It’s the HARDEST Instrument to Play and It SOUNDS INCREDIBLE (ft. Travis Toy)

it's as you'll see it is a fairly complicated instrument arguably arguably the most uh complicated instrument bold statement it is a bold statement um there's a lot going [Music] on [Music] this getting this steel put up for me I appreciate it give it a jiggle give it a jiggle a jiggle okay now see down in the middle there that's the flux capacitor that's what makes time travel possible get this up to 88 beats per minute you're going to see some serious what when this baby hits 88 milph you're going to see some serious tip for all the kids out there don't play an instrument that you have to take apart and put back together all the time truly uh just kidding you should Tyler refused to uh I couldn't Tech today when this thing's going to be upside down so I'll be hitting these pedals right every one of these rods represents a string that's getting pulled raised or lowered and when that's happening see it's going all the way down here and then when I flip over I'll show you the top side but it's pulling these uh mechanisms that are then pulling the strings don't drop it when I see I can kind of stick to the gloves is it heavy how much is that thing uh it's not too bad 30 lb something you know um beautiful yeah [Music] [Music] yeah Travis toy I met at Andy's Woodshed that's right guitar experience Andy Wood our friend Andy Wood who I'm sure you guys know is a Avid guitarist I'll say yeah he's good at it he's good at guitar um no we met at that thing I did a few years where I was in the house band to back up you know bonam Masa and Robin Ford and all these people as essentially kind of the keyboard player Mark Lai was playing and sent me these charts I was like okay I'm just going to play texal it was just textural me me just playing chords and changes and being the keyboard player but I think everybody that did that event got a big kick out of that any of these guys that do guitar shows and you know Mark and Robin and Joe or any of these guys um it's always like a band that's using keys and bass and drums or whatever and then when you know they showed up and I was doing this and it's just a different sound I'm glad that we got to reconnect today because I've been curious I've seen your Instagram posts playing to stadiums with people like Luke [Music] Bryan session work with countless other artists difference between electric guitar and steel guitar that I'm noticing is the Fring cuz you're not going like this you're going like this and it seems like you're covering a lot of an entire cascading position of a typical guitar on like one fret yeah there's a lot of like sort of vertical you know like your whole scale yeah there right to me like but you could I mean you could I mean there's other ways to do it but I got to move for the very end but to go down the full two octaves right but uh see the end gets weird but I can go can't go that fast like sort of these rolling for all the flashy stuff I can do at the end of the day if you go do a gig people really just want to hear you [Music] go like that's the sound that people love right start bending that third man that's the money you bend the when he starts suspending notes you got [Music] me [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] a above all the other instruments why why does this one resonate with you the most man that's a great question uh my dad played and I think that might be the only reason that like a 11 12y old would even attempt it cuz there's one already sitting in the house you know because like I mean it is it's not a cheap instrument either you can't go to Guitar Center and buy a $99 starter steel I mean you got to have like thousands of dollars to even get a a cheap one you know so that in a lot of ways is Out Of Reach for a kid unless you're you know to have one yeah just lucky to have one so yeah um I actually started on drums first and uh my dad also played drums very good drummer one summer break my mom I was probably killing I was practicing drums like on the other side of I'm sure she was about to lose her mind and in her wisdom she said hey you know if you're bored with drums you should go try to play your dad's steel guitar and I went okay songs you're playing on drums you know what so this a little insight too I was listening to like a grp like fusions like oh Dave wo records and John patatuchi records so you were doing like all these triplets and like beats merciless yeah absolutely mercilus like you know 16th note triplets through a through a wall and my mom's trying to your mom's like did he drop the drums down the stairs what that sound sure yeah it was not a big house either I mean it was like she couldn't get away from it and I had heard you know I'd grown up sort of hearing my dad play so it was not foreign to me but I never tried to play it and uh I don't know I sat down and got sucked in man it's um I think anybody that starts playing these things will tell you there's something a little not that there's not something addictive about learning in you know any instrument but I don't know this is such a fascinating Contraption and it does so many interesting things and it does so many things that you can't do on guitar these paral you know like bins going different ways and all the things that we're going to try there's going to be a point in this video where I try and sound like a steel guitar and you're going to give me some pointers but I think a good place to start would be this instrument is one of the instruments that when you play it if somebody knows how to play it it's one of those instruments that will immediately bring a smile to someone's face where they're just like oh I know that sound yeah yeah and so is there like some more traditional sounds of a steel guitar that we can start with before we go off um how how about I'll just play a uh Amazing Grace or something in a traditional style uh I'll make this up as I [Music] go [Music] [Music] oh [Music] what one non-traditional I had to give you one nontraditional beautiful uh but you know all the [Music] [Applause] the all those types of sounds you [Music] know all those things are what are the are the yeah the the traditional country embellishments and those bending the bent thirds and all the from a guitar playing perspective I'm hearing three notes at a time for for some of those chords and two of the notes are going different directions while one note is staying the same do I have that right yeah yeah so here's