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Clive Swindell is a pedal steel guitar enthusiast and has compiled the following as a useful introduction to the basics. Clive, a member of the Texas Streel Guitar Association and numerous other groups, travels to Nashville and Dallas every year for lessons with top US musicians. He plays an MSA  and a Zum, and has a second MSA at home. These two makes are considered by many to be the finest steel guitars available today.

Many rightly regard the pedal steel guitar as the instrument of country music. But according to the Texas Steel Guitar Association it is also heard in other forms of music too, such as Dire Straits and Sheryl Crow.

FIVE THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT PEDAL STEEL GUITARS!

* A pedal steel guitar does not look like a guitar – more like a synthesiser.

* Apart from strings, it also has foot pedals, and levers you play with your knees.

* The pedal steel guitar was developed from the Hawaiian guitar in the 1950s by several people including Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day, Lloyd Green, Ralph Mooney and Shot Jackson.

* The concept is based on a classical harp, where a number of pedals placed around the base of the instrument are used for a similar purpose

* It is regarded as one of the hardest instrument in the world to play.

PEDAL STEEL GUITARS – FACTS AND FIGURES

A pedal steel guitar does not look like a conventional guitar (see our photographs). In fact, it is more like a synthesiser, both in looks and size. With a leg in each corner, the strings are stretched across the top, and between the front legs is a pedal bar. On here you will find the foot pedals, connected by rods to the changer mechanism, usually situated on the right hand side of the instrument.

While there is some dispute, it is generally agreed that the first person to put a pedal on a steel guitar was Bud Issacs on the Webb Pierce song “Slowly”. This was then seized on by others and developed into what is now generally considered to be a standard format. However, people are still experimenting – particularly Paul Franklin who for the last fifteen years or so has been generally acknowledged as the world’s finest player. It is Paul that is heard on just about every song featuring a pedal steel guitar at the moment.

What are those things under the guitar? They are knee levers and – that’s right, you play these with your knees. A typical instrument might have eight pedals and five knee levers, two of which fit either side of the left knee, and two either side of the right. What’s the other knee pedal for? That fits above the left knee…operated by lifting the leg.

The pedals and levers give the pedal steel guitar its unique and distinctive sound. Developed from the Hawaiian guitar in the 1950s by Bud Isaacs, he linked a pedal to one string to stretch it and raise the note a full tone. On the Hawaiian guitar, a steel bar is used, and placed across the strings, which are then plucked. This means that to play a chord, all the strings must be tuned to that chord at the particular fret. Alternatively, the bar must be slanted across the strings, which usually means that no more than two notes can be played in this way, and the chord sounds thin. With the string being stretched to raise the note, this avoids the problem of slanting the bar

Where did the original concept come from? A classical harp, where a number of pedals placed around the base of the instrument are used for a similar purpose. In fact, the first pedal steel guitars had the pedals clustered round one leg – now they are placed across the pedal bar.

It is this special combination of pedals that allow many different chords to be played at the same fret. As an example, at the “C” fret, on the same strings without moving the bar, you can also play F, G7, Am, Em, Dm, etc.

Many of these are relative chords to C and this is the magical ingredient which gives the instrument its unique flexibility. Unfortunately, it also means it is one of the hardest instrument in the world to play. A pianist can play middle C at one place on the keyboard.