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Choose a category from the list above to view some oldies but goodies from HSGA's past including thoughts by Jerry Byrd, tech tips and comments on Hawaiian culture.

Want to go even further back? Take a look at these ads from old magazines and newspapers!
Look at more Vintage Advertising in our history section!

Jerry closes the 2001 Steel Guitar Ho`olaule`a in typical Jerry Byrd fashion. A treat for all who made the journey to Hawai`i to listen to their hero.

Some Thoughts by Jerry Byrd

(Jerry passed away on April 11, 2005)

Has it ever occurred to you that we play the most "cluttered-up" musical instrument ever invented?? Well, we do by far! And why so? I have lived to bear witness to all of them, most of which were designed (?) to make playing a difficult instrument easier but actually doing just the opposite, and then finally giving it up altogether - or moving on to another instrument like electronic gadgets of all kinds.

Let's look at one of those: Electronic Keyboards. It was now possible to electronically "bend" or "slur" notes (and here I'll use a salesman's "pitch") to sound just exactly like a steel guitar. These came into being when? - 15 or 20 years ago? - and would now replace a whole orchestra: string section, rhythm section, everything and anything and would now throw hundreds of musicians "out of work."

Since I was, and still am, teaching at Harry's Music Store, I witnessed first-hand the birth (and death) of these "boons" to music. Half of the

floor space was taken up with electric keyboards purchased by a few young 'kids' who ordered every new model that came out (which was almost a monthly happening) only to very quickly become obsolete due to a newer, and much better model. During a conversation one day, one of these young geniuses said boastingly, "These will put steel guitar out of business because we can do it on keyboards same sound, same way" etc etc etc. I replied, "No, you can make it sound like you think a steel guitar sounds: which is gliss, gliss, gliss. If it can sound just like a steel, as you say, then tell it to play like Jerry Byrd." End of conversation.

The "fad" lasted a few years as all fads do; the "salesmen" left and there sat dozens of keyboards and amplifiers of all sizes, which were later shipped to an auction house in California for a very small fraction of what they cost.

Slide Guitar. Here is another one! "New and Improved" by the use of better "slides" - that ugly tube of metal that's placed over the fingers of the left hand that, I'm told, sounds "just like a steel guitar." (Where have I heard that before?) And what they do, typically so, is "scoop" into every position - by at least two frets, usually more - like shooting arrows at something. It drives me nuts!!! Zip, Zip, Zip and about as subtle as a bulldozer!!! Often, people come up to me and ask about or refer to my "slide" guitar. I hastily, and emphatically tell them that I play steel guitar and add that it was not born in the "southern" U.S. - it was born right here on this island in Hawai`i.

Pedal Steel. I have never said that I dislike the use of pedals - I dislike what they do with them with only a very few exceptions.

Regardless of how many gadgets they invent, it all comes down to this: "Excellency" does not come easily and is not dependent upon "tools" - or even whether you have two hands and ten fingers.

Vintage Amplifier & Electronics Safety

from John W. Tipka

Does your vintage guitar amplifier have a possible "death switch" on it? How about the vocalist whose lips get burned or shocked by the metal shell of a microphone plugged into one of the inputs on an amplifier? I know many of us steel and rhythm guitar players use Blackface and Silverface Fender amplifiers with our instruments.

When I say "death switch", I'm talking about the GROUND SWITCH on these amplifiers that have a two-pronged plug attached to the power cord. I remember well the days before "double-insulated" or polarity plugs came along.

Everything that needed an electrical connection to the mains had a plug with two prongs of the same size. This included my first Gibson BR-6 amplifier which I still own. Plug it in one way and it hummed; rotate the plug and the hum stopped. (By the way, it has a three pronged plug on it now.)

Today, appliances are manufactured with two pronged polarized plugs and three pronged grounded plugs. The two pronged polarized plugs have one prong wider than the other to insure the "neutral" or ground/earth from the mains is properly connected to the appliance. This arrangement ensures that the frame or chassis of the appliance is not connected to the high ("hot") potential side of the mains thus preventing possible ELECTROCUTION and possible DEATH if one were to innocently touch, let's say a water faucet, and the appliance at the same time.

The double insulated scheme is found primarily on portable tools whereby all electrically conductive parts are hidden under plastic or some under non-conductive material. It uses either a plug with or without polarity.

The very best safety is with a three pronged plug. It has a high (narrow prong) or hot (black) wire, a neutral (wide prong) or cold (white) wire, and a separate (round post) ground (green) wire. With an amplifier, the black and white wires connect to the amplifier's power transformer through a fuse and a power switch. The separate green ground wire is connected directly to the chassis of the amplifier.

