Resource of the Week: Lessons with Troy

Mr. Troy Brenningmeyer has posted a terrific video that demonstrates how to play "Amazing Grace" on the pedal steel. A unique aspect of this lesson is the camera angles which show both hands and the pedals simultaneously, which is very helpful for learning the tune. His website and youtube channel feature many other lessons for instruments such as the dobro and lap steel. Find them at: https://www.youtube.com/user/troitone/featured or http://www.lessonswithtroy.com/home.php.

Resource of the Week: Howcast

Howcast.com is a website that provides instructional videos on a variety of topics, ranging from photography to training your dog. I recently discovered that there is also a section of the site dedicated to playing and maintaining the pedal steel guitar. Jonathan Gregg teaches where to buy an instrument, how to tune the guitar, and provides an overview of chords and scales. There are 41 videos in all. They should be most useful for a beginning player, but even an intermediate player could learn some new information and strengthen their basics here.

http://www.howcast.com/guides/1096-How-to-Play-the-Pedal-Steel-Guitar

Featured Player: Mickey Adams

Mickey Adams is a talented player from Dallas, TX. He is a long-time professional musician but also contributes to the pedal steel community with a series of instructional videos that he posts on YouTube. Through his videos, Mr. Adams has hundreds of high-quality lessons available to benefit beginner, intermediate, and advanced players alike. The most popular videos on his YouTube channel feature tutorials in which he breaks down and teaches iconic pedal steel parts, including absolute classics such as the intro from Al Perkins' version of Crazy Arms. Mr. Adams encourages comments from the community and even teaches songs based on requests. A complete list of his lessons can be found here.

Resource of the Week: the Steel Guitar Forum

This is the largest steel guitar community in the world. The webmaster charges a $5 fee to join the forum and submit content, but anyone can read posts for free. The steel guitar forum covers news, discussion, tablature, classified ads, and other topics. I recommend this discussion board for anyone who is interested in pedal or non-pedal steel guitar.

The homepage is here.

Resource of the Week: Bobbe Seymour's Newsletter

Bobbe is a pedal steel legend. I met him at his shop in Nashville and he was kind enough to give me a lesson. It was such an honor to learn from one of the best players in the world. Because Bobbe has so much experience touring and recording with country and pop music's biggest stars, he has accumulated a tremendous amount of wisdom and anecdotes, which he reveals weekly in the Steel Guitar Nashville newsletter. Being someone with such a long history playing music professionally, it is extremely interesting to hear his analysis of musical trends and the current state of the industry.

His newsletters are available here.

Plus a bonus video:

Resource of the Week: steelguitar.com

Although Carter Steel Guitars is no longer an active manufacturer of instruments, the company website remains online and is an excellent guide for maintenance of Carter and non-Carter steel guitars. String care and changing, lubrication, cleaning, restoration, pickup replacement, adjustments, and rodding are all overviewed in straightforward guides and videos. There is also information for beginners, including assembly instructions, an introduction to tunings, and a guide for prospective pedal steel buyers.

Carter may reopen someday. Until then, I hope the company's former website will continue to be available to the pedal steel guitar community worldwide, as it is a repository of valuable information for players as well as a tribute to Carter co-founder John Fabian.

steelguitar.com