Vic's Music

Vic Chaney primarily plays the pedal steel guitar in the band
The Desert Moon Band, and is occasionally known to play
the 5-string bluegrass banjo.

He started playing the steel in 1981. His current instrument of
choice is a 12-string Thomas Pedal Steel Guitar. It has eight
foot pedals, six knee levers, and is tuned in a Universal
E9/B6 tuning. His amplifier is a Stereo Steel, using a Lexicon
MPX-1 processor.

Vic's favorite pedal steel players are Buddy Emmons, Paul
Franklin, JayDee Manness, and Jeff Newman.

For those unfamiliar with a pedal steel guitar: it is a horizontal
instrument on legs, with strings that are picked with the right
hand, and the left hand slides a bar up and down the strings.
The steel bar gave the instrument its name. The pedals and
knee levers change the pitch of the strings, with each pedal
or lever changing the pitch of 1, 2 or 3 strings at a time,
going up or down in pitch, up to 3 half-steps. It is possible
to use two pedals and two knee-levers at the same time,
changing the tuning of most of the strings at once.

Vic also plays the tenor saxophone, guitar, and harpsichord. He built his harpsichord from scratch,
and although he doesn't play it much now, his son, Alex, keeps the keys limber.

Vic plays on Coyote's CD called Coyote.

He also plays on Sue Reno's Country/Gospel CD called Have You Heard. He plays steel on most of
the cuts, and plays banjo on two of them. Sue has done a nice job on these songs,: she wrote all of
them! Listen to him play from this album on Follow Me, mp3.

Like to learn more about the steel guitar? Check out The Steel Guitar Pages by b0b Lee, or Carter Steel
Guitars.