In reference to professional steel playing...I have to default to the numbers chart!

On other instruments, there may be more than one way to hit any given note, but on the PSG, the notes fall on different frets, depending on our pedal positions.

That doesn't mean it can't be done, but it requires more from us than the same skill would require from a player of another instrument. It's not easy, but it's not impossible.

Earlier in this thread, Bobby made a reference to my music theory book. This book began as a series of articles for SGW, and was later expanded into a book on ,music theory as it specifically pertained to the E9 neck. Eventually, when I re-wrote it for Mel Bay, I deleted all references to the steel and made it a generalized thing that applied to all instruments.

But in the steel guitar version (which is now out of print) I included a short lesson on how to sight read for the E9 tuning. I still have the file, and will gladly send it to anybody who writes to me and asks for it.

My DRUMMER is a monster at it. I was telling him about Doug Jernigan's version of Dexterity by Charlie Parker.. He said he didn't know it.. So I handed him the Realbook.

He just started singing it at FULL tempo, note perfect. I could almost hear the piano comping behind him. JUST SCARY !
Especially if you know Dexterity; the name is well earned.

They have one advantage here,
Do is ALWAYS C, Sol is always G, Fa = F etc
B which we call Ti is pronounced Ce here, which is VERY confusing... (they talking notes or sulfege...Auuggh.)

With the Berklee/Nashville # transposing system I know Do is F in F key and A in A key etc. And Do always I, So is always V etc.

Now, if I see the music is at a I chord, I go to a I chord position (fret and pedal/knee combination). On E9 there are at least three I chord positions: no pedals/knees, AB pedals, A pedal and F lever - pick one (on a universal you also have the I6 position). Now at that position I have to know what written note of the C scale, including the chromatics or accidentals, is on each of the 10 (or 12) strings plus what note each pedal and lever gives at that position. I would pick a beginning piano book and learn to play songs at that position until I could do simple melodies, including accidentals, and some chords. Once you get that under your belt, you will need to learn the same stuff at each of the other positions for a I chord.

There are some notes, especially accidentals, that are not available at some positions, or are hard to get. In that sense the pedal steel is not a truly chromatic instrument. Yes, you can always move the bar one way or another to get an accidental, but you then loose (or at least change) all the harmony strings. Knowing what scale notes or accidentals are not available at each I chord position will help you choose which of the three or more positions you should go to for a particular phrase or passage.

Now you can play in the key of C at any of several I chord positions. But you are only using a small fraction of the notes and harmonies available on the instrument. Next you have to learn to play in the key of C at the IV, V and relative minor (i.e., the VIm) positions. Again some, but not all, of the scale notes and accidentals in the key of C are available at each of these. Furthermore, each of those chords can be played at several positions. You have to learn to play the C scale and its accidentals at each of those. So where any other instrument learns to play a C scale (with accidentals) at one place on the instrument, a pedal steeler has to learn it at dozens of places. And this is just one key. There are 12 keys.

But we ain't even done with the key of C yet. Plenty of songs will contain other chords in the key of C: II, IIm, IIIb, III, VI, VII. You will want to be at some of those positions if they are in the progression of the song, so you will need to know the C scale and accidentals at those positions also.

Of course, at any of the above chord positions you might want to make the chord a 6th, 7th, 9th, augmented, suspended, etc. But that is not such a big problem, because the music you are reading will have the notes that make those changes. So if you just read the music and play the notes you read, those harmonies will automatically be made. That is in fact the way music readers play. They can play all sorts of complicated harmonies just by reading the music, but they can't necessarily name the chords on the fly as they read and play them. They don't have to, that's the beauty of reading music.

This is why it is so hard for us to read music on pedal steel. We have learned it backwards. We usually know roughly what chords and harmonies we are playing (at least by the number system), but not necessarily the names of the notes and what they look like in written music. People who learn an instrument by reading music know where all the individual written notes are on the instrument, and thus can play any written chords or harmony without knowing the chord names, even though they know the names of the individual notes. Pedal steelers are the opposite. We can go to a fret and hit the right combination of pedals and knees to get a chord we can name, but we may not be able to name the individual notes we are playing.

The neat thing about our way of playing is that we can transpose easily. Even a novice steeler can fairly easily change from playing in C to playing in C# or D. I have no idea what the scale and chords are in the key of Eb, I just know how to find the I, IV and V chords, etc. But for a piano player to transpose from the key of C to Eb, he has to know the Eb scale and chords. Very few piano players can do that. But if you shove the music in front of them written in the key of Eb, they are off and running.

So anyway, suppose a steeler has finally learned to read music at all the positions in the key of C. That is the biggest part of the problem. Yes there are 11 more keys. But all the chords in C will be in other keys as well, so as you learn a handful of the most common keys, you will know all the chords before you get around to all the keys.

Another way to look at this is to realize you have to learn all the written notes available at each of the 12 frets, and with every pedal and knee combination at each of those frets. That's 15 to 20 notes per fret, or 180 to 240 notes.

But now comes the hard part. Unless you are always going to scan your music into a computer and transpose it into C, you have to be able to recognize the chord progressions you see embedded in the written music in any key, in order to know what position to play at. This is what other instruments don't have to do. They just play the music as written and it automatically puts them at the right place on their instrument. Written music does not do that for the pedal steel (okay the 6-string guitar and orchestral strings have the same problem, but not nearly to the same degree).

This is giving me a headache and making me thirsty. It's gettin' late. I'm gonna go have a beer and play some music by ear. Buddy Emmons and Curly Chalker have done pretty good that way. If I could just do 0.00001% of that...

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 23 May 2003 at 10:41 PM.]

Obviously not for the whole of both necks.
But G & C in the treble clef
The C hash mark in between them
and F and C in the bass clef for a start.
Then I would be sure of where I am starting the process.

But ideally a full double staff scale with, off to the right, the PSG string / fret info.

Then I came on here tonight and there is b0b's notation of the open E9 and C6 necks. I was just thinking of one big 10-note chord, but spreading it out the way b0b did is more readable. It's really more of a scale than a chord, especialy when you add in the pedals and knees. Being vaguely aware of guitar notation, I was thinking of everything as an octave higher.

Now the next step is to write out the notation of the tuning at the C fret in the key of C. And also add the notes you get with each pedal and knee at the C fret. Notation works out a little better for steel in C than in E. In C the root on the 8th string is middle C. So everything above that is in the treble clef range, and everything below it is in the bass clef range.

The next thing to do is to go up (or down) to the F fret and do the same thing, then the G fret. Then do Am at the C fret with the A pedal, and also at the G fret with the BC pedals, etc. That's a pretty good start for being able to read music in the key of C. Just writing out and playing around with your own tuning in notation will begin to get you familiar with how written music relates to your tuning.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 25 May 2003 at 09:48 PM.]