Shortly after buying his first pedal steel in 1975, Alan Pagliere thought, as all new pedal steelists probably do, that the instrument’s design is … crazy. Though he also thought that there had to be a better way, he had no idea what that “better way” might look like. It stuck with him ever since. It would be another couple of decades before the technologies needed had evolved enough to even make that “better way” imaginable, let alone possible.

Being a PSG player himself, Alan knew what gave the instrument its unique sound, how it is played, what skills and techniques PSG players have acquired through years of practice, what players look for in an instrument. He also knew what the limitations inherent in traditional PSG design were.

Since the PSG’s early development, there have only been relatively small changes to its mechanical design: the all-pull design, more changes per string, compensators, better construction. More recently, a few have even experimented with things like controlled servos to move “changers.” But, that’s not quite thinking big enough.

Any true “better”, more freeing way would have to somehow separate string pitch changes from physical string tension. It should also keep the sound of strings; that is to say it should not use synthesized sound or MIDI, etc.

And so, Alan’s driving principle became: Remove the limits inherent in the design of the traditional pedal steel guitar WITHOUT changing its sound or the manner in which it is played. In other words, do NOT create a new instrument, which would force pedal steel players to learn new techniques or change the essence of the PSG.

In 2016, several east coast pedal steel guitarists (Susan Alcorn, Jonathan Gregg, Skip Krevens) tried out the somewhat stark Proof of Concept Instrument. It can be seen demonstrated in Alan’s first video (2015), below, complete with a 1-minute intro that (intentionally) sounds a lot like a late night TV commercial of yesteryear.

Steve Fishell saw this video and stated that he appreciated the premise of the project: that it wouldn’t require him, as a PSG player, to learn any new technique.

In May of 2016, Alan visited Nashville and Steve played the Proof of Concept Instrument. To watch a couple of videos of Steve’s checking it out: playing, messing around, experimenting, see this blog post: First Meeting.

In December of the same year, Alan made another trip to Nashville for a "Summit" of several pedal steel greats. Steve and Alan together introduced Randle Currie, Dan Dugmore, and Buck Reid to the … future of the pedal steel guitar.

(Read about the people here, and the Summit itself here.)

The video on the left shows very early testing on the Proof of Concept instrument of the instant swapping of tunings.