Welcome to the E9th information page
Basic steps to learning the E9th neck
I Don't consider myself an expert on the E9th neck but I am always learning. I have found approaches and tricks which I would like to share with new steel players:
- Develop your right and left hand techniques first before learning to play any songs. I recommend Jeff Newman's video entitled "The right Hand Alpha" for palm blocking. For the pick blocking technique, I recommend Paul Franklin's audio tapes and Joe Wright's videos. Joe Wright's videos are applicable to both pick and palm blocking.
- Learn the Nashville number system.
- Get Jeff Newman's video "E9th Vocabulary" and learn the basic chord positions with different pedals and knee levers.
- Learn licks by ear rather than by tab. A way to do this is to have a computer and install a free player program called "Winamp version 2.81" Then install the add on the free programs called "loopmaster" and "Pacemaker". With this combination, you play a song from a CD on your computer or copy a song from a cassette to your computer's hard drive and play it with Winamp. You then slow down the speed of the song (without changing the pitch) and loop the portions that you want to learn. When you learn one section, you step ahead to the next section and so on.....
- Practice the licks in several keys because you never know what key the singer is going to do a song in.
- Recommended reading: "Pedal Steel Guitar" by Wiinie Winston, "Music Theory" by Mike Perlowin, "Chord Progression Studies for the Pedal Steel Guiutar" by Fred Layman.