There can't be too many guitar players who watch a blues man play a heart stopping riff on the guitar and not ache to make the same sound. There is something incredibly cool attached to it that transcends the physical technique. music doesn't have to be incredibly complicated or flashy - Lightnin' Hopkins would often play a simple bass line that could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. The first thing we have to do is figure out which style of blues guitar we want to learn. This is crucial - there is a lot of practice time ahead of you, so you need to be passionate about your chosen style.
When you mention ' blues guitar ', various ideas will occur to a wide variety of people, depending on their age and personality. For many, the blues guitar of Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan is the ideal. Other people search for the true authenticity of the classic acoustic blues. For the purposes of this article, I'll lump all the electric styles into one category and simply dub it ' electric ' , as I'm more interested in the roots of all electric music, acoustic blues guitar. What are the various styles of classic acoustic and how should we identify? We might do this according to technique, sound or location. In fact, where the guitarists where located appears to have had quite an effect on the regional styles, maybe due to the fact that musicians took ideas from each other. This is how regional musical styles developed.
Blues Guitar From The Delta. It's supposed that Delta is the region where it all started, although it probably originated in several regions round about the same time. Certainly, several talented blues men traveled North to play in cities like Chicago and Detroit when they realized that they could get paid without laboring 15 hours a day in the fields. The early acoustic songs of Muddy Waters (Walkin' Blues) is a fine example of this authentic delta style. Incidentally, Waters said that his version of Walkin pre-dated that of Robert Johnson.
Delta blues guitar can be described as quite simple, often basic and intensely emotional. The slide style of playing guitar was perfect for the delta. The weather was often hot with high humidity, which played havoc with a wooden instrument's tuning. Slide songs played in open G or D were easier to keep in tune, and additionally it was easy to adjust for tuning errors by moving the slide around. Songs from mississippi delta picked in normal tuning were more often in the Keys of E and A, and used a monotonic bass pattern. The picking patterns were quite simple but powerful. Artists to research are Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Fred McDowell.
The lone star state has always produced a continuous stream of blues men. In the days of the classic blues, some notable players originating from Texas formed a distinctive musical style. A giant singer, Lightnin' Hopkins, played most often, using a monotonic bass style. However, his picking thumb could move quickly and he was more inventive than the players in the South. Lightnin' penned many slow temp blues songs in E, but could readily raise the tempo for folks that wanted to dance a while. In his hay day, he easily packed the local halls and recorded often. However, after being ripped off by a recording studio, he always insisted on being paid before any session. Listen to the music of Mance Lipscomb, another legend from the area.
It's strange how certain regions produced a plethora of remarkable guitarists, as was the case in the state of South Carolina. A lot of the music appears to be a crossover complex ragtime guitar, but this description is a bit too simplistic. Several such as Willie Walker and Pink Anderson were very comfortable with the true alternating bass line normally with ragtime blues, but others, like Floyd Council, might leave the pattern whenever needed to reinforce certain musical phrases in his songs. It's obvious that these musicians learned from each other, and we can identify similar progressions in the work of Blind Boy Fuller, Floyd and Gary Davis. All of these blues men moved in the same circles. Scrapper Blackwell wrote some fine examples of amazing songs with inventive progressions and attractive words.
Perhaps the most complex style of all, the top performers were true masters of the technique. Ragtime guitar songs generally have chord structures around the keys of G and C, and featuring 6 or 7 chord changes rather than the three or four associated with delta type blues pieces in E or A. (There are always the exceptions to the rule!) Other features are a strong bass line alternating between 2 or 3 strings, a melody picked simultaneously on the higher strings and often lyrics punctuated by single string runs picked with thumb and finger. Probably the two supreme masters of ragtime blues were Arthur Blake and Reverend Gary Davis. Blake's bass picking was incredibly, often doubling up on the tempo and rolling his picking thumb from one bass string to the next, creating a very rhythmic effect. Reverend could truly play any style - blues, gospel and ragtime blues.