a one so my Triad is so I'm in G right so that's a g dominant 7 voicing it's a nine on top and a flat seven and a third in the bottom the flat Seven's resolving down the the three is going up and the nine is going so I'm going so I'm winding up right so I went from yeah so you've got you've got this right I'm trying to think like how would you move that yeah yeah like so it would be like uh let me get you a padal we'll hook a padal up hold on I don't know I don't know well it's interesting cuz the top two are going down so you're going those are bending down oh right so the the the nines bent down and then those are both going down yeah but you're bending them so the my fingers would have to not only Bend those two half step down but also slide into somehow right yeah so and then the interesting thing too is I can do that in different inversions of that Triad so I can [Music] go it's all barred still so you're not yeah yeah so it's all this is all happening in pedals right so um and there's definitely a lot of right hand muting going on yeah which is probably super crucial yeah but yeah that's interesting so all of those or or or right you can combine you can combine different uh wider gripped got spread out spread out the voicing you know these are two different tunings but this is an e9th tuning we got two e notes it's an E9 because it has two Fs in it but it's it's E's and B's and G sharps two f shars a major 7 and a flat 7 down low so if you if you eliminate the flat 7even you [Music] could pretty E9 it's got a major 7 in it um that's kind of the redheaded step child in there but so if you get rid of the the nines and the major sevens you just look at the the Triad right the E Triad so there is a pedal that raises both of those B's up a whole step okay so now you'd have an an E6 right essentially or or even a however whatever you want to call it C minor even so that's that that sound that you hear there's another sort of main puddle that takes the G Sharps to a in this position your your your eighth string is an e that was your root now when I do this now it's functioning as a fifth yeah so the whole thing sort of inverts those two main pedals are kind of the those are where all the all the traditional sounds are right all that so I'll throw one more layer on it okay so we had this so we went from a one an e to an a a four chord I have a knee lever so under this guitar I can press pudles and press knee lever and I have all these combinations of you know raises and lowers and stuff so one of the lowers is this lowers the E to E flat that's where the notes are going in different directions I'm starting to see pedals here now I'm going to to my right your left with right yeah without ever putting the bar down now I have a one a four a five dominant seven and a one um there's also ones that now I have a c Shar major Triad I have puddles that you know raise like all these different things directions things are going you know opposite direction uh things happening there's tons of that stuff like these types of things which are which are fun but that's the super super basics of the tuning is that just like a typical metal slide like a guitar player would use or something different no here it's got a little uh who it's got a little weight to it yeah you could murder someone serves well as a you know if you ever get in a tough spot in a bar you know yeah this is like a gigantic bullet you don't get a lot of um like sort of friction drag you know like you would get it stays very clean like you can make it I can do these things but you know it's a great bar yeah but yeah it's it's a little different there as Tyler was saying it's it weighs a lot more the weight kind of helps with I think just feeling like there's something there to control I think so you have a volume pedal down there a big part of the volume pedal really for steel is really like the sustain Factor so ah yes like I'm I'm increasing you know as I go I only picked once and you've just got some Reverb on is that yeah just a little bit of Reverb I mean I have a pudle board that has all I have all kind of fun stuff on this yeah [Music] oh right he's kind of silly like I mean the origins of it are not this is a petal Steel but its Origins are straight steel or like even Hawaiian steel is sort of like if you go back far enough you know it was it was sort of born out of that and then guys were playing these straight steel like old Fender 800s and 400s and stuff in you know Western swing and different things before pedals came along and then you know sometime in the probably late 50s early 60s started rigging up literally with like coat hangers and like real crude mechanisms like starting to pull strings and bend things and do and then it sort of evolved to this but it's pretty stereotyped as a country instrument because people always think of it as like these types of things right and um and that's fine and it's interesting because that is I don't know if there's another instrument that I don't know that really came to prominence just in one genre sure right that's an interesting thing because guitar was being used all over and drums and every other instrument right but steel was like it really was very um it came to light in country music so that's sort of it's gotten put in that spot my statement is that don't put Steel in a box you know just like unless you're packing it up unless you're packing it up yeah as long as you wear the correct gloves you can put Steel in a box uh no it's in all serious it's a really fun instrument you know it's it's a instrument that I mean there's still a lot of things I feel like there's a lot of ground to be covered with steel I just don't want this instrument to die it certainly I want young people to play it and know that it's cool and know that you can play you know slash licks in it or chick Korea or country music or anything in between you know it's a really fun versatile instrument more than I think it gets credit for so that's my mission I did I did a thing where I was uh or that's like actually how fast Frank gambali hits yeah get my broom out [Music] oh

Channel: Music is Win

Views: 315,868

Keywords: Tyler Larson, Tyler Larson guitar, Tyler Larson music is win, guitar super system, Tyler Larson lotus, Tyler Larson live, travis toy, steel guitar, steel guitar lessons, lap steel, lapsteel, lap steel guitar, lapsteel guitar, how to play steel guitar

Id: Ar_vR0F-IPw

Length: 18min 24sec (1104 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2024