The pedal steel guitar: what it is, how it works
Sean J. Barry-2025
The pedal steel guitar is closely identified with country music as a main contributor to the “traditional” Nashville sound, but it has also been used frequently in jazz, swing, and rock music. The combination of distinctive sound and incredible musical and structural complexity makes the pedal steel guitar unique among musical instruments. It is a true three-dimensional instrument, perhaps the only one. The three dimensions are the ascending order of the strings, the fret markers which span more than two octaves, and the inclusion of pedals and knee levers that raise and lower specific string pitches, change tunings, shortcut melodies, and use those changes as components of solos, fills, and intros. Standard pedal steels have 10 strings per neck, and some have 12 strings that increase the musical range of the instrument. Two very different tunings of those 10 strings are in widespread use. The most common is the E9 “chromatic” (“Nashville”) tuning, so named because the individual strings are tuned so that together they comprise an open E9 chord (E, G#, B, D, F#, with several replicates an octave apart). The E9 tuning is used for most country and country-related music, but the rock music world prominently experienced the E9 pedal steel guitar in Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s recording of “Teach Your Children” (1970), and in Linda Ronstadt’srecording of Roy Orbison’s song “Blue Bayou” (1977). Both recordings reached the Billboard Top 20, with Blue Bayou reaching #3. The other pedal steel tuning is C6 (“Texas”) tuning, where the strings comprise an open C6 chord (C, E, G, A, also with octave-separated replicates). The C6 tuning is more closely voiced than the E9, which lends the C6 to the types of sounds needed for swing and jazz. Rusty Young of the country-rock band Poco was perhaps the most widely heard exponent of the C6 tuning.
The pedal steel descended from the acoustic Hawaiian guitar (brought to Hawaii by Portuguese sailors), with the electric lap steel guitar representing the intermediate form. Like the Hawaiian guitar and the lap steel guitar, the pedal steel is played horizontally (flat), but it is supported by four metal legs rather than the lap or legs of the player. The metal legs provide a reasonably rigid pedal steel guitar setup, and they support the bar-mounted pedal assemblage that may accommodate up to 10 pedals. The Hawaiian guitar has a typical guitar body made of wood like most acoustic guitars, and it remained unchanged until the early 1930’s when Hawaiian guitar player George Beauchamp invented the first magnetic pickup. That invention enabled the development of the current standard lap steel guitar, with a flat solid wood body with up to four separate necks, each with a different tuning. Beauchamp’s pickup was also the gateway to the development of the electric guitar. Pedals were added to some lap steel guitars in the 1940’s, but they functioned to change tunings in the middle of a song, and their use did not figure as part of the melody line. Multi-neck lap steel guitars, and single-neck lap steels with foot pedals require legs for stability, and those instruments were the first of the genre to be mounted on a frame supported by four metal legs. Then in 1954, pedal steel guitarist Bud Isaacs recorded the first true pedal steel guitar solo using the pedals as part of the melody line, on the Webb Pierce single “Slowly.” That recording was revolutionary, and soon many lap steel guitarists were modifying their instruments with pedals and later with knee levers, so that they could emulate Bud Isaac’s sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B6FjkaY-O8 (Bud’s solo starts 55 seconds into the video). A decade later, the great Tom Brumley recorded what many pedal steel players still regard as the “definitive” pedal steel guitar solo of all time, on the 1964 Buck Owens recording of “Together Again.” Tom used just two pedals to record one of the most compelling, enduring, and inspiring solos on any instrument ever, and among pedal steel guitar players and country music enthusiasts that solo remains legendary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN25YEX88SY(Tom’s solo starts 49 seconds into the video).
Pedal steels have either one neck or two—the single neck cabinet usually has enough space for the neck but with little real estate on either side of the neck. Double-neck or twin neck pedal steels have two necks alongside one another, again with little outside space (Photo 1). Another variation is the single neck on a double-neck cabinet–a neck-width space lies between the player and the neck, which is somewhat more comfortable and preferred by many players. Either neck of a double-neck pedal steel can be set up to either tuning, but the most common arrangement is the E9 neck furthest from the player and the C6 neck closest to the player. The pedal steel guitar cabinet and neck are usually pieced up from solid hardwood. Many manufacturers have used highly figured curly or birdseye maple which can present a stunning stage appearance. Some pedal steels instead feature high density plywood with a Formica overlay—my 1976 MSA pedal steel sports a high-density plywood platform with “rosewood” pattern Formica, which is quite handsome and understated, not to mention indestructible(Photo 1). The pedal steel “fretboard” is almost always a stick-on plastic sheet with the familiar acoustic/electric guitar fretboard fret and marker layout, mounted on an elevated neck platform. Like the electric guitar, pedal steels are played through a magnetic pickup and an amplifier. Pedal steel pickupsare almost always double coil, like the Gibson “humbucker,” which yields greater sustain and less “noise” than the (typically Fender) single coil pickup and is better suited to the tone and frequency spectrum than is the single coil pickup. Many players prefer a 100–125-Watt RMS solid state or “tube” amplifier with a single 15-inch speaker, which they believe provides an even and robust sound across the frequency spectrum. Many other players use a 100–125-Watt RMSamplifier with two 12-inch speakers, such as the Fender Twin Reverb tube amplifier or similarly equipped solid state amplifiers. The Webb Amplifier Company of Antioch, California produced a single-15-inch speaker solid state amplifier specifically for the pedal steel during the 1990s. Webb closed in the late 1990s and pedal steel players still seek those legendary amplifiers avidly.
