Self Taught

[Dom Franco]

I took lessons on the Hawaiian guitar as a child (age 9-12) and after that I just learned to play with other musicians (self taught?)
At 20 years old I bought my first pedal steel and I never took a lesson on it, but I wish I had. Because I developed many bad habits that a lesson or two would have helped me avoid. (Wrong pedal setup, weird string pulls and incorrect pitch changes, improper blocking etc.)

Dom

[John Speck]

I don't suppose there is any one with a masters degree in lap steel performance. That was just a ha ha. But on a serious note, I suppose Don Helms is also self taught, but If he had students, I would want to take lessons from one of those guys because I would be able to make more of impression on those country singers who are Hank Williams wantabes.

[Doug Beaumier]

I don't suppose there is any one with a masters degree in lap steel performance.

Those degrees are earned in the school of "hard knocks"

I started playing guitar in 1964 and steel in 1970. Self-taught on both. Mostly I learned by playing in bands, learning from other musicians, playing 5 to 7 nights a week for many years, over 4500 gigs and thousands of hours of practice and teaching. I took a few music courses in college (UMass) back in the day, and that helped somewhat, but most of my learning has been by ear. Knowing some theory has been very helpful too.
I took some advanced steel lessons in the early 1980s: two days of lessons with Buddy Emmons in Nashville studying C6, a week with Jimmie Crawford and John Hughey, also Jeff Newman. By that time I was already playing 7 nights a week in house bands, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to study with the great masters of our instrument.

[Paul Seager]

I've been playing music since I was about 13. I've taught myself bass and guitar and much later steel. As has been stated elsewhere in this thread, the learning never stops and I hope it doesn't. Thanks to the generosity of this Forum and indeed Youtube contributors, there is no end of learning pleasure to be had!

On the other side of the coin: Starting a few months ago (at 52) I've been taking singing lessons. Possibly the toughest musical education ever but for some reason, expressing myself using only my body rather than through an instrument, was something I couldn't figure out. Now it's coming but I wouldn't have got there without a teacher.

So my conclusion is that if you have a problem you cannot solve yourself (or here), then a teacher is not a bad thing.

\ paul

[Andrea Tazzini]

Hello Deirdre,
how many steel guitar teachers do you think there are in Italy?
Andrea

[Charlie McDonald]

I think this is my first post on the forum even though I signed up in 2013, so Hi Everyone!

Welcome Robert.

[jamming with others] it's a leap of faith and I found that thick skin and short memory helped me most.

I understand the thick skin, but am curious how the short memory helped. Can you expand that?
I was interested that you learned to read music but not much theory, and curious whether you can read sheet music on steel.

I didn't learn to read (well) but learned a lot of theory in piano, so I could fake it well, and thus not entirely self-taught in music.
You have John Ely's chord calculator, his teaching. Jamming with others, you're learning on the spot (even if it's what or when not to play).

... any student who got to class had done there job, and if they failed it was all the teachers fault.

I am glad that era in education is passing (although there will be a backlash, lessened responsibility for educators,
more required from the student, as lessened responsibility overall is the trend). There are reasons why some folks
actually can't or don't want to learn, and they aren't on this forum. Every post I read on this topic alone is a teaching.

It takes Robert or Paul or Doug or Deidre's desire to learn through thick skin or hard knocks (I don't know either of those).
It's easy to forget that Doug was once a student with nothing more than desire.
It's hard to be in a vacuum on this forum, but there's some guy out there who IS completely self taught.
('What's this?' he says, picking up a guitar and a rock....') (And on the forum we say, 'Quick, grab him...!)

It does take patience, and I hope that students, like Deidre, won't get in a hurry or worry that you're alone.
It took Doug a long time to find the right teachers;
after all, those teachers were busy playing back when.

played for 40 years. that's really where you learn.

[Robert Padwick]

Charlie,
Thanks for the welcome.
Charlie McDonald Wrote:

[jamming with others] it's a leap of faith and I found that thick skin and short memory helped me most. I understand the thick skin, but am curious how the short memory helped. Can you expand that?

