ATTACK, DECAY, SUSTAIN, RELEASE
As an advancing musician, the tones you create are probably one of your greatest concerns, but the coolest chords and the hottest single note lines can’t work well if you are not articulating the notes you play clearly.
The tremendous clarity and sustain of the pedal steel requires some form of note control and blocking to voice your music clearly.
The first tendency is to add effects like reverb or delay or compression to make the sound we want, but before that, let’s look at what we can do with our hands and our volume pedal.
We can borrow some ideas from electronic synthesizers to help us make our notes and chords clean, clear, and effective.
The front panel on most synthesizers has a group of controls in what is called the Amplifier Envelope. The controls are labeled A, D, S, and R, which stand for Attack, Delay, Sustain and Release. Let’s use some of these ideas to improve our playing skills.
Attack
When you pick a note, the force of your pick against the string determines its ultimate power and ability to sustain.The note reaches its maximum volume pretty quickly and begins to decay. If you have your volume pedal at it’s regular playing position the note ramps up like it does in the chart and starts it’s decay, but if you pick the note at a low volume pedal setting and then ramp it up, that softens the attack and makes it more like a violin bow drawing across the strings.
Decay and Sustain
The moment the note is picked it ramps up to the top of the attack profile and starts its decay to the sustain level. On a synth or piano the sustain is set with the “S” control, but on the pedal steel you can use the volume pedal to increase or decrease the sustain, especially on chords in slower songs.
Release
Notes played at a certain tempo should have a duration based on their value in the written musical score or the melody of the song. The possibilities within a bar of music can be anywhere from 32 notes to one note per bar. This number is what determines the release of each note so they don’t run together. On the pedal steel, note release is controlled by blocking, either with the right hand palm or picks. In other circumstances the bar can be lifted with the left hand for a hammer-on or pull-off effect.
Results
Practicing with these ideas in mind will give you better control over what you play and the way you play it. Watch the demonstration video to get a better understanding of how to make this work for you. https://youtu.be/mMTlkRqk93U