My Goal As A Steel Guitarist in 2026

[Brett Day]

During my 26th year as a steel guitarist in 2026, my goal is to not only play more steel, but also try out one of the new Sho-Buds! I've never played an actual Sho-Bud, so I really want to play one! Sho-Bud is one of my favorite steel guitars for a lot of reasons and I'm so happy that there are new Sho-Buds, great tribute to one of my heroes, Shot Jackson.

[Lee Baucum]

Those new Sho~Buds look great, don’t they!

-Lee

[Bill McCloskey]

I have one on order. Can't wait.

[Doug Taylor]

My goal for 26 is to finally get through the Jeff Newman material I have accumulated!

[Richard Alderson]

My goal in 2026 will be to study a significant portion of my current library enough to justify that in 2027 I will open up a Paul Franklin account for his on line material. But I have to knock off some previous commitments first before starting something new, no matter how valuable and promising the PF material is. And to master at least one speed picking tune from my library and make visible and audible progress to my own satisfaction.

[Bill McCloskey]

Speaking of Jeff Newman. At this point I've collected just about all the Jeff Newman material (about 40 hours worth) and I set my goal to spend the next year going through it.

I started with the Up From the Top series: A&B pedals, D lever, F lever. I have to say with all honesty I've learned more from the first 2 installments of the A&B and the D lever than I have learned studying the Paul Franklin method, the Travis Toy method or any of the many many many books and videos I own on playing pedal steel. Finally things have come together for me and it has created a structure that I can now hang the PF, TT, Herbie, etc lessons onto.