I'm both a newbie to this forum and a newbie to the steel. I play non pedal (10 string E13), but I figured you guys could help me out since pedal steelers use so many speed picking patterns and such.

What are some basic picking patterns that I could practice to get my speed and accuracy up? I have a few that carry over from guitar, such as forward rolls and things like 'thumb-mid-thumb-index' alternating rolls, but it seems that one would need to know how to cross pick to get some of the backwards scales to work, and I just can't figure out a good clean pattern to use on most of it.

Thanks for any help.

I've found that different techniques work better for different things. It depends on the phrasing and your own dexterity--and your tone preferences, personal style, etc. As usual, the only common denominator between the picking techniques of different "elite" players is tons of practice. If you have somebody whose sound you like, you could decide to emulate their technique.

An example of the different, yet totally valid, ways of picking might be to look at Jerry Douglas' playing. Where someone else might play a simple forward roll Jerry will do a double hit with his thumb. Rather than thumb, index, middle on strings 6, 5 and 4 (say), he'll play thumb, thumb, index (or middle, I'm not actually sure). He prefers the heavier more powerful thumb hit. I saw him live and I think I might even have seen him do a triple thumb hit--and he does it as fast as I can do a regular forward roll.

For something interesting to look at, check out the Buddy Emmons "Blues to Use" course at buddyemmons.com. He puts what finger he's using for a given note beneath the tab, so you can see how he approaches the issue of double thumb hits, crossovers, etc. Or at least how he did it at the time he wrote the tab.

Coordinating crossover picking with complicated bar movement is really hard. Even if you get good at doing thumb-index/thumb-index crossovers from strings ten through one (thumb picks ten, index picks nine, thumb picks eight, index picks seven, etc.), trying to integrate that ability into playing actual music is, well... it's steel guitar playing, is what it is. I doubt you want to learn this because you heard it was easy.

Then there's the subject of blocking. Which is a whole other thing. You can block with your palm, picks, by fretting with the nose of your bar on the string being played so that when you move the bar to the next string the note stops ringing, with your left thumb, by lifting the bar entirely off the strings, and lots of other ways, I'm sure.

This stuff has been discussed before, so a few searches through the archives should turn up some useful stuff. Ultimately, you just have to keep doing it until it starts to sound right. There's no magic pattern that will make it easy, and there's no truly "optimal" way to do crossovers. Your own common sense should suggest some exercises to try. Then it's a matter of practice.

Please stop playing steel immediately. Go back to fiddle. We've got enough competition as it is

Jeff. Do you have a cousin or brother named Eric that sings on broadway in Nashville?

No cousin of which I'm aware is doing any singing. In public, anyway. But I do have several relatives throughout Tennessee. I'll have to ask around.

As far as pickblocking goes, you won't learn that from Jeff Newman's courses. At least none I've ever seen. The best bet is Joe Wright's pickblocking material.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps