Pedal steel guitar
Encyclopedia
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
that uses a metal bar to "fret
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...
" or shorten the length of the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. Unlike other types of steel guitar
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
, it also uses pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch, hence the name "pedal" steel guitar. Though many people incorrectly assume the word "steel" refers to the metal bar used to play the instrument, it actually refers to the fact that the first guitars to be commonly played this way (in Hawaiian music) were steel-bodied resonator guitars. The metal bar (called a "tone bar") acts as a moveable fret, shortening the effective length of the string or strings being plucked as the player moves it up and down the neck with one hand. The instrument is horizontal with the strings face up, and is typically plucked with thumbpick and fingers or (two or three) fingerpick
Fingerpick
A fingerpick is a type of plectrum used most commonly for playing bluegrass style banjo music. Most fingerpicks are composed of metal or plastic. Unlike flat guitar picks, which are held between the thumb and finger and used one at a time, fingerpicks clip onto or wrap around the end of the fingers...
s. The pedals are mounted on a cross bar below the body and the knee levers extend from the bottom of the guitar's body and are used to stretch or slacken the strings and thus change the pitch in the process of the guitar being played; the action of the pedals may either be fixed, or may be configurable by the player to select which strings are affected by the pedals. The pedal steel, with its smooth portamenti
Portamento
Portamento is a musical term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" , denoting from the beginning of the 17th century a vocal slide between two pitches and its emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments, and is sometimes used...
, bending chords and complex riffs, is one of the most recognizable and characteristic instruments of American country music.
While there are some fairly standard pedal assignments, many advanced players devise their own setups, called copedent
Copedent
Copedent is a table used to describe the tuning and pedal arrangement on apedal steel guitar. The term was coined by Tom Bradshaw in an early 1970s article in Guitar Player magazine. It is short for "ChOrd PEDal arrangemENT". According to Bradshaw, the term is pronounced "co-PEE-dent"...
s. The range of copedents that can be set up varies considerably from guitar to guitar. Aftermarket modifications to make additional copedents possible are common.
The pedal steel was developed from the console steel guitar and lap steel guitar
Lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fingerboard....
. Like the console steel, a pedal steel may have multiple necks, but the pedals make even a single-neck pedal steel a far more versatile instrument than any multiple-neck console steel.
Description
A pedal steel guitar is typically rectangular in shape, and has no specific resonant chamber or conventional guitar body but only one or more guitarGuitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
necks. These are mounted on a stand and equipped with foot pedals and usually knee levers. Many models feature two necks, the nearer to the player most often using a C6 tuning
C6 tuning
C6 tuning is the most common tuning for electric steel guitar, both on single and multiple neck instruments. On a twin-neck, the most common tuning is C6 tuning on the near neck and E9 tuning on the far neck....
and the farther away using an E9 tuning
E9 tuning
E9 tuning is a common tuning for steel guitar necks of more than six strings. In particular, it is the most common tuning for the far neck on a two-neck table steel guitar or pedal steel guitar, most often combined with C6 tuning for the near neck, and also a popular tuning for single neck...
. The most common configuration is one or two necks of ten strings each, but eight-string and twelve-string necks are also popular, and even models with 14 strings on one neck can be found. Three-neck instruments are less common than those with one or two, but are not unknown.
The pedals and/or knee levers (engaged by moving the knees left, right or vertically) on the underside allow the performer to tighten or relax one or more strings in combination to specific tuned notes, changing the instrument's tuning during performance.
History
The pedal steel guitar is the latest development in a story that started with the invention of a technique of playing used in HawaiiHawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
in the late 19th century, wherein the strings were not fretted in the normal manner by the left hand, but rather by sliding an object such as a comb or the back edge of a knife blade along the strings above the neck of the guitar. Several people have been credited with the innovation.
The Hawaiian style of playing was very popular in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the 1920s and 1930s. To increase the volume of the guitar, a resonator cone was added by the Dopyera
Dopyera
Dopyera is a surname and may refer to one of the following Dopyera brothers:* John Dopyera , inventor of the resonator guitar...
Brothers to create the resophonic guitar (Dobro
Dobro
Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...
).
By the 30's, the hollow guitar body was abandoned for a flat slab of wood or metal and the addition of an electric pickup; this was the lap steel guitar
Lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fingerboard....
. It was the first electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
to achieve commercial success. Several pioneering manufacturers of the electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
were first famous for their work on the then more popular electric steel guitar, among them Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Bigsby
Paul Bigsby
Paul Adelburt Bigsby was the designer of the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece and proprietor of Bigsby Guitars...
and Leo Fender
Leo Fender
Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender was an American inventor who founded Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, or "Fender" for short...