Yes. At times I jam with jazz musicians. Early on in my jazz jamming career, if you can call it that, I did manage to irk the odd conventional guitar player and received some negative comments, and this is where the short memory helps (in other words, don’t take it to heart). Most were joking of course, but I did manage to get sent off stage once (vibed?). Since then, I’ve improved a bit, I’ve also heard some very positive feedback on steel guitar in jazz, and as long as I stay off the guitarists register during his or her solo, all is okay. On slow pieces steel guitar is a crowd pleaser, if only I could hit all the right notes all of the time…

Charlie McDonald Wrote:

I was interested that you learned to read music but not much theory, and curious whether you can read sheet music on steel.

Yes I can, but I’m only practiced with A6th. I generally find it difficult to sight read in real time though, so will work to commit the melody to memory as soon as possible. I can read the music well enough to bring a tune together reasonably well in a short time (attended jazz combo sessions where lead sheets are dropped on the music stand and off you go). I guess I forgot most music theory after my grade 2 piano except for the very basics, such as note duration and timing etc. I’d totally forgotten about chord notation until I took up the steel guitar, but could muddle my way through the melody.

In case you’re wondering about the jazz (or why choose jazz in particular?): The VSO School in Vancouver started jazz combo sessions, essentially paid classes led by jazz musicians such as Jodi Proznick, James Danderfer. I’m the only steel guitar, but no surprise there, but I thought it would be a good way to get some real playing in. Otherwise, I just try and pick up folk song books, Hawaiian, Elvis or whatever I can, and simply try and play the tune, both chords and melody. Usually I’ll play solo at home for family or whomever, but more often than not, the people I know who could jam along at the house are too shy, which is a shame, and partly why I headed to the jazz school. Last time I played for the neighbours I'd just got done pouring concrete, so had rubber boots on, a tin hat, and a load of dust. Must have been quite the sight. Only played a hymn and Harbor Lights, but I reckon it was the best I've ever played them.

[Gary Steele]

I bought my first new d 10 msa classic from Sonny Curtis in columbus ohio.over 50 years ago. I could have had harold fogel teach me way back then. But i was to rambunctious. Never played anything else at all. Still want to take some lessons. Plan to before long.

[Michael Kiese]

Aloha all,

Just adding my 2¢ for the sake of posterity.

Here are my thoughts....

BLUF: Steel is a very hard first instrument. It's a lot easier if you already know how to play guitar or piano. If you're absolutely at ground zero, never playing music ever in your life, any first instrument will be hard. In my opinion, steel would be even harder.

"Fixed" and "non-fixed" instruments can be used to describe instruments based on whether they produce discrete, predetermined pitches (fixed like a piano, guitar, saxophone, etc) or allow for a continuous range of pitches (non-fixed like steel guitar, voice, trombone, etc).

With piano and guitar, you push down on a fret or a key, and an in-tune note automatically comes out. That's very helpful to teach your ear what "right" sounds like. With steel, the intonation comes from your placement of the bar. So if you do not have any concept of what an in-tune note sounds like, that will be a large hurdle to overcome on a non-fixed instrument like steel guitar.

General thoughts on the concept of being "self-taught".

At the end of the day, music is a language just like English is a language. The point of learning a language is so that we can communicate with others in that language. Not all of us are Ernest Hemingway or JRR Tolkien, but everyone reading this is fluent in English.

The "halls of education" have 2 doors: the front door and the back door. The front door is formal academic environment learning. The back door is the journey of self-discovery and experiencing life.

Both "doors" have pros/cons, and both doors ultimately lead to the same information. You can become a good musician regardless of what door you take.

Having been born a working class kid in Hawaii, I didn't have many opportunities growing up to formally study music. Regarding music, the streets were my classroom and people were my books. I was SO HUNGRY for knowledge. I bought and read countless music books on Amazon when Amazon only sold books. lol. I'd LISTEN to recordings all the time. I'd go to sleep with the CD player playing through headphones so I could listen to Charlie Parker while I sleep, hoping that somehow the language would seep into my brain. I'd sleep with books under my pillow hoping the knowledge and information would magically flow into my head.

I honed my skills on the bandstand, which is ultimately the best classroom for a musician. Admittedly, I didn't have formal opportunities to study music, but I had ample opportunities to witness professional entertainers perform for Tourists. Some of those old timers were just SO FUNNY! On top of being great musicians, dancers, singers, etc, they just knew how to hold an audience in the palm of their hand. There are no classes in University/Conservatory that can teach you how to do that.

