Help me with some steel bends

[ye olde fretmonkey]

One band I'm playing with, I tend to use a lot of steel bends along with a vol. pedal. People love hearing it (unless there's a steel player in the lineup, they don't like it so much ), but I only know a half-dozen or so bends I can use. Help me out with some more, or maybe some I can use with a Strat and whammy (pre-bend and release simultaneous with volume swell, that sort of thing).

[jazztele]

try some touch harmonics 12 frets up from where your fretting...sounds sweet

[ye olde fretmonkey]

I do that every now and then (sometimes with an above-the-nut bend). I think I'm just having a hard time getting the voicings of pedal steel and figuring out my bend strategies from there.

[bender-freak]

perhaps if you give a description of the licks you already have in your arsenal...are you wanting B string bends only..?..B and G string bends..?...ascending or descending...?...on one tele i have i can do B, G, and A string bends....are you doing "finger" bends or "using a "bender" device..?...will be glad to share the bends that i use if i know what you are looking for...

[rand z]

try this...

http://www.greatmusicproductsonline....?prod=00000348

i have it and its pretty good. forest rodgers shows you about 20 bends/licks/glissando/slides all used to emulate pedal steel guitar.

imho.

rand z tropicalsoul.net

[ye olde fretmonkey]

Originally Posted by bender-freak

perhaps if you give a description of the licks you already have in your arsenal...are you wanting B string bends only..?..B and G string bends..?...ascending or descending...?...on one tele i have i can do B, G, and A string bends....are you doing "finger" bends or "using a "bender" device..?...will be glad to share the bends that i use if i know what you are looking for...

No bender. Let me see if I can describe the ones i commonly use:

*for a V chord, I'll go up a whole step from the I position (on the high E), grab the B and bend the snot out of it. Or I'll take it up 3 frets from there and execute the same bend.

*for a IV chord, I'll stay in the I pos, grab the G string 3 note, put my pinky on the B string 6 note and bend the snot out of the G. Nice stinky Jerry Reed bend.

*of course the major 3rd bend behind any pos

*I'll go up 3 whole steps from any pos, keep the 3 note (high E string) and bend the snot out of the G string 5 note.

*When a song goes to the V chord, I'll go up to that pos and execute the above-mentioned bend a full step up from the V pos (think "Together Again" by Buck)

Am I making sense on these? They sound nice and I get a lot of mileage out of em, but i need to know more stuff I can use. I should have a look at that DVD that y'all mentioned.

I also do the flat-5th "ghost bend' thing you hear at the end of Haggard songs. I try to do ghost bends, pre-bends and contrary-motion bends, but can't always execute them real well.

I really want to be able to work stuff out that I can do in conjunction with a whammy on a Strat. I do find that do any of this sort of stuff w/volume pedal, I need a pretty fair amount of gain or compression on the front end, otherwise the notes just die.

[davidge1]

It sounds like most of what you do involves bending a note a full step up to become the major third of whatever chord you're on. That same sound will also work five frets up to create a suspended 4th sound over the same chord. This is the essence of pedal steel playing. Listen to the intro to Slowly by Webb Pierce to see what I mean.

[bender-freak]

just a few here i'll try to pass on to you that i hope make sense...i ain't a tabber so just try to figger what i mean...

third finger 5th string 5th fret
fourth finger 4th string 5th fret
first finger 2nd string 2nd fret
hit the 3 notes together and pull the second string up two frets and you will have a partial "G" chord; works all the way down the fingerboard; A,B,C..etc....can also be done in reverse by hitting the lick with the "bend" engaged and letting it "fall off" to the second fret for a nifty little transition sounding chord...

first finger 2nd string fourth fret
second finger 3rd string fifth fret
hit the two together and "pull' them up to "A"...again works all the way down the neck; just "flat" the lick and pull it up one fret to what you want....for example...Bb to B, B to C, C# to D, D# to E, etc....

first finger 2nd string 3rd fret
second finger 4th string 4th fret
hit the two notes together and "bend" the 4th string AWAY from the 3rd string a half-step or so for a nifty little bend (you will be in D chord for this)...again, this works all the way down the neck.....this can be used going from I to IV....

one of my favorites..

1st finger 4th string 4th fret
3rd finger 3rd string 5th fret
hit the two together, pull the 3rd string away from the fourth string and let it "pull itself" back to where you started...you have just went from D7 to D Major and back to the 7th, or you can start the lick already "bent" for a major and let it fall into a 7th...again, works all the way down....

there are many more combinations i use, but 95% of mine i do with a mechanical (Hipshot) B/G bender....and, all of this is assuming you do hybrid picking...i have used thumbpick and fingers for years and hybrid styles are somewhat easy for me, but they can easily be done with flatpick and fingers ....

all of the described cheesy licks above will take practice till you get a feel for ascending or descending to the required note/sound....hope all this helped...i ain't no teacher......good luck and have fun...i really hope i have "described" these licks properly...it is hard for me to really break down and explain how/what i do...again, that's why i ain't no teacher....

[c0wb0y]

get you a set of palm pedals and be done with it. Steel sounds galore. check ebay

[warmingtone]

Ummm...hard to tell from verbal descriptions...some of these things can sound good though...


---------------------------------
---------------------------------
--(4)-6-4------------------------
---7------------------------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------

pre bend (towards the floor) the higher note 4 up to 6 and hold against the lower note, release to 4 while still holding the 7 with the little finger. Pull to 5 instead of 6 for a minor chord.

