C Pedal

[Tony Boadle]

Season's Greetings from Ireland.
I'm making slow but steady progress with my Fuzzy 8-string, (tuned top eight of E9)and I'm gradually starting to understand how useful the top two strings can be!
I have to admit I'm hardly using the C pedal at all so I need to work on that. Any suggestions, exercises or tips on how to utilise it more?
Thanks in advance!

[Dennis Detweiler]

Buddy Emmons said he never uses the C pedal. I'm sure he has used it occasionally. Maybe not enough to mention it. I've found a lot of the C pedal can be duplicated with bar movement and the F lever. Example: the intro to Look At Us. Hughey used the C pedal, but it can be duplicated with the F lever and bar movement. In key of A the intro: strings 3 and 4 at the 10th fret is usually played by sliding up to the 12th fret and pressing B and C pedal, then release. Or, you can start the same way, but slide up to the 13th fret and engage the F lever, then release the F lever as you slide down to the 12th fret. Same notes and same effect. I'm sure Buddy found similar ways to get around the C pedal. I very seldom use the C pedal and have thought about trying different pulls on the C pedal. I used to play Apple Jack. However, I've experimented with the F lever to play it and it can be done.
Google the song, Apple Jack, and work on it. It's all B and C pedal.

[Greg Cutshaw]

Although Emmons said he rarely used the C pedal, you can hear him use it in a ton of recordings. Possibly before Ralph Mooney added the high G# string to the E9th tuning, the C pedal would be away to get those G#/B string double stop progressions.

Here's over 30 great uses for the C pedal from my web site:

https://www.gregcutshaw.com/Tab/Tab11.html

Since this is an older tab page, the sound files are in .wma format but they play fine on my MAC and PC computers.

[Bobby D. Jones]

Buddy never used the C pedal, That is interesting.
Lloyd Green used it in many of his voicings. Since Lloyd did not lower his 4th string on DKL. That allowed him to raise 4th string with C pedal to F#. Or use his F KL, E to F.

The B&C pedal at the 5th chord location allows a different voicing of the 6th minor.

3 songs B&C pedals minors fit in.
Don't Close Your Eyes, Chord G, 10 fret Em B&C pedals.
Some Day Soon, Em 10 fret and Bm 5th fret B&C pedals.
Where Corn Don't Grow E, C#m 7th fret B&C pedals.

[Sam Inglis]

The C and B pedals together are great for playing phrases in parallel sixths on strings 4 and 6. For example try playing 4 and 6 together, no pedals, at the 3rd fret. Then engage the C and B pedals, then slide up two frets, then slide up another three frets to the 8th whilst releasing the pedals again.

[Per Berner]

I never use mine, but that's because I have E>F# on my LKV. A quick up-kick is much easier than moving my left foot from A+B to the B+C position. Haven't gotten around to find an alternative change for the C pedal, though...

[Nick Krol]

I use BC pedals to get the same harmonized scales on strings 4 and 6 as you can get on 3 and 5 with AB together.

[Dennis Detweiler]

A local decease steel player had a kneelever that raised his 4th E to F#. He never used the C pedal. That's just another option.
I remember Lloyd saying that he never thought the E9th tuning was complete until the F lever came along. Duplicating his moves and style always seemed harder to do for me compared to the rest of the pack at that time. It's gotten a little more complex with the advent of newer knee pulls as in Franklin. All of it has to do with duplicating to sound like the recording and less to do with personal creating. Emmons also said, "copying is easy, creating is what's hard." However, we learn along the way from copying what we hear.

[C. D. Maclean]

I wasn’t using the C pedal at all but did need a 0 pedal to work my 12th string bottom E as I play extended E9. Losing the C and moving the 0 to position 3 is something I should have done years ago. Pedal 3 now raises low E to F# or cancels the bottom E lower when using LKR to get the maj7th chord. But I also have it raising 4 to F# as well which makes for many nice combos, particularly when using the open minor chord. So many options with this thing particularly if you have no need to play the standard covers!