Some performers, such as Big Bill Broonzy, employed a monotic bass style, but was considerably more diverse than the majority of the delta blues men. He would play Tin Pan Alley standards, ballads, and often cross over into jazz and ragtime in his approach. Broonzy developed a blues niche we could call Chicago swing.
When you mention ' blues guitar ', various ideas will occur to a wide variety of people, depending on their age and personality. For many, the blues guitar of Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan is the ideal. Other people search for the true authenticity of the classic acoustic blues. For the purposes of this article, I'll lump all the electric styles into one category and simply dub it ' electric ' , as I'm more interested in the roots of all electric music, acoustic blues guitar. What are the various styles of classic acoustic and how should we identify? We might do this according to technique, sound or location. In fact, where the guitarists where located appears to have had quite an effect on the regional styles, maybe due to the fact that musicians took ideas from each other. This is how regional musical styles developed.
Blues Guitar From The Delta. It's supposed that Delta is the region where it all started, although it probably originated in several regions round about the same time. Certainly, several talented blues men traveled North to play in cities like Chicago and Detroit when they realized that they could get paid without laboring 15 hours a day in the fields. The early acoustic songs of Muddy Waters (Walkin' Blues) is a fine example of this authentic delta style. Incidentally, Waters said that his version of Walkin pre-dated that of Robert Johnson.
Delta blues guitar can be described as quite simple, often basic and intensely emotional. The slide style of playing guitar was perfect for the delta. The weather was often hot with high humidity, which played havoc with a wooden instrument's tuning. Slide songs played in open G or D were easier to keep in tune, and additionally it was easy to adjust for tuning errors by moving the slide around. Songs from mississippi delta picked in normal tuning were more often in the Keys of E and A, and used a monotonic bass pattern. The picking patterns were quite simple but powerful. Artists to research are Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Fred McDowell.
The lone star state has always produced a continuous stream of blues men. In the days of the classic blues, some notable players originating from Texas formed a distinctive musical style. A giant singer, Lightnin' Hopkins, played most often, using a monotonic bass style. However, his picking thumb could move quickly and he was more inventive than the players in the South. Lightnin' penned many slow temp blues songs in E, but could readily raise the tempo for folks that wanted to dance a while. In his hay day, he easily packed the local halls and recorded often. However, after being ripped off by a recording studio, he always insisted on being paid before any session. Listen to the music of Mance Lipscomb, another legend from the area.
It's strange how certain regions produced a plethora of remarkable guitarists, as was the case in the state of South Carolina. A lot of the music appears to be a crossover complex ragtime guitar, but this description is a bit too simplistic. Several such as Willie Walker and Pink Anderson were very comfortable with the true alternating bass line normally with ragtime blues, but others, like Floyd Council, might leave the pattern whenever needed to reinforce certain musical phrases in his songs. It's obvious that these musicians learned from each other, and we can identify similar progressions in the work of Blind Boy Fuller, Floyd and Gary Davis. All of these blues men moved in the same circles. Scrapper Blackwell wrote some fine examples of amazing songs with inventive progressions and attractive words.
Perhaps the most complex style of all, the top performers were true masters of the technique. Ragtime guitar songs generally have chord structures around the keys of G and C, and featuring 6 or 7 chord changes rather than the three or four associated with delta type blues pieces in E or A. (There are always the exceptions to the rule!) Other features are a strong bass line alternating between 2 or 3 strings, a melody picked simultaneously on the higher strings and often lyrics punctuated by single string runs picked with thumb and finger. Probably the two supreme masters of ragtime blues were Arthur Blake and Reverend Gary Davis. Blake's bass picking was incredibly, often doubling up on the tempo and rolling his picking thumb from one bass string to the next, creating a very rhythmic effect. Reverend could truly play any style - blues, gospel and ragtime blues.
Some performers, such as Big Bill Broonzy, employed a monotic bass style, but was considerably more diverse than the majority of the delta blues men. He would play Tin Pan Alley standards, ballads, and often cross over into jazz and ragtime in his approach. Broonzy developed a blues niche we could call Chicago swing.
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