Although the playing surface of the pedal steel is unique, there seems little “special” about it since it just a series of stringsmounted on an elevated platform, albeit with some pedals on the floor and levers just beneath the cabinet. That changes drastically upon inspection of the cabinet underneath—each pedal and knee lever is connected to its assigned string by a series of rods, levers, more rods, junctions, more rods, fulcrums, and linkages. And more rods (Photo 2). Each change assembly ultimately reaches the ball end of the appointed string via the “changer,” a combination of fulcrum rollers and tuning ports that require usually a special nut driver or other type of wrenchto tune the changes. On a pedal steel equipped with many changes, the routing of the tie rods beneath and the adjustability at each junction make the pedal steel guitar a complex and marvelous beast indeed.
The pedals (always operated with the left foot except on “left-handed” pedal steels) and knee levers (operated with one or both knees) add the third musical dimension to the pedal steel. These enable the player to play chords, scales, and runs with little bar movement among the frets, and they are largely responsible for the very distinctive pedal steel sound particularly in the E9 tuning. Changes can include raising or lowering the pitch of a string, sometimes both, on single or multiple strings. The pedals and knee levers also add intervals to runs and scales so that the note change that happens when a pedal or knee lever is pressed can easily become part of the melody. The configuration of the pedals and knee levers along with the tuning of the open strings is called the “copedant.” The standard E9 copedant has long included three pedals and two or four knee levers, and, with those pedals and knee levers it is easy to play a long scale on a single fret without moving the bar at all. The standard C6 copedant includes four or five pedals and one or two knee levers, also easy to play long scales without moving the bar. Besides the usual sideways push knee levers, some pedal steels include knee levers that are pushed up or forward by the knee, and some include “wrist levers” that enable string pitch changes by moving the picking hand sideways. These extras usually provide changes outside of the realm of the standard copedants—many professional players have added many such changes, sometimes approaching “standard,” often unique to the player.
The standard E9 and C6 pedal steel copedants also allow numerous chord voicings, often on the same or adjacent frets, and in all regions of the fretboard. For example, in the standard E9 copedant the player can play a Cmaj chord with at least two voicings each on the first fret, on the third fret, on the eighth fret, on the tenth fret, on the thirteenth fret, and so forth, and can also play C6, C7, Cdim, C+ and Cm on the same, adjacent, or nearby frets. It is also easy to play other chords on the same frets by picking different strings or using the pedals and knee levers differently. It is often possible to play entire tunes, with assorted majors, minors, sixths, and sevenths, without moving the bar at all. I often did that in my band’s rendition of Willie Nelson’s song “Crazy,” which has many chords–I played the chords and the melodic solo in the key of F solely on the first fret, with no bar movement needed. The pedals and knee levers had quite a workout though. Moral of the story: there is no better way to explore and learn chord chemistry and relationships than by playing the pedal steel guitar, and anything you learn about chords there is directly applicable to other instruments too.
Some players have sought a single copedant that, with minimal pedal and knee lever use, permits the player to use the same neck for sounds characteristic of both the E9 and C6 tunings. Pedal steel guitars have been shipped with such “universal tunings” (notably some MSA pedal steels) for decades, with many copedant variations. Universal copedants may increase the number of changes each string must have, which for players of earlier pedal steel guitars may necessitate acquiring a new pedal steel guitar, an expensive proposition. Many, if not most, pedal steel guitar players still use double-neck (E9-C6) instruments and use each neck as appropriate for the song being played.