.
The limitations of chord shapes imposed by the use of the steel slide (or "tone bar") led to the addition of multiple necks, resulting in the console steel guitar. The Gibson Guitar Corporation
Gibson Guitar Corporation
The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...
used a system of pedals to change the tuning of the strings on one of their console steels beginning in 1940. This instrument, the Electraharp, had a cluster of pedals radiating from its left rear leg that operated similarly to the pedals on a harp. Alvino Rey
Alvino Rey
Alvin McBurney , known by his stage name Alvino Rey, was an American swing era musician and pioneer, often credited as the father of the pedal steel guitar...
was an early player of the Electraharp.
In about 1948, Paul Bigsby began making custom pedal steel guitars that featured pedals mounted to a rack between the front legs of the instrument. Speedy West
Speedy West
Wesley Webb West , better known as Speedy West, was an American pedal steel guitarist and record producer. He frequently played with Jimmy Bryant, both in their own duo and as part of the regular Capitol Records backing band for Tennessee Ernie Ford and many others...
got the second of Bigsby's creations, the first of his guitars to feature pedals, and used it extensively in his work with Jimmy Bryant
Jimmy Bryant
Jimmy Bryant was a prominent American session guitarist. He was billed as "The Fastest Guitar in the Country".-Biography:Ivy J. Bryant, Jr. was born in Moultrie, Georgia, the oldest of 12 children...
. Zane Beck began adding knee levers to console steel guitars, and in 1952, added a set of four knee levers to Ray Noren's console steel. Beck's knee levers lowered the pitches of the strings they operated, which was an action opposite of what the pedals accomplished.
Around 1953, a console steel player named Bud Isaacs attached a pedal to one of the necks of his guitar. The function of the pedal was to change the pitch of two of the strings, whereby Isaacs would have two of the most common steel guitar tunings available on one neck. When he used this pedal to change his tuning while sustaining a chord during the recording of Webb Pierce
Webb Pierce
Webb Michael Pierce was one of the most popular American honky tonk vocalists of the 1950s, charting more number one hits than any other country artist during the decade. His biggest hit was "In The Jailhouse Now," which charted for 37 weeks in 1955, 21 of them at number one...
's hit "Slowly
Slowly (Webb Pierce song)
Slowly is a 1954 song by Webb Pierce, written by Pierce and Nashville songwriter Tommy Hill . The song was one of Pierce's more successful singles, spending seventeen weeks at the top of the Country and Western Best Sellers lists and a total of thirty-six weeks in the chart.Beyond its success as a...
," he touched off a revolution among steel guitarists.
The steel guitar seems to have an unusually high number of mechanically inclined players, and a period of extensive tinkering followed Isaac's initial idea. Two of these tinkering musicians were Buddy Emmons
Buddy Emmons
Buddy Emmons , is an American guitarist.Emmons has been called "The World's Foremost Steel Guitarist" and his talent is greatly admired by fellow steel guitarists...
and Jimmy Day, and their playing and mechanical innovations alike have done more for the development of the pedal steel guitar than any other contributors.
Emmons and Day split the function of Isaac's pedal into two separate pedals and added two strings to fill in the gaps in the E9 tuning, bringing the number of strings to ten. Although Emmons' and Day's setups do the same thing, Emmons and Day used the opposite of each other's pedals to raise the strings. To this day, when one buys a pedal steel, the manufacturer will ask whether the player wants an Emmons Setup or a Day Setup. Emmons incorporated a third pedal to his setup, based on a change Ralph Mooney had used on his instrument. Emmons joined forces in 1957 with another steel-playing machinist named Harold "Shot" Jackson
Shot Jackson
Shot Jackson was a country music guitarist best known for playing Dobro and pedal steel guitar. He also designed and manufactured guitars under the name Sho-Bud.-Biography:...
and formed the Sho-Bud
Sho-Bud
Sho-Bud is a brand name for a manufacturer of pedal steel guitars. The founders were SHOt Jackson and BUDdy Emmons, both active steel players in the 1950s. In the 70s they also expanded their line and offered acoustic guitars. They also made a line of resonator guitars in conjunction with Gretsch...
company, the first pedal steel guitar manufacturer. Sho-Bud guitars incorporated all the innovations that had taken place during the 1950s, including Emmons's third pedal, Beck's knee levers, and ten strings. The single-neck pedal steel guitar was now standardized with three pedals and (up to) four knee levers.
Both lap and pedal steel guitars were closely associated with the development of country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and Western swing
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands...
