My Jeff Newman Year

[Bill McCloskey]

As I near the end of year 3 of my pedal steel journey, I've learned a few things. One: even at my advanced age and limited experience, bands wanted me to join them. But I wasn't really happy playing in these bands. For even though they seemed to like it, I wasn't happy with my playing. I felt like I was faking it. But I was also improving playing with others.

It has taken me years but I have finally amassed a (near) complete collection of Jeff Newman's lessons, tutorials, backing tracks and tabs. And a few weeks ago I decided to organize them, digitize them, and put them in searchable loops.

And then spend the next year dedicated to learning everything in them. Initially, I'm spending the first few weeks just watching ALL of the materials, to get an overall sense of the course material from beginning to end.

I load the digitized videos into a program like Transcribe! That programs lets you create loops of small sections of the video and save those as nameable loops. So as I watch all the videos in order, I'm also creating the loops for future study.

And when that is done, I'll do a deep dive into each loop in each video of each course Jeff Newman ever did. I figure it will take at least a year to absorb, albeit not master, the material.

Here is my course material for the next year: E9th Chord Dictionary, Up From the Top F Lever, UFTT D Lever, UFTT AB pedals, No Speed limit I II and III, Right Hand Alpha, Give me an Intro, C6 Workshop, C6 and Swinging, Music to C6 By, Pedal Steel Guitar Techniques, Minor Chord Connection, The Seventh Chord, Just Play the Melody, Just Jamming #1, #2, Honky Tonk Heroes Vol 1-4.

To quote Spanky and Our Gang: I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.

[Doug Taylor]

You should come out the other end a much better player Bill. I have been doing a bit of deep dive into Jeff’s teaching as well!

Good luck

[Dennis Belt]

I admit to being jealous, Bill. I’m working through the Jeff Newman videos available on YouTube; but I didn’t realize there was so much more Jeff had put out. You sure will come out the other side a much improved player. Have fun!

[Bill McCloskey]

I’m in the midst of working on “Up from the top” F lever.

Not what I was expecting. It is really opening my eyes to working in pockets and keeping it tight. Maybe the best video I’ve seen on playing the pockets.

[Doug Taylor]

Curious to know what order you plan to go through these once you get the loops made Bill?

[Bill McCloskey]

That is going to completely depend on my initial review/binge of the material. But I've started working on the Dictionary, and the original Pedal Steel Guitar Techniques, which was Newman's first video I believe. In the past I've dabbled in the AB pedals up from the top and the Right Hand Alpha. But most of it, I've never seen before.

[Barry Yasika]

Hey Bill, just curious—what kind of software are you using to digitize your videos?

I used a product that I think was made by Roku, sold and recommended at Best Buy. It worked fine for the transfers, but once I was done, it somehow disabled my CD drive. Turns out it had installed a lower filter that messed with the driver. I had to go into the Windows Registry and delete that lower filter entry. After a restart, the drive came back to life.
Like to never figure it out, but AI helped guide me through the fix. Just wanted to give you a heads-up in case you're using the same software.

If you aren't using the Roku software I'd be interested in what you are using. The Roku software had a lot of little quirks I had to work around.

[Bill McCloskey]

Hey Barry.

I’m using Handbrake to rip the CD’s. Then I import into transcribe and export from transcribe, which creates a MP4 that can be loaded by Transcribe faster than the Handbread loaded files. Then I create the loops.