Modern pedal steel playing includes the use of pedals while the strings are sounding and the bar is in motion. This technique is still useful in blues and old-timey music, where a more primitive sound is desired. They would play a passage in an E tuning, for example, and then press the pedals to play the next passage in an A tuning. In most cases, if you accidentally hit the wrong string you will get a 6th, 7th or 9th chord that extends the chord you were trying to play.Ī long time ago, steel players used pedals to simply change tunings. Of course, all of these positions can be moved up the neck to get the desired chord. IV A major pedals A + B 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 Iii G# minor knee lever E 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 Here are the basic pedal positions for chords on the open strings: chord pedals strings For example, the open position includes all the notes of an E major chord on strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10. The close intervals in the tuning make it necessary to skip strings to get the simple triad harmonies. Most steel players don’t strum chords, but they understand where the notes of the chord can be found on their instrument. I’ve been playing for over 20 years, and I’m sure that there are a lot of positions and licks in the basic 3+3 setup that I still don’t know. This standard copedent 2 provides multiple inversions of all of the major and minor chords, all of the fundamental country and blues licks, and a healthy assortment of jazz chords. 1 - foot pedals - knee levers -Ĥ E - F# - D# - FĨ E - D# - F In most instructional materials, the pedals are called A, B and C, and the knee levers are called D, E and F. But if you strip the personal touches and enhancements from the guitars of the most players, you’ll find a common denominator of 3 pedals and 3 knee levers. Sometimes it might seem that there are as many ways of tuning a pedal steel as there are pedal steel players.

Pedal steel e9 chord chart pdf