Word: steeled
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...yourselfers who couldn't stop asking "What if..." and who had the drive - and thick enough skins - to follow through on their hunches. From the basements and garages of the heartland came the electric guitar, the electric bass, the five-string banjo, the multitrack tape recorder and the pedal steel guitar. Perhaps it's our penchant for excess that leads us to make it louder, faster, different - especially different - and not everyone may see the results as signs of progress. But these brash creations are as accurate road maps of the American soul as can be found in any history...
...reason is a longstanding infatuation that has recently overtaken my waking hours. Just as Orpheus' lyre drew the beasts and the rocks to him, so have the plangent cries of the pedal steel guitar attracted a hundred-odd aficionados of the instrument to this the 27th annual convention of the Pedal Steel Guitar Association. There will be performances by steelers from all over the country and Canada, a seminar (my main reason for coming) and a jam session featuring three of the leading exponents of the instrument. There will also be hardware, strings, instructional materials, hard-to-find...
...personality traits that determine an affinity for computers seem perfectly aligned with the slightly compulsive nature of pedal steel players. This could be some offshoot of the pocket-protector tree, musical nerds who found experimenting with different pedal setups even more fun than building Estes rockets, and I find myself wondering if my lifelong disaffinity with even the simplest math separates me from my fellow travelers. Like all cults, pedal steel has its own subgenus, and in the field this particular cladistic branch appears to consist mostly of middle-aged working-class white men in warmup jackets and Nikes...
...pedal steel guitar is the descendant of the lap steel, which came into vogue around 1915 with the Hawaiian music craze and gradually worked its way into the American mainstream via the music of Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Alvino Rey and Santo & Johnny ("Sleepwalk"). American manufacturers like Rickenbacker and Gibson began making instruments to suit this new style of music, essentially flat slabs of wood, metal or Bakelite outfitted with a pickup and six or eight strings set about an inch above a painted-on fretboard. A guitar in name only, the steel guitar is played seated...
Whatever parents choose to do, they should provide a calm, warm and consistent bedtime ritual that is easy to adhere to, remembering that a baby who is well rested with daytime naps is usually a better sleeper at night. They should steel themselves to hear some crying as Baby settles in, but be ready to respond if their baby sounds truly distressed. Parents can use the literature as a guide but must always trust their instincts above any expert's (including this one). No one knows your own baby better than you do, awake or--one hopes--asleep...