[Tony Boadle]

Thanks everyone for the really helpful and useful replies. Very much appreciated, plenty to think about over the holidays. Sláine from County Cork

[Dave Grafe]

Mostly it serves to work with the B pedal to give you an A6/F#m one fouth above the E6/C#m of the A pedal alone, which is why it is part of the scheme, it's rarely used alone.

BTW while Buddy "said he never used the C pedal" he also said he also raised strong 10 E>F# with it.

[Tucker Jackson]

The gents above are steering you right. The C-pedal is usually used along with the B-pedal to get a minor chord. Please note that, unlike most everything else, it does not work with all of the standard grips. Specifically, you will not use it with a lower grip that incorporates the 8th string, but it does work on those treble grips that incorporate the 4th string.

Here's another view of the same thing discussed by others in this thread, taken from instructional material I wrote that shows the fretboard positions of one minor chord, played up and down the neck. You can get tons of mileage, sliding between these positions while the strings are still ringing:

Map of a Minor Chord.jpg

.

Here’s a memorization trick: The BC pedals and the E-lower positions shown in the middle of the chart are sort of “twins”. They’re only 2 frets apart.

In fact, when practicing, I frequently play this up-and-down sliding move to reinforce the fact that wherever you find one, the other is only 2 frets away:

I play: BC pedals– sliding down 2 frets to – E-lower Knee – sliding back up to BC. It’s a cool little lick, and it helps you learn those 2 positions quickly. It’s the same chord in two different frets that are conveniently close to each other.

I think of these 2 positions as one position, really… just like people sometimes think of a set of twin sisters as one unit.

Once you’re comfortable with that “twin” combo, it’s easy to remember that the A-pedal version of the chord is 5 frets away from either end of the twin-pair.

See the chart above to verify that the A-pedal position is 5 frets above of the BC side of the ‘twin’ -- and 5 frets below of the E-lower side of the twin.

Also, note that the two A-pedal positions at each end of the chart above are one octave apart from each other (12 frets apart).

[Sam Inglis]

Two further uses for the C pedal:

Holding down B and C and striking strings 4, 6 and 9 gives you a major chord a whole tone below the 'open' chord with no pedals down. So with the bar at the 12th fret you'd get a D major. (I guess this is not possible on the OP's guitar since it doesn't have strings 9 and 10 though.)

Raising string 4 to F# with the C pedal gives you a unison with string 1. So if you also have a raise on string 1 you can do a nice contrary motion thing by starting with the unison and then lowering 4 and raising 1 at the same time.

[John Hyland]

It is difficult to move smoothly from the AB down to BC down but a deft move of the right foot onto C is a great option.

[Richard Alderson]

Dear Tony - I am glad to know the 8 string set up is opening some doors for you. The Winnie Winston book was written for A-B-C pedals plus the E flat lower knee lever. So that book has a couple of songs and exercises that purposefully include the C pedal.

Players seem to be very different for what pedals they favor. I have a very ingrained habit of using the BC pedals together to get the relative minor of whatever major chord the A-B pedals are making. Example, A&B pedals at the third fret, = C chord, the One (1) chord. Relative minor (6) chord is A minor, = B&C pedals also at the third fret. I can't help myself, and do it without thinking. Otherwise you can get the relative minor two frets down (1st fret) with the E flat knee lever; or you can get the relative minor 5 frets up (8th fret) with just the A pedal engaged. So its nice to have three or four or five or six ways of getting the same chord and that's part of what makes E9th pedal steel so unique.

Good luck on your journey and its tough just to find a steel in your part of the world, so I hope the Excel does you well.

[Ian Rae]

Although the C pedal physically raises 4&5 it also served to lower 3&6 by sliding back 2 frets, in the days before there were levers to do that.
It's a bit like P7 on the C6 - although it obviously raises 3&4, it can equally lower 5&6 by sliding back.