Accessories that are needed to play the pedal steel are a high-quality amplifier, a heavy (usually stainless steel) cylindrical bar, two metal finger picks and a plastic thumb pick, and a volume pedal that the right foot operates. The bar length, diameter, and mass/weight vary somewhat among brands, but a very common size is about ¾ inch diameter x 3-3.24 inches in length, weight 7.5-8 oz. A somewhat larger bar is also available, with 7/8-inch diameter, 3.5-inch length, and 11.7 oz weight (!). That heavy bar is used for practicing bar control, not so much for high-speed playing on stage. Pedal steel players very commonly use bar vibrato, that is, they move the bar rapidly back and forth much as violinists and fiddlers do with the fingertip. The volume pedal is used to sustain notes and chords. Some players use it to conceal their pick “attack,” which is frowned upon by pedal steel players who do not use the volume pedal that way. The more widely accepted use is to press the volume pedal slowly to keep note or chord sustain at a consistent volume for as long as possible. The opposite of sustain is provided by “blocking” the string immediately after picking the string, usually with the edge of the picking hand. Rapid-fire blocking is a hallmark of the “Bakersfield” style of pedal steel playing as practiced by Tom Brumley and some others.
My experience with the pedal steel guitar:
In the mid-1970s, after I graduated from college, I filled the space between graduation and gainful employment by teaching the instruments I knew (banjo, mandolin, finger- and flat-picked guitar) to students at the old music shop in Davis, California. The store was musically eclectic—acoustic and electric guitars were offered alongside band instruments and synthesizer keyboards, along with printed music, picks, strings, reeds, drumsticks, and all the usual offerings of an eclectic music store. Unique among the music stores that I knew well was that the Davis store also offered (MSA) pedal steel guitars. The store carried single-neck, double-neck, and non-upgradable student models, and after about six months teaching at the store, the pedal steel, as played in the store by a store employee, began tointerest me. I eventually yielded to that interest and purchased a single-neck pedal steel for over $600 (in 1976, about the same price at the time as the Martin D-28), with a small Yamaha amplifier that would at least allow me to hear what I was playing(the double-neck was almost twice as expensive, out of my financial reach). At first, I just played at home as the whim struck, with no schedule or process lurking. Later, when I was offered a job with the California Zephyr band, I worked hard every day, with books, recordings, and (above all) interest. Aspects of the pedal steel guitar that require intense woodshedding include tone, intonation, bar control, stringblocking, pedal and knee lever control, volume pedal control, the licks that make the pedal steel guitar stand out, and the music that makes everything hang together.
About eight months after I joined California Zephyr, I added the pedal steel guitar to my stage repertoire. My first stage effortswere, not surprisingly, somewhat tentative as I worked to master the very different sounds on stage than from my home. Correct intonation sounds very different on stage in a crowded club than it does when playing in a quiet place, yet correct intonation is the most important factor in playing the pedal steel with a band. It takes practice. With time, I became more confident and eventually the pedal steel became just as natural to me as had the various other instruments I had been playing on stage (Photo 3). All the topics noted above that always need lots of work needed just as much from me as they do from any aspiring player, but, as many musicians know, playing live on stage very frequentlyis probably the best way to improve quickly. Thus, in about two years I graduated from pedal steel guitar novice to somewhat accomplished, and in another two years I was confident enough in my playing to begin studio work and to stretch out into uncharted territory. At the end of six years I was playing at a significantly advanced level, advanced enough to realize that I was really just beginning the journey.
Soon after I began to play, I replaced the little Yamaha amplifier with an early 1970s Fender Twin Reverb amplifier with legendary JBL K-120 speakers, and after a couple of years I replaced my single-neck pedal steel guitar with a double-neck MSA, with E9 and C6 copedants. It required some time to pay off the double-neck, but it was worth it. I still have that guitar, always set up and ready in my office, alongside the beautiful oldMartin D-28 guitar and vintage Gibson banjo, the newer Stelling banjo, the homemade F-5 mandolin and the homemade Telecaster copy guitar. I’ve been fortunate indeed to have had the experiences I’ve had with these great instruments.
No one, least of all me, is suggesting that bluegrass players should aspire to play the pedal steel guitar—it’s difficult enough to master any of the bluegrass-associated instruments as it is. But, for those who might want to stretch out a bit to explore voicings, tunings, techniques, and musical attacks that up to nowwere somewhat foreign and arcane, the pedal steel guitar offers a lifetime of musical exploration and satisfaction. If the concept appeals, take up the pedal steel guitar and enjoy the ride—I certainly have.
Sean Barry playing the pedal steel with California Zephyr, July 1979, opening for Merle Haggard at Marriotts Great America, Norm Hamlet’s double-neck pedal steel alongside.
The cover photo is my 1976 MSA double neck 12-string pedal steel guitar, a road warrior that has seen service throughout the US and Canada.
Acknowledgements: I thank my friend Steve O’Neill, an ace pedal steel player, for introducing me to the instrument, and I thank Pedal Steel Guitar Hall of Famer Tom Bradshaw (Pedal Steel Guitar Products, Concord, California) for keeping the flame for nearly the entire worldwide population of pedal steel guitar players alive for over 50 years.
