Stefan Grossman slow blues

[Ze.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSbBZI1eQTU

Think i have been looking for the blues all this time .I been at the crossroads driving myself crazy trying to teach myself the theory.

[Wyllys]

Originally Posted by Ze.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSbBZI1eQTU

Think i have been looking for the blues all this time .I been at the crossroads driving myself crazy trying to teach myself the theory.

I would recommend you learn things one song at a time until you can comfortably play 50-100 numbers, THEN look at theory. That way you'll have a practical body of knowledge which will give you a contextual reference for the theory study. Theory is ABOUT music. It is not the music, so knowing more music will give you a clearer picture of what the theory is about.

[paulp1960]

Originally Posted by Ze.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSbBZI1eQTU

Think i have been looking for the blues all this time .I been at the crossroads driving myself crazy trying to teach myself the theory.

Your only hope to ever play like that is to practice playing your guitar, not worrying about theory too much or at all at this stage.

I like theory, I can read music but first and foremost for a beginner you have to play your guitar a lot.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Ze.

I been at the crossroads driving myself crazy trying to teach myself the theory.

I've noticed. Some basic theory is fine to back up what you are working on but in the main assimilate this stuff by copious listening and careful copying what you have heard. Work on playing techniques required for the pieces you want to play.

[TBman]

E7, A7, B7 and e minor pentatonic patterns at 3rd and 5th fret position. That's all the theory you need to get started for 12 bar blues. Play your guitar.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by TBman

E7, A7, B7 and e minor pentatonic patterns St 3rd and 5th fret position. That's all the theory you need to get started for 12 bar blues. Play your guitar.

I like to think in terms of melody over chords, and that includes other notes than in the
pentatonic.

Note how he sets up beginning with a I-IV-V-I before varying it out for some play time
to a V7-I-I7-IV-IV-I-V7-I and then begins to wrap up (prior to a repeat) with a flavor
shift to the use of the minor chords vi7 and ii7.

Anyway that's how I would look at it. Then you need to look at the timing, accenting,
and palm muting

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Ze.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSbBZI1eQTU

Think i have been looking for the blues all this time .I been at the crossroads driving myself crazy trying to teach myself the theory.

That's a fairly complex blues. If it's blues you're interested in, two pieces of advice:

1. Ignore that tune. It's got too many chords.
2. Forget theory. No blues player ever studied theory, so you don't need to.

The only theory you need is 3 chords, I IV and V. That means:

C, F and G for key of C;
G, C and D for key of G;
D, G and A for key of D;
A, D and E for key of A;
E, A and B for key of E.

Add b7s to any of those chords if you like - it makes them sound more bluesy, and makes some of them easier too.

To learn blues, listen and copy. And (thanks be to youtube!) watch and copy.

[stanron]

Originally Posted by Ze.

Think i have been looking for the blues all this time .I been at the crossroads driving myself crazy trying to teach myself the theory.

As I understand it, you wait at the crossroads long enough and some guy offers you a deal. You wont need theory then.

[AX17609]

That piece is Blind Blake style and is fairly complex. Grossman has some others in E and A that are a little more bare bones.

[Joscefi78]

That song is a basic style of fingerpicking, it's not too technical in the left hand, simple chords. It's all in the right hand, all that old blues, right hand is key. Most great guitar music is in the right hand.

Learn that song by first knowing the chord changes. Know the chords and be able to strum them. Next, and most importantly, know the melody and be able to play the melody as single notes. That song has a distinct melody, all blues songs have a distinct melody, people think blues is just a lot of licks thrown together. No, the blues is about melody or creating a melody, not just a lot of licks. Then put the two together, that's where you apply the bass runs and licks used as fills, keeping the thumb moving and the easy swing.

[Ze.]

Originally Posted by stanron

As I understand it, you wait at the crossroads long enough and some guy offers you a deal. You wont need theory then.

I took the deal sod all that theory

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by Ze.

I took the deal sod all that theory

Could you PM me the google map of that crossroads?

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by stanron

As I understand it, you wait at the crossroads long enough and some guy offers you a deal. You wont need theory then.

Trouble is, those crossroads are clogged with all those snake-oil salesmen promoting their magic theory fixes, waiting to pounce on the latter-day Robert Johnsons....
"Hey guitarists, come and buy your Modes here!"
"Cheap shortcuts!"
"Scale patterns, we gottem! Buy 7, get 84 free!"

The poor old Devil can't find a space any more.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by JonPR

Trouble is, those crossroads are clogged with all those snake-oil salesmen promoting their magic theory fixes, waiting to pounce on the latter-day Robert Johnsons....
"Hey guitarists, come and buy your Modes here!"
"Cheap shortcuts!"
"Scale patterns, we gottem! Buy 7, get 84 free!"

The poor old Devil can't find a space any more.

Good one, but, imo, there's really nothing wrong with learning how music is put together. It's not magic, it's just information.

It's those pushing systems for just learning shapes, the put-your-fingers-here-never-mind-what-it's-called-or-how-it-works crowd, people who seem rather intent on obscuring information, that I think are the snake oil salesmen.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

Good one, but, imo, there's really nothing wrong with learning how music is put together. It's not magic, it's just information.

It's those pushing systems for just learning shapes, the put-your-fingers-here-never-mind-what-it's-called-or-how-it-works crowd, people who seem rather intent on obscuring information, that I think are the snake oil salesmen.

Those are the ones I mean.

It's not just the "never-mind-what-it's-called" people - that's not so bad, really, plenty of people do well enough in music without knowing what stuff is called. And I don't think there's many who deliberately obscure information.
The problem is the shortcut folk, mostly people misusing terminology, in order to make quick buck. While pretending to offer short cuts and quick fixes, they actually make things more complicated.
That serves their purposes, of course, because the more complicated something can be made to appear to be, the more bite-sized chunks of information it can be broken down into, the more a learner can be tied into an enfless series of "lessons".
It's in no one's interest to explain things simply. No one's going to make any money from a one-page book...

The root of the problem is really the notion that the answers can all be found in information. Students understandably suffer from that notion, but the snake-oil salesmen exploit that misapprehension.

Music is a process, an activity. You learn it by doing it. You need very little information to begin the activity, and even less to continue it.

Hey, I'm a teacher myself, I'm guilty! I take the poor saps' money if they're offering. I obviously try not to mislead, but most of the time I'm thinking "for chrissake, with a bit more self-discipline you can do this all yourself!" I taught myself, why can't they??