To this day, I've never laughed or been more entertained than by local Hawaiian old timer entertainers that the world will never know. So many people of that old generation in Hawaii were natural comedians with larger than life personalities. I think it has to do with that old generation not having many forms of entertainment. They grew up with the radio before TV came out, and when TV came out, it was so expensive that not many people had one. So a lot of people figured out how to entertain themselves. Their generation would just go out and socialize at the Elks Club, Rotary Club, Lions club, Masons Lodge, VFW, American Legion, etc. And each venue had their own self-taught MC who had a larger than life personality and was good at talking to audiences.

When I later moved to the mainland and did a career in the US Army Band, I lived 5 years close to Nashville, and I got to travel the world, and I met musicians everywhere and learned through sharing and being open.

I will say that I was surprised that my skillset and knowledge oftentimes were beyond those that got bachelors or advance degrees in music. I was absolutely shocked when that first happened.

I went through the Navy School of Music's old music program. It was actually worth college credit. I was surprised that I accelerated through it while many other musicians who went to University and Conservatory struggled. My ear training was very good, and once I understood the academic terminology for the different types of "cadences", all I did was apply it to the guitar and went "Oh that's the sound of this chord going to that chord". A lot of the Brass and Woodwind players had limited playing experience on piano or guitar, so they had to use convoluted rules to reverse engineer what they were hearing. Working class Hawaii boy me was like "that's just G7 to C over here on the fretboard".

Of course there were some killer musicians that went to school. But there are also killer musicians who never stepped foot in school.

Guitar players grow on trees in Nashville. You'll meet a very humble country dude and he'll go "oh I can't play jazz", but then he'll swing his ass off on a western swing tune with tons of jazz language. But he'll assert that he can't play jazz.

I've met people who spent 4 years getting a jazz degree who can't play through changes, and can't identify chord progressions by ear. Literally, they'll play an entire song in the diatonic key and not hear that it doesn't fit. I've met PhD's in Music Theory who CAN'T PLAY, literally they sound like an average middle schooler on their instrument. These truths are so shocking that even when confronted with it, you don't want to believe it.

Bottomline is that music is a language, and playing an instrument is a skill. When you play music, you're combining a skillset you learn on your instrument with your understanding and application of the language of music.

Regardless of whatever path in life you took, nothing changes the fact that music is a language. You can either speak a language, or you can't. Just like we're communicating through English right now.

At the end of the day, in my opinion, it's best to learn a language by surrounding yourself with native speakers. You can take 4 years of Spanish at a University in Ohio, or you can live in Spain, Puerto Rico, or Mexico.

You don't need a degree to prove that you are fluent in English. You just speak English. Native English speakers will either be able to understand you or they won't. And they'll be able to identify if you're a Native Speaker or not. Within the first minute of a conversation, all that information is determined, and there is no denying it. Music is the same way.

It just matters if as a Native Speaker, whether or not you're going to be kind to other person or not. It's a choice. Do you talk down and make the new learner feel bad about themselves, or do you help them along and do your best to have a conversation?

Or, even as a Native speaker, there might be someone who speaks English at a more erudite level than you. Whether or not you have a conversation with that erudite person is not a matter of your lack of English fluency, it's a matter of how much of a jerk the erudite person is.

These are experiences we've all had in life. Just apply them to music.

The closest thing we have as musicians to traveling to the country that speaks the language you want to learn, is the bandstand itself.

Just practice a lot, work up 30 minutes of performance material, and then go play in front of a live audience. Go play for tips at a coffee house. Go perform for people at an old folks home. Heck, if you're bold enough, go busk on the street. Do that over and over. Build your repertoire. Hone your setlist. Meet other musicians who are better than you and are kind enough to share their knowledge with you. Then when you get better, you be that person for another hungry musician.

Eventually someone will come along and hear you and go "Hey would you like to sit in with....."

Note: I personally recommend avoiding open mics, because it's not a normal audience. It's full of other musicians, who won't behave like a normal audience. Open mics may be good for meeting other people in your area, but that's also a double edged sword.

At the end of the day, if you have 3 hours of material, you can gig/perform anywhere. Just go out and play. The audience will be the best judge.

The ONE thing that Music Conservatory cannot teach you, is how to entertain an audience. The Bandstand teaches you that, and it's a free education.

