Chord Construction For The Pedal Steel Guitarist

by Tom Bradshaw

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO CHORD CONSTRUCTION

Gaining Knowledge

Everything not understood is a mystery. You eliminate life’s mysteries by gaining knowledge. Regarding the construction of chords, learning what is provided here will make you a more informed musician and remove at least one mystery for you.

Chord construction is not as difficult to understand as you may believe. All chords are constructed in assigned patterns. By learning and understanding their patterns you will be considerably more versed in chord construction than most musicians who do not read music.

It is not necessary to memorize all the particular notes in each and every chord, but if you did, it would certainly assist you in your overall competency as a player. On that note, remember that you did learn your multiplication tables (100 in total) and the alphabet (the latter perhaps forward and backwards). You accomplished both of these feats by memorizing them. You could do the same with the 15 Major scales of music and would be an identical task (and I’ll list them for you in Chapter 9). But for now, concentrate on just learning the patterns of scales. When learned, you will be able to quickly identify chords because the patterns for all the scales remain the same. As with all knowledge, with each layer of learning, the next level becomes easier. But do practice what you learn by being at your guitar as often as possible. Granted, you will never learn everything, but with each practice session you will likely discover something new and thereby become more skilled at what you do learn.

Illustrations

The Illustrations provided in this paper are to be used for resource information to supplement the text. As you learn the patterns of chord-building, you will be amazed at how quickly you will learn and remember the particular notes as well as the scale-tone separations within all the chords. Fortunately, by learning one chord position on your guitar, you will be able to identify other chord positions, since those chord’s patterns will be the same, regardless of the key or the fret where you place your tone bar.

The Tuning

Various tunings are used by steel guitarists today, particularly by those players who continue to use lap (non-pedal) steels. But one tuning is by far the most popular for pedal steel players. It is the E9^th. The manner in which that tuning is manipulated by the mechanics of a pedal steel guitar will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3. In this Chapter and in Chapter 2, I will discuss it only as a basic tuning, the strings being set in pitches from the first string (highest) to the tenth string (lowest) as: F#, D#, G#, E, B, G#, F#, E, D and B. Although the E9^th tuning will be used for discussion here, it is only to create a degree of comfort by referencing something familiar to most players. My goal is to teach you how chords are constructed and how those chords are identified, regardless of the tuning you use. Once learned, you should be able to identify those chords by their sound as well as by their construction. You will also learn how only semitone pitch changes of your guitar’s strings can make dramatic chord alterations of a chord.

A Chord-producing Instrument

Most musical instruments only produce single notes, not chords. Many of those instruments have the musical notes they produce built into them and are thus restricted to those fix-tuned pitches (pianos, horn and wind instruments for example). Some have no notes at all (like most percussion instruments). Many instruments are manufactured with this restriction. The steel guitar is restricted somewhat, but does have great versatility with their pedals and knee levers that alter their string pitches. The steel can also be tuned multiple ways to any basic tuning desired. However, to accompany most other instruments, the steel guitar must be tuned to match closely the pitched tones of those other fixed-tuned instruments. “Concert Pitch” is the accepted pitch level that fixed-tuned instruments have built into them (or were built to accompany other instruments that match concert pitch). That pitch is A, and resonates at 440 Hertz (cycles per second). It is the base note for most of those fixed-tuned instruments. It makes one wonder why steel players always say, “Gimme an E” when they begin to tune with a band, instead of “Gimme an A.” The reason is likely because the steel guitar originated from the Spanish guitar, which eventually had its first string tuned to the E pitch. In its beginning, the tuning used for the steel guitar also had its first string tuned to an E note. Because of that, as well as the E9^th tuning being in universal use, I will use the E string as the root tone for most of the Illustrations.

Musical aficionados may notice that most all the Illustrations provided herein use sharp (#) symbols to identify the notes mentioned. On a couple of occasions some chords should have been formatted using flat (b) symbols. Sharp (#) symbols were chosen over flat (b) symbols to maintain consistency with the steel’s most popular tuning, the E9^th, with its root tone being E (a scale that utilizes all sharps in its presentations). Thus, in those few instances where sharp symbols are used rather than flat symbols, please excuse that minor variation from accuracy for the benefit of consistency.

Definitions

Several words and terms are used throughout this paper’s text. Most players know them, while a few will be defined within the text. If you already know the meaning of these words, ignore them and read on. If you are in doubt, before reading on, do refer to their definitions in the Glossary at the end of Chapter 14.

Chord
Chromatic Scale
Consonance
Copedent
Dissonance
Dyad
Flat
Harmony
Intervals

Inversions
Key
Major Scale
Note
Octave
Pitch
Scale
Semitone
Separation

Sharp
Tablature
Tone
Tonic Tone
Triad
Tune
Tuning
Tunable Splits
Voicings

Frets, Degrees and Scales

On your guitar, you have fret markers; typically 24 on your fretboard. Each fret signifies that changes in pitch occur if your tone bar is moved from one fret to another. Each fret line represents one semitone (a half-tone) of pitch change, either to a higher or lower pitch, depending on the fret where you choose to place your tone bar on any selected string. Hey, you knew that already, right?

Each 12 frets of pitch-separation constitute an octave of pitch change. Obviously, those consecutive 12 frets divide any octave into 12 semitones of pitch change. All groups of twelve pitch separations constitute a chromatic scale. You will likely never have a need to play (voice) a chromatic scale during the performance of a tune, but you will always select tones from within a chromatic scale to create every other scale and all the chords within those scales. Those scales described in this paper will be the Major, Minor, Augmented and Diminished. Other scales exist, such as the Pentatonic, Diatonic and many more. They will not be described.

NOTE: Clicking on any of the illustrations here, and in each Chapter that follows, will open them to larger sized versions in a new browser window or tab (depending on your settings). Remember this, since I will probably not mention it again.

In this Illustration I have listed two successive chromatic octave scales, each tone being of the E scale. All the listed notes (not just the ones in boxes) correspond to the 24 fret lines on your guitar. As explained previously, the E scale tone was selected as the root tone or key note for most of the Illustrations provided. The highest pitched E-string of the E9^th tuning is the fourth string.

Regarding the scale tones shown in boxes, they are all the tones two octaves of the E Major scale. That scale and the reason for the showing of two octaves will be discussed in detail in the next Chapter.

Be Confident

If you feel you have thoroughly learned everything in each Chapter, proceed to the next one. If you aren’t sure, you could become confused as you progress through the Chapters. So, if in doubt, go back and review everything until you are confident that you know it and have retained it. Before you do leave here, print this Chapter and store it in a binder for immediate or future reference.

“A Work in Progress”

While studying this paper, realize that it isn’t meant to be perfect, comprehensive or the final version. All readers are encouraged to point out mistakes, add a related topic and make suggestions. To do so, just contact me at tommybradshaw@gmail.com. Certain topics will not be covered. Subjects related to tuning your instrument, and other topics that don’t relate to the construction of chords, are probably not appropriate. However, if someone wishes to provide a description of the Circle of Fifths as it relates to the pedal steel, I’d appreciate receiving it for inclusion.

NEXT UP => Chapter 2: The Major Scale

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