This insures that current flows to ground through the ground wire of the cord if something goes awry in the amplifier. The chassis is always attached to ground with this method of connection. This is an extremely low resistance connection that ensures current flow to ground rather than through you if you touch it and another appliance.

I recommend that the vintage amplifier with the two conductor cord and two pronged plug be converted to the three conductor cord and three pronged plug because of the hazards I have described above.

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT MAKE THE FOLLOWING MODIFICATION YOURSELF if you have no familiarity with electricity or with the internals of an amplifier or electrical equipment. Have an experienced professional electrical or electronic technician make the modification for you. (Ed. Note: to be sure you've got the "right" person for the job, ask to see his/her license or union card.)

How to Modify an Old Amp

The Fender amplifiers have the fuse on one side of the line and the power switch on the other side. The fuse and power switch need to be on the same side of the incoming line.

1) The old power cord is removed and replaced with a 16 or 18 AWG three wire cord with an attached three prong plug. The black and white wires of the cord connect to the accessory socket. The black wire to the screw for the small slot or top of the socket when looking at it with the chassis upside down, and the white wire to the bottom screw or wide slot in the socket.

2) The black wire from the power cord (through the accessory socket) is connected to the fuseholder and power switch in series with the high/hot end of the power transformer primary winding, with the fuse coming first. (The black wire from the accessory socket connects to the center, or back terminal, on the far end of the fuseholder. The front terminal of the fuseholder connects to a terminal on the power switch. The high end of the transformer primary winding connects to the other terminal on the power switch.)

3) The other end of the power transformer primary winding is connected to the white wire at the accessory socket.

4) The green wire in the cord is the ground wire and is connected directly to the chassis. A terminal lug and self-tapping metal screw work nicely here.

5) The "death switch" and its associated .047 microfarad capacitor should be removed and thrown into a trash can. Two small washers with a machine screw and nut through them can be used to plug the hole for the former ground switch.

With this accomplished, now don't resort to using one of those two prong adapters to float a ground when you have a ground loop problem . Find out why there is a ground loop giving you 60 Hertz hum and eliminate the problem rather than defeating the purpose of the modification described above. Ground loops will be a subject for discussion in a future installment of this column.

The Culprit in My Cave (Amplifier Safety)

by Dale Nightwine

After supper on August 10, 1999, I went downstairs to my "cave" (music room) to practice and play steel guitar. I was looking forward to some fun.

I have two amplifiers that I use, a small Peavey which is grounded, and my 1973 Fender, which was not grounded. I had my EH150 Gibson on my lap and plugged into the Peavey. Both amplifiers were plugged into grounded wall receptacles. With the Gibson still on my lap, I reached for my Bar and Picks, which were lying on my Excel, and WOW! WHAT A SHOCKING EXPERIENCE!

The culprit in my cave was my Fender amp, a not-so-silent villain. I immediately recalled John Tipka's "Tek Tip" article on this hazardous problem. I called my son-in-law, Mike Boyd, who is a licensed electrician/contractor in Kansas City, Kansas. "Help!" I cried, and told him my story. He said "Stop! Don't use your Fender amp until I can check it out completely."

When Mike arrived, I had him read John Tipka's "how to" article on the subject. Mike nodded. The problem was as John had described it. The sound cable from the Fender amp was a "hot" 124 volts. This cable was plugged into the Excel, the source of my shocking experience.

The old Fender amp was corrected with a new, 3-prong electrical cord installed, and the chassis properly grounded. The "death switch" which John's article described, was removed and discarded. Thanks to John Tipka's "Tech Tip" and Mike's expert help, I am still around to pick and grin.

Please players, get your older amplifiers checked out, or it could ruin your day.

Mildew on Equipment

from John W. Tipka

Mrs. Sturgeon write that she has an old, basement-stored 1936 Gibson Hawaiian Electric Steel guitar, case and amp inherited from her father, & he played it until 1994. She treasures it, and wants to pass it to her grandchildren. She did not want to use bleach.

John Tipka writes:

"It will be necessary to use bleach to kill the mildew, if it is still present. Do this: take all the strings off the guitar. Wipe the surfaces of the case, amplifier and guitar with a rag that is mildly wet (that is - you can still wring some water from it) with plain water, to get rid of the superficial mildew. Then, probably while wearing rubber gloves, we (mildly) a rag with pure bleach and rapidly and completely wipe the same surfaces again, immediately followed by a wiping rinse with a rag mildly wet with pain water."

