpens that string just enough to pull it in tune. Blew my mind. Then I saw JB do it. And that is precisely what he did. All those years I never noticed Jerry doing it.

"Ya live and learn"

Good luck, and God bless you in your quests,

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 12 January 2003 at 11:59 AM.]

My cup runneth over and I have you to thank !!

At times the chord is almost dissonent but with JB, it sounds ok. In fact one that he does often on his diatonic tuning sounds EVEN better than the "V7 to I chord" resolve on a PSG using the B pedal and the knee lever that lowers the 4th string a half a tone picking strings 4, 5 and 6.

Jerry makes use of a 1/4 tone note; or there abouts. The following is an example (picked notes in bold):

E
B
C
A
G (raised a quarter tone)
F
F

Note: this won't work when using the regular C6th tuning. It will sound just like the notes on a PSG in this case. Also notice he HAS those notes without slanting! But the sound he gets using the "split the difference" affect, gives it that "haunting" sound that often drives us crazy.

I was soooooo interested in this sound that Jerry gets; that I have developed a way to do it when I am playing in the B6th mode; playing Jerry byrd style on my PSG. But it took a long time to get it right.

"Where there is a will, there IS a way"

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 12 January 2003 at 12:23 PM.]

No, I am talking about actually pushing the nose of the bar down in such a way that the "B" note (in my example) is raised slightly in pitch without the other two notes being raised or lowered.

The best way to describe this on paper is to think of one just starting to put their hand underneath a pillow. In this example, the hand represents the bar and the pillow represents the string. In other words, you are pushing down and forward ONLY on the middle note. Yet the rounded part of the bar does not move the top string. Nor does the bar move the bottom string. It is NOT easy to get right at first. But a little practice makes perfect.

I have watched JB and my friend Garland do it so quickly and effortlessly and just shook my head in awe. Stay with it friend. It WILL come.

God luck with it and may Jesus be with you,

Below is tab showing a couple of these split slant positions and how to use them in a I, IV, V pattern.

     C6            F7           G7         C
E---------------|-------------|----------|-12
C----12--12-----|--12--12-----|--14--14--|-12
A----12--12-----|--12--12-----|--14--14--|---
G---------------|-------------|----------|-12
E----12--12-----|--11--11-----|--13--13--|---
C---------------|-------------|----------|--- 
                     
 
     C6            F9            G7        C6
E----12--12-----|--15--15-----|----------|---
C----12--12-----|--15--15-----|--14--14--|-12
A----12--12-----|-------------|--14--14--|-12
G---------------|--14--14-----|----------|---
E---------------|-------------|--13--13--|-12
C---------------|-------------|----------|--- 

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My Site - Instruction | Doug's Free Tab | Steels and Accessories

"It's Ah Co(coanut Grove)"

1. Bar straight on It's (10th fret).

2. Slant the bar on Ah (moving up two frets)

3. Bar straight again on Co. (10th fret)

His slants are so quick and fluid as to mimic the finest crafted and oiled machine. Here is another example of just how quick he can execute slants (I wrote this up once before on this forum).

Jerry does a backward to foward slant on HW's "Cold Cold Heart" that is incredibly smooth and just as equally a hard to do pair of slants. It takes you from a V7 chord to the I chord in a very pretty sustained phrase:

Pick strings 1 and 3 for both chords.

1st string 10th fret. 3rd string 11th fret. Now immediately slide and reverse the slant using the same two frets. That is, 1st string 11th fret and 3rd string 10th fret.

The slant should look like this >> X

Try it, you will love it.

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 12 January 2003 at 05:41 PM.]

I've used these positions for years and these split string chords really help you get the most out of C6th or C13th tuning. Some other useful positions are ...

G aug               G dim        G9
     
E-----7---------|-------------|----------|--
C-----7---------|-----7-------|----9-----|--
A-----6---------|-----7-------|----8-----|--
G---------------|-----6-------|----------|--
E---------------|-------------|----7-----|--
C---------------|-------------|----------|-- 
                     
 
     E7             E7          G7 or Em       
E----12---------|-------------|----12----|--
C---------------|----8--------|----11----|--
A----11---------|-------------|----10----|--
G---------------|----9--------|----------|--
E----10---------|----10-------|----------|--
C---------------|-------------|----------|-- 

E --   10      9      8      7
C --    9  to  9  to  -  to  -
A --    8      8      8      8

E --  5      9      13      
C --  5  to  9  to  13  .....
A --  4      8      12      

and Diminished runs:

E --  -      -      -       - 
C --  5  to  8  to  11  to  14 .....
A --  5      8      11      14
G --  4      7      10      13

are pretty

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My Steel Shoes Site

[This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 12 January 2003 at 06:43 PM.]