.....E7.......A(sus4)
------------5---------------------
----9---------5--------------------
---(9)-7--------(7)-6---------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------

These kinds of lines are cool...look for voice leading. The pre-bend root of the E releases to the 7th, an uncommon move...this sets up a powerful "resolution" and bends into a tritone disonance, rather than out like a lot of oblique bends that bend to a consonant. The seventh, the note D on the g string falls to the 3rd of the A chord set up with a pre-bend sus4 move...the G# is the leading tone to the high A note on the high e string.

A lot of cool sounds can be found by lowering a third bend to a second (as in the first example...then stringing them along with similar moves.

...

I use a tremolo on a tele (khaler) or the strat...a lot of slide sounds are really scooping into notes, it's a bit like pre-bends or the volume pedal, you have to make your move before the notes sound. A bit of a "let-down" with the bar makes a decent slide imitation.

It's worth getting a feel for the note choices that open tunings imply..."stuck in the middle with you" can be imitated pretty accurately, or the sound improvised when you take into account the open g tuning of the original slide part and make appropriate chord shapes and use of the bar...with a little practice.

Listening to Jeff Beck can give you some ideas, a bit of a master of slide like playing with the bar at times.

Not sure if these help, not much of a country player myself, but I like the sound of oblique bends for sure.

...

Another sound that would sound really cool that I play with a lot and gives a kind of steel like sound I guess is a kind of cascading open string harp like effect thing. Not sure while I hear it like a steel, more like a piano with the pedal down, all the notes should bleed together and you can play these things very fast fairly easily.

Here's a couple of simple ones...

F(maj7/6).................C(maj7)
-----0--------------|--0------------
---6-----0----------|--0-------------
-------5-----0------|--5--------
-----------7-----0--|--5-------------
---------------7----|--3------------
--------------------|-------------

Similarly...

E7#9(b9).................Amin(add2)
-----0--------------|--0------------
---6-----0----------|--0-------------
-------5-----0------|--3--------
-----------6-----0--|--5-------------
---------------8----|--0------------
--------------------|-------------

Emin...........................
-----0--------------|--0------------
---8-----0----------|--0-------------
-------7-----0------|--0--------
-----------7-----0--|--2-------------
---------------7----|--2------------
--------------------|--0----------

G................................C(sus2) or C
--------------------0-|--3---------0---
----------------0-----|--3---------1----
------------0-----7---|--5---------0---
------0-------7-------|--5---------2----
--------*7*-----------|--0---------3---
--*7*-----------------|-----------------

**sub fret 8 on low e to make a C chord sound, sub fret 8 on E and A string to make A sound, sub fret 8 on A string only, to make a G7 sound...

...

There are a lot more around that part of the fretboard if you like that sound. The bar really helps with the effect to give the sounds a bit of a wobble.

Not sure while I hear it like a steel, more like a piano with the sustain pedal down, all the notes should bleed together and you can play these things very fast fairly easily.

Perhaps it is partly the speed of extended arpeggios that an 8 string steel can play with those pedals and finger picks at incredible speed bleeding together...these things can provide some of that feel

...

Another Beckism worth exploring are some of the more unusual natural harmonics...there are some really interesting ones that are useful in all sorts of keys...working out what the melody makes is important, tab won't illustrate these "sounds"...


all harmonics, key of D
-------------------
-------(12)---(7)------
-------------------
----(7)--------------
-----------------(4)---
-------------------

It can be harmonized like this...

------------------------
---------(12)---(7)------
---------(12)---(7)-------------
----(7)--------------(7)---
----(7)--------------(4)---
--------------------------

this can give this kind of thing more "body" and suggest the harmony...

I used this as the opening very high ascending melody A,B,F#,C# from my version of "sleepwalk" in D...again a bit of a bar wobble or scoops adds to the slide effect and you can bleed the notes together.

From the same tune/arrangement, the main melody I play in harmonized thirds...these kids of intervals if scooped into with a bar gives a kind of steel like effect...

--10------|------------------------------
------10--|--8--10--11---10--8----------
--(7)------|--9--11--12---11--9--------
------(7)--|------------------------------
-----------|---------------------------
-----------|---------------------------

The (7) notes are harmonics that double the 10's...I haven't seen this before, but makes a nice half harmonic, half fretted note effect...with the bar the notes can sound really interesting.

To make even more sophisticated moves...I arranged a reverse counter melody morphing into sixths on the theme..


--10------|----------------------|--------
------10--|--8--10--11---10--8--|--7------
--(7)------|--9--7---------------|-----
------(7)--|---------11---10--8--|--7------------
-----------|----------------------|-----
-----------|----------------------|-----

...

I know, not "bends" per se, but certainly 'steel' like sounds with the use of a bit of delay or reverb, volume pedal and the tremolo bar that gives a bit of the feel of the more sophisticated lines pedal steel guitars can and do play, the sound isn't just oblique bends.

...

Anyway...a few ideas people could play with...a trem can't bend individual notes so well and so is of more use for imitating the scoop and gliss of slides that the oblique bends typically imply by the pedal steel.

[captain gorgeous]

Some really nice ideas there dude. And some stuff that either i'm playing wrong or is pretty out there!

there were a few of those open string runs in a brent mason masterclass in a guitar mag a few years ago. I stil bust them out every now and again but haven't managed to fit them into a song yet!

CHeers,

al.