Hello fans and fellow players,

I'm getting a lot of responses from brand new people who have just been introduced to steel guitar. These people seem to be afraid to ask questions they really want to know the answers to. But think about it, these people need correct answers and need to be treated better than us old pros treat each other. If we're nice to them and don't lose them, they will be old pros some day helping new players long after us old pros are forgotten about.

I got a couple of questions from a player named Tony O'Donnell. How often should I change strings? I practice two hours a night.

If you're not playing professionally, my answer is to get the most hours out of your strings, don't change them until you actually have a couple of them break from use or start to show corrosion. If you are a pro playing a club job and are using the highest grade strings such as Cobra Coil or George L, you can easily go a month. If you're using a second grade string like SIT, DiAdario, Ernie Ball, you will have to change much more often.

A hard question. How do you stop the sound of strings you are not playing when you slide the bar? The secret here is pick the strings that you are playing loud enough that they completely overwhelm the strings that aren't being picked. Again, the fresher the strings are, the better.

Do you lift the bar as well as slide it? Absolutely not! There is hardly a circumstance where you ever lift the bar. If you're bouncing the bar on and off open strings, yes. But this is almost never done. Lifting the bar to deaden strings or for any other reason is actually a bad sounding no-no. I would like to add one more thing to all low-time players. DO NOT PUMP THE VOLUME PEDAL! Pick a volume you want to play and let your fingers do the talking.

There has been a lot of interest in recently deceased steel guitarist Sneaky Pete from California. I have dug into my achieves and found an interview I did with Sneaky about six months before his untimely death. Hearing his voice, what he had to say about his career and music in general and what he was doing about the future was very inspiring to me. I did to much of the talking in this interview, but I pretty well had to as Sneaky really wasn't much of a talker. You can hear this great interview with this Hall of Fame player by clicking on this link. Sneaky Pete

If any of you happen to have an old copy of Guitar Player magazine from December 1969, you will find three great articles on three of us weird steel players. Poco's steel player Rusty Young, Sneaky Pete who was working with The Flying Burrito Brothers at the time and myself, Bobbe Seymour while I was working the road and a few sessions with a bevy of Grand Ole Opry acts.

Even at the young ages the three of us were at the time, we all wanted to take steel in a new direction. I feel we all did.

I'd like to congratulate Don Worden on his induction into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. He was Dolly Parton's road manager for many years and he was also road manager for Porter Wagoner. At times, he was seen on camera behind his stand-up one pedal Sho-Bud steel guitar on Porter's TV show forty years ago. The award presentation was held in Dollywood instead of St. Louis which shows even standard traditions can have their deviations.

It is very well known that Don's guitar was the very first Sho-Bud steel ever made.

Another tremendous sale of a proven product that all of you seem to have taken to profusely. The Peavey Nashville 112. As most of you know, retail price of the custom shop models is a couple hundred dollars more than the standard black model. However, these amps are very beautiful to look at. And why shouldn't an amplifier be pretty also? Your guitar is. You amp is also sitting on stage and gets it's share of the spotlight. So why not have a beautiful tweed amp with a classic brown grillcloth, or a burgundy ostrich with chrome or black corners, or a real favorite by many, the gator orange. Alligators are even jealous of this one!

We just got four of each of these colors in. They cost us about $125 more than black which puts our standard sale price about $585 as the retail price is at $900. For a limited time only or until we run out of these custom beauties, you can have your choice at our special sale, sale price will be only $499 each. Cash and carry, we need to clear $499 each. No trades.

This weeks YouTube steel guitar lesson is here.

Your buddy,
Bobbe Seymour

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