The audience will either like you or they won't. But the trick is, you just have to realize that most audiences are on your side. Even if you bomb, most people will be polite. It's the other musicians that you have to watch out for. They're the ones with the hurtful comments. The main thing is to not give up, and to be better than you were yesterday.

At the end of the day, you can get away with just about anything if you're entertaining. Audiences want to be entertained, and they want to be free from worry. If you can provide that to them, you're golden. That's the ultimate lesson that many people NEVER learn.

Best piece of advice I ever got was from Bobby Ingano "Hey, listen to me. This is what I learned from the old timers in my day..if we can get someone in the audience to shed a tear, or smile, our job as musicians ends RIGHT THERE. IT IS DONE. Nothing else matters."

Everything else is just ego. Never forget why we play music in the first place. Music is to enjoy.

Sorry for going long. I kinda just rolled with it.

Hopefully someday this comment may be helpful to someone who reads it.

I'm sure there are those who would disagree or have different takes. To each their own.

This was just my 2¢.

Enjoy!

[Gary Steele]

I really enjoyed this.Thank you so much. Hope you come through Ohio.Someday we will meet up and have a coffee or something.
God bless.

[Steven Wilson]

Wow, this is a long thread with many good thoughts. I just want to suggest that "taking lessons" in this day and age can be in many forms including inexpensive online lessons. Since this is "Steel without pedals", one resource I used during the pandemic was Troy Brenningmeyer. The fretboard charts alone were worth the subscription as I was trying to understand how different tunings work (open G dobro, open D with benders, C6). That said, I am also largely self-taught, but getting some visual and auditory assistance helped me progress and reinforced the theory behind it all; why slants work for example......

[BJ Burbach]

I went from slide to pedal steel, to dobro and more electric bottleneck, Meanwhile went from flatpicking to fingerstyle on flat top at the same time. Never made a living at it, but always played.
No lessons, but music theory and sight singing classes was really useful for E9. Now it's 8 stringers and there is a wealth of info here that I could have never seen otherwise. Lap steel is so diverse and powerful.
So no lessons, Just a truckload of accumulated bad habits, total mess, but the best fun.


BJ

[David DeLoach]

I learned to play blues slide guitar while in high school from a book by Artie Traum that had a tear-out floppy 45 RPM record included. If I remember correctly, almost all of the tunes were in open E tuning.

I guess you can call that being self-taught.

I bought a stainless steel square neck Dobro in the mid 1970's (for $350) and I tuned that to open E and started jamming along to records to figure it out.

By the time I acquired my first lap steel, I was a couple of years into jazz and classical guitar studies at North Texas State University (now UNT), so I had a lot of formal music training under my belt to apply to lap steel. But I kept it in open E tuning as that was what I was familiar with and figured out tunes (e.g. Steel Guitar Rag) on my own as there was not a lot of lap steel instruction material or lap steel teachers that I could find.

After selling my lap steel and Dobro in the mid-1980's I took a long break and just got serious about lap steel a few years ago. The materials that have really helped me on my journey have been...

--> Cindy Cashdollar's lessons on Homespun.com

--> Doug Beaumier's books

--> Roy Thomson's and Mike Idhe's books on Leavitt tuning

--> countless posts which I have read on this forum

[Michael Kiese]

I thought some more about this subject...

One of the best things I love about Steel Guitar is that it is STILL such a young instrument, and there is still a lot of undiscovered territory on it.

Steel is an obscure instrument, but the sound is universally recognizable.

There are a million resources, schools, and conservatories that can teach you to play piano, guitar, violin, etc.

Steel guitar isn't like that. Instead of having someone teach you, you must be able to teach yourself, and you must be very self driven. It's always been that way. There's something uniquely egalitarian about that.

No matter how much wealth and opportunity you have or lack, if you learn steel guitar, we all have to start at relatively the same starting line.

We all have to start from not knowing anything, from brands and types of steels, to all the tunings, string gauges, etc. And after all that, we still have to learn how to make music on it.

It's a challenge, but it's a challenge that is presented to all of us equally.

Anybody who goes far on this instrument and excels only does that because they really love it, and they had to do it based solely upon their own drive and ingenuity. So we are all kindred spirits despite being of all ages, cultures, nationalities, and ethnicities. We are all here because we love the steel, and this forum is still one of the best ways to get started, and to get help learning steel. We all help because we know how hard it is, and we love the instrument.

