Bending Steel
EVER SINCE BUD Isaacs attached a pedal to his electric lap steel guitar and crafted the iconic intro to Webb Pierce’s 1956 hit “Slowly,” the sound of a metal steel pressed against a guitar’s strings has become synonymous with country music. Since then, the pedal steel guitar — the lap steel’s cousin — has become an essential instrument within the genre.
For those unfamiliar with this marvelous invention, the pedal steel guitar (hereafter referred to simply as the pedal steel) is an electric guitar-like instrument with one or two necks fixed to a tabletop, and featuring anywhere from eight to 14 strings. It’s played not by fretting and strumming but by fingerpicking the strings, using a thumbpick and metal fingerpicks, and sliding a smooth, solid metal bar, known as the steel, up and down the string with the other hand. The instrument’s signature pitch bends, known as mechanical bends, are achieved using a system of foot- and knee-operated pedals and levers that are calibrated to precisely raise the pitch of certain strings by either a half step or a whole step. One of the most commonly used techniques in pedal steel playing involves employing these mechanical bends in tandem with stationary notes on other strings to create oblique bends within two- or three-note chords (comparable to oblique voice leading, in which one note moves while another note remains stationary).
Creatively played and mastered by such legendary musical innovators as Buddy Emmons, Tom Brumley, Ralph Mooney and the aforementioned Bud Isaacs, the pedal steel, with its perfectly in-tune bends, smooth (pitch slides)
