A horizontal instrument with ten strings, knee and foot pedals and a whining sound: that is a pedal steel guitar.
“It is an American instrument. A kind of Hawaiian guitar with pedals attached to it. This makes a larger number of chords and chord connections possible,” explains Anne Doedens from Eelde.
Doedens has been playing the complicated instrument, which is mainly used in country music, since his youth. “I’m just a farm boy, but I saw this as a challenge. I taught myself and was the best in Eelde from day one,” he laughs. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
Because there are very few people who can play the pedal steel guitar. “I think there are less than a hundred active people in the Netherlands,” is Doedens’ estimate. And because the club of musicians is small, they meet regularly to exchange experiences. But that always happened in the west of the country. “That’s a 200 kilometer drive for me,” says Doedens. “So I thought: why can’t it be done in the north? That’s fine in my music studio.”
And so 18 pedal-steel guitarists from the Netherlands went to Eelde on Saturday morning, where they received a workshop from Johan Jansen. Young and old mixed together, with a double or single pedal steel guitar.
“I play it because it has such a beautiful sound, that real country sound,” says Louis van Diepen. He came to Eelde from Marknesse. Job Oosterhuis didn’t have to drive as far for the workshop: he comes from Stadskanaal. “It’s great fun to play together and exchange tips. No two instruments are the same and it really takes years before you master the guitar. An enormous challenge.”
You must have studied higher mathematics not only to play the pedal steel guitar, but also to write music notation. “Oh,” laughs Van Diepen. “We retirees have plenty of time to figure that out. Besides, it’s good for… the brains.”
It also took hours of self-study for Doedens, but then you get something: “If you can play this instrument, you can also fly a helicopter,” he winks. “But I didn’t do that: I like this much more.”