But harmonics still frighten me. I do them; but I'm like a Navy F-18 pilot doing a night carrier landing when I'm playing them. The pilot keeps looking at his watch saying "in fifteen more minutes I have to land". I say, "here come those darn harmonics" when I'm playing.

Right now, I practice harmonics looking at my right hand only and try to be on fret with the bar from only what I guess will be the correct place. I sure would like to learn to do harmonics with more ease.

...don't mean to change the subject; but since so many are focused on technique in this thread;___this is my weakest area of my playing.

Been there done that! Maybe this story will help you. I had lunch with Buddy Charleton once and we got to talking about Jerry Byrd's and Buddy Emmons' incredible harmonics. And Buddy C, told me that he personally saw BE practice doing harmonics for 4 solid hours one night backstage at the Grand Ole Opry.

My feeling is, if BE did that at the Opry, how many more hours did he do it? In other words, harmonics like slants or anything else is NOT going to come thru osmosis. It is from the school of "hard work". As JB once said,

"Practice, Practice, Practice".

I can attest that it DOES indeed work.

Bless you,

I can only use my thumb and my index finger (ruined my right hand playin' High School football) ... So I like chords on adjacent strings ... "strummers"

I can use my thumb to sweep the bottom strings and pick the top with my index on somethin' like this:

E ---------
C -- 4    5
A -- - to -
G -- 5    5
E -- 6    5

But with alot of the fancy chord work .... I have to "go without" ... usually leaving out the middle note ...

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My Steel Shoes Site

I just bought a Twister tone bar, the one with a bullet on both ends, and I'm trying out the new possibilities; one that jumped out is a new minor chord. Again in C6 at the 12th fret, it would be an Em (or a partial C major 7th) with e and g at the 12th fret on strings 4 and 5, and b on the 11th fret on string 2.

This is where a lot of people err. They do it mechanically and it don’t come out good. The best thing I could do is refer you to my video where I get into this pretty heavily and demonstrate how they should do it.
To answer Don McClellan’s problem where he can’t seem to get very good tone out of a 3 string slant (chord) such as playing string 5 at the 7th fret and strings 2 and 3 or 3 and 4 at the 8th fret and so on. This is what I call split string. I discovered this years and years ago. If you play the top three strings and you slant that one fret, top string stays one fret lower than the third string, the second string can be played if you know how to do it. What I discovered years ago was that I had to have a bar about ¾” in diameter (just about) and a gently rounded nose not a pointed nose and with the string spacing 3/8.” You can put the bar between those strings and it will make contact on either side of the bar right about where the tapering of the nose starts on the shaft and it will go right between them and you can play three strings. Two on the 7th fret split and the 3rd string on the 6th fret and in different tunings you have different chords but in the Emajor tuning it would be the most logical to figure out. You go from a major to a minor chord (those three strings). I have been doing that for years. I have been playing diminished, augmenteds, 9th chords, 7th chords, a lot of stuff – different inversions of those chords all of that by splitting the string but you can’t do it with any kind of a bar and any kind of a guitar. The string spacing has to be right for the size of the bullet nosed bar as it has to make contact on both sides equally. The only one that would come out a little less than normal would be the top string. So what I do to compensate for that is kind of push the bar a little bit rather than leave it in a normal position where it makes better contact with the top string but when played in sequence you don’t hear it anyway. I have been playing stuff that way and people could not figure out what I was playing for years. I have been recording this stuff for years and they are now just catching on or figuring out what I was doing and why.

To those avoiding three string slants I guess that is one way around but it is so simple and right under your nose there is no need to avoid them. I call this the split string technique and it is vital to my playing.

I got confused also, when I read Jerry's comments by Jack. I can't imagine WHY JB would want to push against the top string since that is easily trued by the bar. The problem (for me and my friend Garland Nash) has always been the middle string being slightly flat and thus out of tune.

