Neck Explorer — C6 Pedal Steel

An interactive map of this reader's neck in C6: tap a note and it lights everywhere it occurs, so the 10 strings stop being 10 separate strings to memorise.

A number chart is unreadable at session speed until this map is automatic, because the chart names a degree and expects a position back inside one beat. Nobody gets that from a chord book; it comes from knowing where one pitch lives in three places.

A pedal steel player reads a number as a destination rather than a position — the pedals get there from wherever the last one ended, so a steel player marks a chart for the move between two numbers more than for either one. With the bar across 10 strings tuned to C6, the next number is often reached without moving the bar at all: a foot or a knee retunes the strings already ringing, which is why this reader's key pages draw every change of a chart as that move.