names for the pedal steel

[Rick Trolinger]

I was playing at our church and my 7 year old great niece told her mother that she loved that sad guitar.

[Jim Pitman]

A guy in my band called it a Sit tar
That kinda makes sense.

[Larry Jamieson]

A guy I played with once said "I love that steppin on the cat's tail instrument."

[Alan Bidmade]

Polyphonic Hostess Trolley.

[Steve Hinson]

Dan Frizsell,a great producer/engineer in Nashville(and a personal friend of mine)

named it"the crying table"...

SH

[Steve Hinson]

Dan Frizsell,a great producer/engineer in Nashville(and a personal friend of mine)

named it"the crying table"...

SH

[Bruce Derr]

I haven't seen anybody mention "lap steel" yet. Common mistake at places that should know better. (Looking at you, Guitar Center.)

Less common variant: Laptop steel. I saw this today in a Craigslist ad. (To be fair, it was for a lap steel, not a pedal steel.)

[Bobby D. Jones]

I like the name "Divorce Machine".
A crew from the area I grew up, Was working in our community. On a construction job. They played music every night at their rented trailer. I took my steel out and left it, Played with them every time I could. Played with them one night. Went home, My kids was alone. Spent time with them, Put them to bed.

I had heard rumors, She was catting around with a local delivery man.

Went lookin for her, At 2am Found my truck in Archway Cookie Distributers driveway, And her in his house. All @#$%^&*&^%$#@! broke loose, Ended up in D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

[Don R Brown]

I like the name "Divorce Machine".
A crew from the area I grew up, Was working in our community. On a construction job. They played music every night at their rented trailer. I took my steel out and left it, Played with them every time I could. Played with them one night. Went home, My kids was alone. Spent time with them, Put them to bed.

I had heard rumors, She was catting around with a local delivery man.

Went lookin for her, At 2am Found my truck in Archway Cookie Distributers driveway, And her in his house. All @#$%^&*&^%$#@! broke loose, Ended up in D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

Bobby, that tale has the makin's of at least 3 good country songs!

I'm hearing John Conlee's "Backside of 30" in my head.....
"Playin' steel till midnight, I guess I was blind
Trading nookie for cookies, she left me behind"

[Craig Stock]

I had a customer who said, 'You have one of those Wang Wang things'

[Ben Alt]

lol

[Nick Krol]

The cryin' table

[Shoshanah Marohn]

When I was playing an MSA d10, a guy came up in a night club in Fort Worth and stood in front of me and pointed at the MSA logo and said “Maurice S. Anderson “…. I said “yea….do you know what the “s” stands for? He says “yep, that’s your middle initial “. LOL…I told Reece about it. The guy evidently thought I was Reece….Reece said “did you tell him who you were?” I say, “yea but he didn’t believe me.” LOL…the guy thought he had met the one and only Reece Anderson..I told Reece then I expected to get his pay for the gig instead of mine….Reece cracked up…I miss ole Reece. He was a good man and a good friend. And he had a lot of stories like these.

There’s this nice lady (drummer for the Living Daylights) that I grew up with who thinks my name is, “Sho-Bud.” To this day! She writes it on Christmas cards to me. All I can think is that my dad said, “I’m bringing the Sho Bud to this gig,” and then I tagged along, so she assumed my nickname was Sho-Bud? (It’s not, and it never has been.) LOL.

[Scott Martin]

This is very entertaining! I was playing Luckenbach on night and a lady came up and said, "I sure like your keyboard. Have you played it all your life?"
I told her, "no, not yet."

[Ron Funk]

My Dad called my 1st lap steel a 'Guit-Fiddle'

[Joseph Jennings]

10 speed get tar, stick shift

[Steve Cattermole]

Synthesizer

[Bud Angelotti]

That thing.

[Mark Hariman]

Guzheng.

[Jerry Overstreet]

Bless you.

[Logan Day]

My favorite is 'table piano'

[Michael Fish]

I call mine “Eli Whitney’s mechanical voice-leading contraption.”

(Excel S10 5x6)

[Brett Day]

When I was a kid, I was watching a video of Ricky Skaggs singing "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'(this was in the early or mid 80s when Ricky performed the song on Austin City Limits) and I was curious about one of the instruments, so I asked my aunt Denise, "What is that instrument that looks like a table with strings?" and she said, "It's a steel guitar". I had no idea at the time what the difference was between pedal steel and lap steel guitar. When I was eight years old, I really started loving the steel guitar and its' look and sound in country music. After I started playing the steel guitar during my high school years, I told a lot of people that I play the steel guitar, and I remember one group of girls I was talking to, and they first looked at each other and said I played guitar, and I had to explain to them that it's not the type of guitar you strum or fret with your fingers, I told them it's a pedal steel guitar, meaning you got a set of picks, a bar, and you use pedals, and then the group of girls said, "You play it like a piano?" , and I had to explain to them again how a pedal steel guitar is played.

[J D Sauser]

"A Domino's Large Pizza WILL Feed A Family Of Four - A $5000.oo PSG Will Not!" is something I heard way back!

Maurice Anderson called it an "Electric Ironing Board"

Someone once called John Fabian at CARTER STEEL GUITARS and asked him if they were that company that makes "them whing-whang kind'a thangs"? we got a solid half hour of good laughter out of that call!

... J-D.

[scott murray]

I read an article a few years ago that referred to it as the "prairie theremin" ...that stuck with me.

and I've heard people refer to the pedals as "sustain pedals" like on a piano.