. The pedal steel's liquid, yearning sound has begun in recent years to be coveted by many modern musicians, beginning in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
. In particular the rising popularity of alternative country
Alternative country
Alternative country is a loosely defined sub-genre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music...
has brought the instrument's beautiful sound to a much wider audience, and it has been used in many different musical genres. Jùjú music
Jùjú music
Jùjú is a style of Nigerian popular music, derived from traditional Yoruba percussion. The name comes from a Yoruba word "juju" or "jiju" meaning "throwing" or "something being thrown." Juju music did not derive its name from juju, which "is a form of magic and the use of magic objects or...
, a form from Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, uses pedal steel extensively.
A Concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
for Pedal Steel Guitar and Orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
has been written by Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
composer Michael A. Levine
Michael A. Levine
Michael A. Levine is an American composer born on 20 February 1964 in Tokyo, Japan, and currently based in Los Angeles.-Biography:His Concerto for Pedal Steel Guitar and Orchestra is believed to be the first concerto ever written for the pedal steel guitar...
. It was premiered on April 16, 2005, in a performance by the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, with Gary Morse (of Dierks Bentley
Dierks Bentley
Dierks Bentley is an American country music artist who has been signed to Capitol Records Nashville since 2003. That year, he released his self-titled debut album. Both it and its follow-up, 2005's Modern Day Drifter, are certified platinum in the United States. A third album, 2006's Long Trip...
's and Dwight Yoakam
Dwight Yoakam
Dwight David Yoakam is an American singer-songwriter, actor and film director, most famous for his pioneering country music...
's bands) as soloist, and Paul Gambill conducting. The piece is believed to be the first concerto ever written for the solo steel guitar.
Playing
A performer typically sits on a stool or seat at the instrument. The right foot is used mainly to operate a volume pedal. The left foot is primarily used to press one or more of the instrument's foot pedals. The knees are positioned under the instrument's body so that by moving them left, right or even vertically, they can push levers that are mounted from underneath the body of the steel guitar.The strings are positioned high above the neck of the instrument. Rather than being pressed to a fret
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...
on the neck, the player's left hand holds a polished metal bar called the steel or "tone bar" on the strings. The steel can be slid up and down the length of the neck, while still touching (effectively fretting) the strings. This raises and lowers the pitch of the notes heard when the strings are played. If the bar is kept perpendicular to the neck (in the orientation of a fret), all strings touched have had their effective length changed equally. The technique of angling the bar so that the strings played are unequal in length and different intervals between the notes are played is called "slanting". The right hand plucks the strings, usually with a set of thumb and finger picks. A technique used by either hand to mute the vibration of the plucked strings is called "blocking" or muting. In combination with the variable volume pedal settings of the right foot different sonic effects are implemented. The volume pedal is used in many ways. One of the more prominent techniques used is to extend the length of time a string sustains its sound—as it decays naturally and the energy of the plucked string dissipates, the volume pedal is pressed downward to extend the note's duration.
The pedals and knee levers raise and lower the pitch of certain strings "on the fly" while the instrument is being played. The exact action of these pedals and levers—which strings are affected—can be set by the player to their preference.
Characteristic effects are obtained by changing pitch of one or more strings while other strings' pitches are static or change at differing rates. Melodic lines are composed primarily of dyads
Dyad (music)
In music, a dyad is a set of two notes or pitches. Although most chords have three or more notes, in certain contexts a dyad may be considered to be a chord. The most common two-note chord is made from the interval of a perfect fifth, which may be suggestive of music of the Medieval or Renaissance...
(two-note chords). In the E9 tuning, many characteristic idioms involve tonic
Tonic (music)
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...
-dominant
Dominant (music)
In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale, called "dominant" because it is next in importance to the tonic,and a dominant chord is any chord built upon that pitch, using the notes of the same diatonic scale...
and tonic
Tonic (music)
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...
-subdominant
Subdominant
In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...
harmonic relationships.
Mastering the pedal steel guitar can take time due to its technical and complex harmonic innerworkings and unique physical techniques utilized to create the trademark sounds of the instrument. As showcased in country music, where the pedal steel guitar is most commonly heard, talented players are highly esteemed.
For a table of several tunings of the pedal steel guitar, see copedent
Copedent
Copedent is a table used to describe the tuning and pedal arrangement on apedal steel guitar. The term was coined by Tom Bradshaw in an early 1970s article in Guitar Player magazine. It is short for "ChOrd PEDal arrangemENT". According to Bradshaw, the term is pronounced "co-PEE-dent"...
.
See also
- Pedal Steel Guitar AssociationPedal Steel Guitar AssociationPedal Steel Guitar Association is an organisation dedicated to the pedal steel guitar. It was established in November 1973 in New York City, and has published The Pedal Steel Newsletter 10 times per year since December 1973....
- Robert Randolph and the Family Band