So Garland's technique, sharpens the middle string buy pushing it down an forward just slightly while trueing the top and bottom strings.

It appears to my eyes that this is what Jerry is doing when I watch him play. I suspect we are both talking about the same thing. But just describing differently. If I am incorrect about what Jerry meant, by ALL means go with what he says. After all, he is the one who invented the "split" slant.

Thanks for asking,

But he does share a valuable tip regarding the "top" string's tendency to come out sounding a little flat due to the contour of the bullet tip.

quote:

---

I can't imagine WHY JB would want to push against the top string since that is easily trued by the bar.The problem...has always been the middle string being slightly flat and thus out of tune.

---

The top string is easily trued by the bar if an adequate portion of the bar is applied to it...but for the split-slant technique, this means that you are in fact applying too much of the bar to that top string and not properly distributing the tip between that "top" and "middle" string.

If you place too much emphasis on that top string, then yes, that "middle" string will come out sounding flat. Try to concentrate more on getting that bullet tip nestled right in that channel between those two strings (...so in your case, ease off on the top string). You will then observe that, due to the nature of the slant, more pressure is naturally applied to the middle string (the bar is more fully applied to the middle string while the top string is only "pressed" by the very tip of the tapered bullet end)...the top string will sound below the desired pitch and you will need to compensate for this by "pushing" on it a bit more.

Oh my, listen to me use that word, "properly"...Yikes! Carl: in the end, if whatever you're doing brings you the results you desire...hey more power to ya, man.

[This message was edited by Jeff Au Hoy on 20 January 2003 at 09:53 PM.]

I believe he did. Just like I believe he invented C6 (actually Amin7). I also believe he pushes on the middle string, NOT the first string. IF Jerry tells me I am incorrect, I will stand corrected.

In any case, I push on the middle string, because THAT is the string that was always FLAT when I did it; PRIOR to Garland showing me the technique.

Think C6th Tuning: Think "D" chord at the second fret. NOW.........place the tip of the bar on the 1st (E) string at the 7th "G" fret position; then pick as follows:

3rd string.........7th fret
1st string.........7th fret

3rd string.........6th fret
1st string.........7th fret

4th string.........7th fret
1st string.........7th fret

4th string.........6th fret
1st string.........7th fret

This will put you in position for the "A" chord.

To make this more interesting and equally fun, do the very same thing HOWEVER, include
the 2nd string in this exercise.

The first thing will be:

3rd string ..............7th fret
1st & 2nd strings.........7th fret

3rd string ..............6th fret
1st/2nd strings split slant..7th fret

4th string ..............7th fret
1st/2nd strings...........7th fret

4th string ..............6th fret
1st/2nd strings .........7th fret

Again, this puts you in position for "A"
chord. Do-dah; Do-day; Do-dah; Do-dah while letting it ring.

Another FUN Slant and Slide involves only the 1st and 3rd strings:

Think "D" chord. Go to 9th fret "A" position. Place nose of bar on 1st string at 8th fret while the opposite end of the bar is placed at the 10th fret.

Pick the strings and then..........
From this reverse slant, move the nose of the bar from the 8th fret up to the 10th fret in a staight bar position; THEN.... drop the lower end of the bar back to the 9th fret position "D" chord. It will play tricks on your hearing until you get used to it. The slide must be completed on SUSTAIN alone.

ACCURACY is the WORD! Something for you to practice, practice practice.

It's that seamless continuity that Jerry is famous for that makes his work so fantabulous and there are few that can even come close to it.

He keeps that melody line going smoothly while others, as you say, have those annoying breaks and creates a jerky kind of scene for the ears.

Well said,

Jerry told me many years ago that he used to sit for hours and hours; and see how long he could stay on the same two strings playing a song. Then he would do it on two other strings and so on. Then he would try it using 3 strings, etc.

After hearing him say this, and listening to his awesome wizardry, it is little wonder he can keep a musical phrase going from here to eternity; regardless of whether his bar is straight, tipped, forward slanted, reverse slanted, forward split slanted or reverse split slanted.

Simply an almost impossible feat. Yet he does it effortlessly, and with such tone and heart, it almost defies logic!

In a word, his dexterity and mastery on the non pedal steel is absolute. He is to the lap steel what Vladimir Horowitz was to the piano.

"And THAT includes those yet unborn!"

God love him, and ALL of you,