That's pretty special.

A uniquely Hawaiian instrument was once the most popular instrument in the world, and then country musicians took the sound and made it their own, and the black gospel churches loved the sound and made it their own.

Everybody had to be self taught to a large extent, from the humble beginnings of Joseph Kekuku discovering the sound of a steel bar on open tuned guitar in 1889, to this very day.

Being self taught on Steel isn't a bug, it's a feature of the instrument. lol.

[Rick Rienks]

Wow! You really started a landslide of responses. That is great and one of the reasons this forum is so valuable. I spent a large part of my life as a working musician. Then one day, everything I knew went missing. Many years later, I fell into a great deal on a Supro lap steel. Okay God, if I can get back to my first love, here I go. Tuning: what a load of choices. My present default is Open-E. I decided to make a variety of neck diagrams for various tunings to make sense of all the options.

Right now, I have created a moveable 2-octave pattern which starts on the 5th string. The notes are selected to help me visualize the note relationships for 2 sequential octaves. In other words, there are repetitions of the scale notes that are duplicates and ignored. The point is to establish a practice pattern to allow your brain and slide to follow the scale up and back down to the root on the 5th string. 5th string at first fret is middle C. To keep the pattern consistent and avoid open strings I start at the 5th string, 3rd fret or “D”. The notes selected flow smoothly up and back, thus the pattern can start on any 5th string note as the root and you can go as far up as you want, then back down. I start on D/5th then E/5th, F etc until at least the 12th fret marker, which is B. Daily runs help with finding the notes.

I found going back down is harder than going up the scale. Going up, I can see the visible fret line, going back down, not so much. Yes, we are supposed to use our ear and muscle memory, but that takes a bit of time to develop. I’m old, that’s my excuse. But with regular practice, calmly done, things begin to come together. This also aids as I regain my ability to read sheet music. Another area where slow & steady works best. If you wanted to see the chart I could photo it and send it or attach it here somewhere.

[Frank Leppert]

Hi folks,

First thing is to thank for all the contributions in this thread.
I am 60 years old and I am learning steel guitar for 4 years now.
My first attempt was when I was about 18 years old, living in Berlin Germany. I got fascinated by country music, especially Waylon Jennings and loved the steel playing of Ralph Mooney. Saw him with Waylon in 83. My first steel guitar I ever touched was a Serra I saw in a music shop, 1200 German marks, way too much for a kid like me. The owner was nice and let me try it out and he let me measuring the instrument. At home, I took off a book shelf and built my DIY steel guitar, ten strings, 23,3 scale, bought a set of E90 strings at the shop, tuners, built my own pick up with cupboard magnets and cupper wire and I put it to work over my hifi stereo. Two years later I moved to Portugal.

Second chapter. I took my steel with me and it remained about 35 yeas in my garage until a friend of my daughter, young musician, gave me a pickup. I hooked it up to my old steel and I put it up to work again. But soon I realized that a lot of stuff wasn't done the right way. Then I found this forum and decided to build another steel guitar with stuff from the local hardware store and Chinese internet shops. So I made a 8 string lap steel guitar, 22,5 scale 3/4 string spacing as suggested by Jerry Byrd. So I get to the point, there is no steel playing scene in Portugal, no teachers, no hardware. I found the instructing book from Don Helms with tabs and gave it a start. Then I read about the Jerry Byrd course. I contacted Scotty's son who was still selling the course and I must say, it is worth every penny I spent. Slanting is one of my favourite technique, and I got to know Hawaiian music. I can recommend it to all beginners, it's all there.

The other music area I love is Western Swing. Cindy Cashdolars Video DVD course is great as it is based on my 8-string high G C6 tuning.
In the meantime I feel comfortable to play all tunes I know on the steel. I like to play with tabs, I found in this forum, some I bought. You can learn a lot with tabs transferring them to other contexts. I like to put on music and play to the stuff I hear. It is hard to play the fillings, I always feel to get to the melody. It takes some discipline to avoid.
As I concentrated myself on C6 (and E6) I begin to struggle with other tunings, like E13 and maybe B11.

