Hello fans and fellow players,
We won't dwell on this subject because we covered it pretty well in the last newsletter, but one more fact about Lloyd Green's Sho-Bud is that the string length from nut to bridge is a half inch longer than standard scale. Standard Sho-Bud is 24 inches. Lloyd's is twenty four and a half.
I don't know if Lloyd even knows this or not and I doubt if he asked for it to be this way, but it sure sounds fine and I'm sure the added length adds to the sustain and tonal qualities. There have been many different pickups tried on this guitar. To the average listener, I don't think anyone could tell them apart.
I was just thinking how some of the basic rules of society apply to being successful with steel guitar. It doesn't matter if you are doing it for a living or not, or adding to your income playing weekends and occasional road trips. One of the most important things you can do to be successful is work to be loved by your fellow player.
We all know someone that we'd really rather not be around, regardless of how well they play. Quite often it's just not worth putting up with a bad personality just to have another piece in the band.
Especially at the professional level, it's of paramount importance. I have rubbed other musicians the wrong way myself, maybe more often than I care to admit, but I am sorry about it. There are a lot of big name players that have rubbed me the wrong way, but that's just the way life is.
You know there have been times when you were watching television and some big name star will come on and you'll immediately blurt out, "Oh, I don't like them. I don't know why they are still in the business." Maybe you don't like the way Hank Williams, Jr. is acting about his theme song on Monday Night Football being dropped by the network, but just remember this is the entertainment world. There are going to be parts of it you love and parts of it you don't.
There are going to be musicians that you love to work with and ones that you don't. But then look around and you will see a musician that you really like and that everybody else likes too. So face it, there are people out there that everybody really seems to love and they are going to get more work than those that aren't.
It's a good idea to train yourself to like everybody even though to you, they might just be an idiot. So let them be an idiot and don't let them pull you down with the personality they have. We all have the ability to hack certain other people off, but try to hack off as few as possible and you will be richly rewarded many times over in your life.
I guess this comes down to politics, and let me tell you friends and neighbors, politics are very, very important in the world of music. The more people you can have like you and the better you get along with everybody, the more rewarding your career is going to be.
Now that I look back from the time I was born until today, I wish my parents would have taught me a lot more about politics and less about making noise with my steel guitar. When you see somebody in this field at the top of the ladder, go talk to them. You'll find out that they are some of the nicest people you'll ever want to meet. Being nice and being successful go hand in hand.
I have been getting many inquires lately about non-pedal guitars. It seems as though there is a big demand starting up again for quality professional non-pedal steel guitars. Fender, National, Gibson, Rickenbacker and so on. There are even several bands working in Nashville that hire western swing and jazz style players. And then of course, even on Broadway, there are some very aggressive non-pedal players making a living.
Kayton Roberts, Chris Scruggs and some others are making good money today sans pedals. To me this speaks highly of the instrument, the players and the good folks that appreciate them. The styles vary from old original steel guitar to rockabilly and jazz.
Some of these players are extremely impressive. Is it possible for anybody to not like Kayton Roberts? I think back to the old days and the first time I saw Bobby Garrett working with Stonewall Jackson. It was the best I had ever heard Bobby play, sort of like hearing Don Helms after he went back to non-pedal. Bobby was wonderful.
So if you've been thinking about non-pedal, we have a bunch of them in stock at the moment.
What do you get when you play New Age music backward? New Age music.
How many musician jokes are there? Just one. The rest are all true.
Check out our monthly specials at www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html and we'll try to save you a lot of money.
The friend to all bar holders,
Bobbe Seymour
www.steelguitar.net
sales@steelguitar.net
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