The New Pedal Steel Guitar Manifesto

We are the few, those who fight with and against the Exquisite and Terrible Logic of The Pedal Steel Guitar.

We alone have known the depths of darkness visited upon us during years of time and effort invested.

We alone have understood, in our practice, the hopelessness of standing at the foot of the Face That Has No Summit.

We alone have caught glimpses of its fleeting secrets when, effort momentarily rewarded, we have elicited the Sound No Other Can Make.

We alone have experienced the rare illumination of Our Instrument's Music, as are able only those who have lived it from within.

We have seen the Amateur and Virtuoso alike constrained by its Inherent Limitations.

We have seen the Obstacles, mechanical and physical, thrown in our path as we weigh the benefit of Experimentation against its Great Cost that is the work of implementing a new copedent or pedal change.

We see our Inspiration and Creativity thwarted in ways small and large by the Consequences of the Mechanical, among them:

… pitch intervals constrained by string tension

… string fatigue and breakage

… cabinet drop

… the decades-long entrenchment of two main copedents, both by-products of design limitations and historical musical convention

… the instability of splits

… the need for compensators

We see the potential ...

for a Revolution which promises Freedom from these Consequences.

We demand Change.

We demand No Change.

We demand no change in the Essence of that which is the Source of our beloved music, the main Vehicle for its conveyance, The Pedal Steel Guitar: its clean sound, the symbiosis of hands, feet, and knees with metal and magnets.

We demand change. We demand pedal and lever changes with no limits in Number or Interval or Precision.

We change for the elimination of obstacles in the way of easy Exploration of New Vistas in pedal changes and copedents.

We demand no change in the Technique we have spent hours and years and decades developing; we demand no loss of the investment of Our Very Selves!

We call for new ways to Imagine.

We call for effortless and instantaneous change of tunings.

We call for freedom from the Tyranny of tedious and difficult retuning and adjustments.

We call for Liberation from all Mechanical Constraints!

We banish the Erratic Behavior of splits and springs!

We cast off the bonds of metal moving against metal and embrace the Ease and Power attained thereby!

We call for the Preservation of Tradition even as we look forward to the Future Players who shall inherit and expand it.

We urge Pedal Steel Guitarists, future and current, young and old, to reject all constraints mechanical, musical, and philosophical!

We call upon all players of the Pedal Steel Guitar everywhere to hold dear its History even as they break from it, to carry forward into the Future the Tradition which lives in Our Instrument and all its Music.

We Will Have It.