So I can conclude, I learned some steel playing without lessons or a tutor on one hand, on the other I had teachers like Byrd, Helms and a lot of guys from YouTube and people from this forum, not to forget Joe Ely's website, among many others.
And sometimes some surprises happens. Living in small Portuguese university city, 3 years ago, Susan Alcon came here for a project with some Portuguese jazz musicians. I got the chance to talk with her after the concert, it was a blast for me talking with somebody about steel guitar. I must say she was a marvelous person and got me lot of inspiration. I still feel very for the loss of her.

In the meantime I gave up switching to pedal steel, I would much prefer to get a good lap steel, like a Stringmaster. No way to buy one here, shipping costs, customer fees, etc. So I am working on my third steel guitar, a cheap clone, made of pine (no swamps here, and no ashes) I already got the pickup from Sentinel, looking for the tuner machine, probably I have to buy a Allison, pretty expensive. But I like it. It's nice to play on an instrument you built on your own and I will keep on playing and learning.

A hug from Portugal

Frank

[Earl Foote]

I've had one lesson in 55 years of playing pedal steel and lap steel, and it was from Maxie at Heart of Texas Music in Temple Texas when I purchase my first steel which was a Fender 800 back in the early 70's. He said if you don't push any pedals, that's an E chord. If you mash those two pedals that's an A chord. The rest you will have to figure out yourself.

I did not have the same luxury on the lap steel, I figured that one out by myself. I just wanted to play "parts" on lap steel, (like the solo in Running on Empty) I never concentrated on all of the parlor tricks that can be done on a lap steel. My recent acquisition on a Duesenberg lap steel definitely changed the way I play lap steel though.

So I learned pedal steel and lap steel, bad habits and all, by myself.

You tube would have been a great learning tool. back then. New steel players have it a little easier these days.

[Earl Foote]

To add to my comments and address the question that Deirdre had, yes, I think it's totally possible to teach yourself steel. I do think it would be much easier if the student knew music beforehand. Knowing how chords work and how to construct major and minor chords would be a big plus. If you started as a non-musician, it would be tough because in addition to learning how to play the instrument they would be tasked with learning chord construction, how to recognize major and minor chords by ear, knowing what is meant by a I, IV, V chord, etc.

[Kelly Hagerman]

At the moment I am almost 3 months into largely self teaching steel and some Eddie slide and Troy Brenningmeyer videos here and there, but mostly just figuring it out and listening by ear. It's a real joy to see how C6 can get you so many places if you know the neck. And guys like Kayton Roberts, Jerry Byrd and even pedal guys like Buddy Emmons, Speedy West and Barbara Mandrell are good to follow if you transpose their more accessible stuff to C6 nonpedal. Curly Chalker is fun to listen to but Buddy and Curly's proper jazz arrangements are a monolith of their own.

I notice many people are not that into exploring B11, (which is a surprisingly high powered tuning for exotic voicings) and realized I could tune the whole tuning up a half step and be in C for matching C6 shapes. And I was kinda afraid of looking into E13 (high G#) and B11 until I tried E13, it's just C6 but higher.

If you play C6 and have to back someone that likes unusual keys like C# or G#, (singer songwriter) E13 is very natural for transposing C6 shapes and ideas into positions you're used to. It's basically C6 but with a b7 in the lower half of the strings, and tuned up 4 steps.'

B11 is a phenomenal tuning for being jazzy or more advanced sounding without trying as hard as on a regular guitar. The top 4 strings are basically an A6 shape, and you can live on those 4 for a while, just feeling out your new positions, which is basically 2 steps up from C6. If you are tuned to C11, you can play the 5th Fret, and grabbing the 6th and smaller strings get a very nice jazzy bluesy F chord. Go up to the 7th fret and play the top 4 strings and that's an F6 chord, just like we're used to.

Strings 3, 4, 5 are a diminished chord that you can grab at any moment, and 2, 3, 4, are your regular minor triad. Therefore this tuning allows you to play a regular major triad, a b7 chord, 9th and 11th (from the stacked thirds), a 6th chord, major 7th chord, a minor chord, and a diminished chord. This will let you play some really jazzy stuff if you try to work out something like the Autumn leaves, or even just some nice ambient steel with fun shapes. If strumming the majority of the neck feels weird, try thinking of it as a spicy II chord, which really helped me contextualize all those stacked thirds, and give you a direction to move in.

Self teaching steel is very possible, it just looks scary because the tunings have wild names and the pros make it look like butter. We're all learning on a pretty new instrument!