Blues & Slide

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You can't talk about folk guitar without mentioning the blues. I don't want to get into what the blues "is" simply because a lot of the definitions that people throw around when they are talking about the blues only seem to confuse everything. Let's just leave the definitions to something like, "If you have to ask what it is you don't understand it yet."

A lot of folks tend to break down blues progressions into bars or measures. You'll hear people talk about twelve and eight bar blues quite a bit and while there isn't anything wrong with that, it kind of misses the one thing we really need to be aware of as guitar players and that's how the progression feels. The blues isn't about technical perfection as much as it is about feeling. You always have to make musical sense, but you have to be cool and confident enough to do that without getting wrapped up in defining terms or putting things into categories.

To be honest, I almost never count out a blues progression as so many measures of one chord and so many measures of another chord. Trying to think about that while really feeling what I am playing confuses things too much. Like I said in the chapter on chord progressions, you get to a point where you can feel the tension building up to a chord change. When it comes to playing the blues being able to take that feeling of tension and play it against the rhythm is the core of almost everything you are going to do.

One of my favorite blues songs is a really simple little song called "Troubled In Mind". My father and I always have a blast with this one because the lyrics match up with an old folk saying here in Crisfield that goes, "The sun don't shine up the same dogs butt every day!"

Troubled In Mind 4/4 Time Key of G

G                G7
I'm troubled in mind
C                       C7
I'm blue but I won't be always
         G                     D          G         D
Oh that suns gonna shine on my back door someday

Lord I all you women, lord I love you all the same
But I don't love you enough to change your name.

I'm gonna lay my weary head on some lonesome railroad line
Let the 219 ease my troubled mind.

Right about now you most likely wondering why there is a D chord floating out in space at the end of the song. That D chord is the turnaround. A turnaround does just that. It turns the song around and leads you back to the first line of the next verse or chorus.

Ending the song on the D (or V chord) leaves the listener hanging. The song almost has to go back to the G (or I chord) to make the song feel complete.

To get a clearer picture of what we are doing here lets tab out a simple quarter note strum version of this song.

Troubled In Mind
4/4 Time Key of G

Once you get comfortable with the idea of strumming a turnaround you can start experimenting with playing more complex versions. I don't want to get too heavy into the theory side in this book, but the basic idea of playing a fancy turnaround is to sort of walk up to the chord change.

In this second version of "Troubled In Mind" I have added a simple turnaround pattern to the end of the song. Don't get nervous because this is really easy. All we are going to do is play an eighth note pattern that walks the fourth string up three frets against the open third string.

When we blend this into the song the results are kind of cool.

"Troubled In Mind" with turnaround
4/4 Time Key of G

In order to dress up the turnaround even more we can use something called a triplet.

Simply put, a triplet is where you play three eighth notes in the space of two eighth notes. The timing can be a little tricky at first, but the basic idea is that an eighth note triplet has the same time value as a quarter note.

In the new turnaround we are going to play three eighth note triplets and a single quarter note to fill up the first measure. You are going to play each triplet as a single quarter note so the count is going to be "one, two, three, four." That's going to feel kind of weird at first so give yourself a little bit of time with this lick in order to get comfortable with it.

The other trick we are adding to this new turnaround is a slide. A slide is pretty much what the name implies. You slide a note or chord up or down the fretboard. In this case we are sliding the barre D chord.

Strum an open G chord and while it's still ringing drop your index finger somewhere between the second and sixth fret (it's up to you) and drag your finger to the seventh fret.

Nothing to it, right?

Try adding this new turnaround to "Troubled In Mind".

This isn't the only turnaround you can play in G. Try this second example once you get comfortable with the first one.

This example works under the same concept as the earlier turnaround except that we are playing two fretted notes together in a pattern that moves down the neck.

Slide Guitar

We can't talk about the blues in an open tuning without mentioning slide guitar.

Slide guitar involves using a (you guessed it) slide to fret chords and individual strings. Slides can be made out of just about anything. Cigarette lighters, pocketknives, a piece of bone, the neck of a wine bottle (hence the term "bottleneck") or the leg of an aluminum chair all make decent guitar slides.

Years ago the only way to pick up a slide was to scrounge around and use whatever was handy. Today commercial slides are available in a range of styles and designs that is almost hard to take in. It's impossible to say what makes the best slide because everybody has a favorite style.

Using a slide is easy. You just wear it on one finger.

The decision on which finger to use is up to you. I usually wear a slide on my pinky but some of my friends swear on using the ring finger and once in a while I'll run into somebody who uses the middle or index finger. Your best bet is to try wearing it on a few different fingers and use whatever works best for you.

Playing with a slide is deceptively simple. You don't want to press down with the slide but rather just let it rest lightly on the strings. If you get a clakety-clack sound when you use the slide you are pressing too hard. Lighten up your touch until you get a clear note. You can play any of your barre chords with the slide as long as you make sure the slide is right on top and straight with the fret. The real trick to playing with a slide boils down to knowing when not to use it. People tend to go crazy at first, but the really great slide players only use the slide as a seasoning.

For example, Son House would play a simple pattern where the open G chord was broken up by a double pull-off. A pull-off is where you fret a note and pull your finger off the string while it is still ringing. In this example we are playing the fourth string at the third fret with our ring finger and the fourth string at the second fret with the middle finger. When you strike the string pull off the ring finger and then the middle finger for something like the pattern tabbed out below.

You can run that pattern for the G chord and then slide into the next chord.

Using the slide sparingly makes the times you do use it all the more effective.

If you really get into slide guitar you may want to experiment with setting up your instrument with a slightly higher action. It's funny, but sometimes the really cheaply made guitars with warped necks that you can pick up at flea markets and pawn shops for less than fifty bucks make excellent slide guitars. It may be worth your while to pick up a second guitar just for slide playing.

Lap Style

Another way to play side is to lay the guitar across your lap. This is sometimes called "Hawaiian style" because Hawaiian musicians popularized the technique. One tricky thing about playing the guitar this way is that you will need a really high action. You can buy an extension nut that raises the strings, or you can loosen the strings and stick a #2 pencil under the strings right after the nut.

In order to play chords with the guitar in this position you will need to use what is called a steel. This is one of the reasons that this style of guitar is sometimes referred to as steel guitar. A guitar steel is a really heavy piece of metal that comes in a variety of shapes. You use the steel in pretty much the same way as a guitar slide but you don't wear the steel on your finger. The steel is usually held between the thumb and forefinger with the rest of your hand resting lightly on the strings. This lets your hand dampen the sound of the steel riding up and down the strings. You can't really play anything but barre chords with a guitar steel, but if you experiment a little bit you'll find that you can slant the steel to imply different major, seventh and minor chords. Lap style is a kind of unusual approach to the guitar in this day and age, but it was used to great effect in the 1920's and 1930's by Hawaiian musicians as well as early blues and country musicians. The pedal steel guitar so prevalent in today's country music is a modern development of the old lap style so it's obvious that this technique has a lot of potential.

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