Pedal steel guitar

A table-mounted instrument played with a bar and picks, whose strings are retuned while playing by knee levers and foot pedals.

The pedals and levers change the pitch of individual strings, which allows chords to slide while intervals shift underneath, producing the gliding harmony that defines country and western swing playing. The instrument is usually tuned to a chord with a dense upper structure, so a straight bar sounds a complete chord, and the mechanics are complex enough that a modern instrument may have several pedals and four or five levers. Both hands stay busy: right for picking, left for the bar.

Example: a pedal squeezed while the bar slides up gives the crying, rising harmony that is the sound of classic country music.

Pedal steel guitar

See also