Pedal Steel Chords & Scales - Hal Leonard Pedal Steel Method Series (Book Only) (Hal Leonard Pedal Steel Guitar Method)

This book is excellent for anyone wanting to find chords beyond the basic ones other books have. And if you know music theoryAll the different scales all great.Saves me a lot of time trying to figure them out.This is probably not for someone who doesn’t know music theory as it has many chords and scales you probably don’t need. But I know them on guitar so why not steel.Complaints have been that no copedent is included. That would have been nice but I figured it out pretty quickly. Great book

I am an advanced guitarist but new to the world of Pedal Steel. The basic concept and fretboard makes sense, but it also turns a guitar players world upside down, especially in E9 Tuning. It’s like visiting another country and learning a new language. This book is a must have for the beginner and it helped me significantly with understanding a multitude of chords positions and scales, like guitar, on the pedal steel.I also purchased the Johnie Helms “Pedal Steel Guitar” book that was recommended and also recommend.

I'm a professional steel player and longtime E9 instructor. In my view, this book is somewhat useful as a reference source. But it could have been so much better. My criticisms:• There's not even a graphic of the copedent (ChOrd PEDal arrangemENT, a tablature graph of what pedals and knee levers do). Probably because they view the book as a companion to Johnnie Helms' book, "Pedal Steel Guitar Method," which does have the copedent. But come on, Hal Leonard can't devote a single page to what the pedals and levers do? There are 2 completely blank pages at the end of the book that could have been used for this! That forces you to buy the other book (which is actually a good book).• Many of the chords shown on the E9 neck are unplayable 4 and 5 note chords. Most players use a thumbpick and 2 fingerpicks. It seems the goal was to show full and complete chord possibilities, but playability went out the window! You can pick your choice of 3 notes from the indicated 4 or 5, but you'll have to sort out on your own what scale degrees you get with each string grip. (For an example of this, look at the Cm(Maj9) on page 12.)• I wish the scale degree numbers were printed next to each note in the chords shown, to help with chord analysis. You're forced to figure that out on your own.• There's no info on how and why to use any of the chords and scales in any context. So you have to come to this book knowing what you want. Thus it's for reference only, not musical understanding.• There's no accompanying CD or links to online audio files, so no way to hear how things sound. You have to play it on your own steel, and again, so many chords are unplayable, this limits the book's usefulness.• There's no bio on the credentials of the author, Chad Johnson, unless you visit Amazon or Hal Leonard's site.In summary, I think this book has some value for the experienced musician learning to play E9 pedal steel. If you're a beginner, don't bother.Still, kudos to Hal Leonard Publishing for putting out books for the pedal steel, which is a pretty small market. Just up your game a bit, please.

Pedal Steel Guitar Chords & Scales is very well organized and helpful for quickly locating seldom used or obscure chord structures for the pedal steel guitar. Similar to dozens of guitar chord books, this book is organized beginning with the C Major chord forms and progressing through the scale. The most unique feature of the book is the scale forms diagramed in each chord section which are very are informative. All the diagrams are clear and easy to read and understand.Unfortunately, if you are looking for an instruction book you must look elsewhere. Pedal Steel Guitar Chords & Scales does not pretend to teach music theory. The book requires at least a basic knowledge of the pedal steel guitar, otherwise the diagrams make no sense. Pedal Steel Guitar Chords & Scales presupposes that your pedal steel guitar is tuned in the E9th tuning and the pedals and knee levers are set up in the "standard" Emmons E9th copedient. If none of that makes sense to you this book is not for you. Realistically, this Hal leonard book is a companion reference to the Hal Leonard Pedal Steel Guitar Method by Johnie Helms and they should be purchased together. One final comment: the chord diagrams are not comprehensive. Pedal steel guitar players often use chord forms which omit tonics that other instruments (e.g. bass) are playing. This is not obvious in this book. Addtionally, the A pedal and F lever major chord positions (3 frets up from the open major position) are not mentioned at all. Regardless, this is a good reference and I recommend it.

The book is straight forward, it’s mostly scales and chords, not much else.

Great scale and chord book... I highly recommend it if you love music theory.

Good reference book, more pedal options needed. Too much emphasis on various scales that are not helpful. A lot of chords but not all inclusive

Full chord charts

Chords and scales you didn’t know existed. If you want to go way beyond the traditional Maj/Min/7th approach of pedal steel, and learn over a dozen scale modes, then this is for you. Not for the musically faint-hearted, if you’re after a real grasp of the potential of a 10-string pedal-steel. Plenty to sink your teeth into.

It doesn't seem like an actual pedal steel guitar player wrote this book. It's as if they had a computer program to find notes on the guitar and present them as if this is the way real players would play them. It's not. For one thing the scales are only written in one octave, whereas any position on the instrument has an almost two octave range. So why not present all the scale tones in each position with a little r or bold number inticating the root notes. Some scales, use uncommon, idiosyncratic combinations. For example, the second examples of the minor pentatonic and blues scales, are written using the C pedal instead of the A pedal to play the 5th scale degree on the fifth string. Although the A and C pedal have the same effect on the fitth string, it isn't the way most players would naturally play these scales. This is not just quibbling. Any experienced teacher would know these things. And then there are the chords. The major grips, using strings 10-8-6, 8-6-5, 6-5-4, and 5-4-3 are universal and fundemental in pedal steel instruction, but the first two groupings are missing in the presentation of the major chords. All this, and more, adds up to an annoying, incomplete and unsatisfying book that doesn't represent real world pedal steel playing.

Nur englische Sprache

Excellent book, does what it says on the tin, would be of use to both learners or more experienced players

As expected.