"Then, wash all with a soapy water solution (a liquid dishwashing soap), rinse and dry. You shouldn't have to worry about the electronics (the magnetic pickup under the strings and volume and tone controls) on the guitar if water isn't wring into them. DO NOT IMMERSE the guitar in the water. That should take care of the mildew on all wipeable surfaces. Allow the surfaces to dry, then polish the guitar with a furniture polish acceptable for lacquered surfaces."

"The outside of the case is durable and will respond to cleaning whether it is hard shell or cloth covered. The inside of the case should be brushed and vacuumed and then treated with powdered carpet freshener, which should probably stay in the case for an hour or so and then be vacuumed up. Place a scented sachet inside the case and close it. DO NOT put the guitar back into the case, until the case smells favorable, and the sachet is removed, as the sachet may damage the guitar's finish if left in the case with the guitar."

"No extra special care is needed for cleaning the amplifier except for possibly removing the chassis from inside the case to reach mildew inside and under the chassis. The same technique is used for cleaning all of the pieces. I have cleaned up old guitars in the past and have found the methods above to be thorough and acceptable, and do not cause any damage."

• Use your steel guitar as an art form to convey feelings through playing. Forget what kind of steel, what kind of bar or picks -- PLAY MUSIC!

• The word talent is greatly overused. Without desire, talent is NOTHING.

• You'll never ever finish LEARNING steel guitar. It's a solo instrument. Be an individual. Don't let somebody else tell you what you should do. PLAY YOUR PERSONALITY.

• Get the listener involved in what you're doing. Lead them into the music. Make them anticipate your next note.

• Steel guitar is a LAID BACK instrument.

The C-Scale Tuning

from Bob Lee

(Excerpt from "The C Scale Tuning for the Pedal Steel Guitar", May PSGA Newsletter - thanks and credit to PSGA and author Bob Lee, a computer programmer and freelance steel guitarist from Sonoma County, California)

"The pedal steel is a direct ancestor of the Hawaiian electric steel guitar. During its most popular period (the 1930's through the 1950's) the Hawaiian guitar progressed from primitive major chord tunings to tunings based on jazz or swing chords. The sound of those advanced chordal tunings became part of the stereotyping of the instrument in Hawaiian and "western" (as in "country and western") music."

"In the 1960's Jerry Byrd, an acknowledged master of the instrument, was approached with a project of difficult Japanese pop music. To accomplish the required degree of melodic expression, Byrd chose to use a scale-based, rather than chord-based, tuning. He called this 7-string tuning a "C Diatonic"."

"The Japanese album, later released in the USA by the Steel Guitar Record Club, was called Steel Guitar Romantic World. The music profoundly broke the Hawaiian steel guitar stereotype. It did not hint at any Hawaiian or "western" music flavor, because it did not use the characteristic major 6th and dominant 9th chords of those styles."

Jerry Byrd's C Diatonic Tuning

1 E
2 C
3 B
4 A
5 G
6 F
7 E

"Within Jerry Byrd's C Diatonic tuning, the next melody or harmony note is usually within easy reach from the fret of the current note. This means that the placement of glisses in the melody can be determined by the arranger or performer, rather than by limitations imposed by the tuning of the instument. In skilled hands, the resultant effect can be a striking departure from the "old timey" (Ed Note: We call it 'traditional') flavor most listeners expect from the Hawaiian electric steel guitar."

If you play pedal, and don't get the PSGA newsletter, write to Bob Maickel, PSGA, P.O. Box 20248, Floral Park, NY 11002-0248, as this article contains detailed tuning pointers you may want.

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Tuning Tips

from Alan Akaka

On my recording "Golden Treasures of Hawai`i", I use a C6th tuning (top: E C A G E C Bb C: bottom) for "Sophisticated Hula". Now if you want to emulate my "licks", my advise would be to play the section(s) you want to copy over and over again until you have them down. Playback is easy to do with a CD compared with Lps and reel to reel tapes that I learned from, years ago. About the tuning for the 6-string, omit the bottom 2 strings of the above tuning."

"The string gauges following are a guide for the string thicknesses you can obtain: (top to bottom) E -.015; C - .018; A - .020 or .022; G - .022 or .024P (plain, not wound); E - .030; C - .036; Bb - .040; C - .060. These guages work for other tunings as well, such as the B11th (E-C#-A-F#-D#-B-F#-B), E13th/C#m7th (E-C#-G#-F#-E-D-B-E), and Fmaj7 (E-C-A-F-D-C-A-F). If for some reason you would like to tune your steel guitar with high tunings such as the E7th (G#-E-B-G#-E-D-B-E) or high C6th (G-E-C-A-G-E-C-Bb), use a .012 or .011 for the high string."

"Good luck with your steel guitar!"