playing the blues

[Anonymous]

in the killer blues forum, i mentioned i was learning the blues,
and i wanted some riffs to play along to it.
heres an attempt at the sheet in

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fkoukdzprm2rrdj/G%20major%20Blues%20Example%2001.pdf?dl=0

it uses riffs provided by my teacher, so its not a true improvisation as such, as
i’m mostly repeating the same riffs for each of the 3 chords (G,C & D), but its a
start down the old improvisation route for a novice…

I just swapped to a brighter mouthpiece (theowanne blue art durga 3), so
i’ve spent most of this week, doing exercises (which will improve over time) to
play this mouthpiece in tune (otherwise this mouthpiece gets the chop & i’m out of pocket).

[Michael Bishop]

Nice Blues playing there Sxpoet, you’ve shown major improvements in your timing & being melodic/rhythmic in your playing. We all know how important playing the right notes are in any kind of Improvising, but it’s important that we play those notes at the right time too. You’re getting a good sound on that MP too, very cool 🙂 There’s a couple of things that you can do to add some ‘sugar and spice’. When we’re first working/learning a new lick/riff, at first it will sound like we’re playing an scale exercise. But as you get more comfortable with that riff, we want to move away from sounding like we’re just playing a scale. We want to take that riff/lick and make some music out of it. In the Blues, there’s those key notes in the scale that you can scoop, emphasize, growl, etc. to really enhance your playing even more. In the Blues, the 2 notes in particular is the minor 3rd and flat 7 (Bb and F). You can play those notes with some stuff like I talked about above. You have a C#, a flat 5 in there too. That’s a good note to really growl on because it’s known as “The Devil’s note) and it can sound great when we growl, trill, etc.. I was noticing there’s a few places where after you played a D note, you came back down and played the tonic of the scale/G a couple of times as 2 8th notes…that’s really great to do. When you play those notes, really accent them hard so as to make them stand out. You can also experiment with things like changing up the Octaves, starting in the lower Octave like you did at the beginning and then as you play that riff again later in the song, play it an Octave higher; this helps create some tension in your playing as your song progresses. Players like King Curtis did this all the time. Johnny does it too; check him out playing Harlem Nocturne. You did a great job here in your playing. Now take it one step further and try some of these things and record yourself again and notice the difference. With the Blues, we wanna play it with that “attitude” that Blues playing is known for. You’re doing great Sxpoet, keep at it! 🙂

On a side note, I was looking at the notes that they have written down under “G Basic Blues Scale” on your sheet music. While the notes are correct, the numbering/degrees of the scale that they have written down are wrong. With the G Blues Scale, Bb is not the 2, is a flat/minor 3. C is not the 3rd, it’s the 4th. C# is not the 4th, it’s a flat 5. F Natural is not a 6, it’s a flat 7. At first, it may not sound like a big deal and we don’t want to be technical, but it can cause some major problems when playing with a band. As a few examples, suppose my friend Nathan is playing something on his guitar in the key of F and I’m on Tenor–so you know that means G for me, same key we’re talking about here. Nathan says to me he was hitting the 2nd of the scale before coming back to the tonic…which note would I play if I were in G? If I wanted to play the 2nd in G, I would play an A note, not a Bb like the chart on your sheet music is showing. What if he hits the 4 before coming back down to the 1…he asks me to also use the 4th in my own playing (which I do mostly in the middle of the song, I leave the 5th for the end of the song, the big ending) to create some tension? Would I play a C# as the 4th of the scale like the music chart shows? No I would not! In the key of G, C# is a flat 5 or aka “The Devil’s note”. What if he wants to include the 6th of the scale, because he’s improvising with a Pentatonic Scale and he asked me to do the same thing…if I played a F natural, I would be in trouble with Nathan! 🙂 The 6th of G is an E Natural, not F like your music charts shows. I don’t want to sound technical, but these are a few examples that show how important it is to make sure that as you’re learning this stuff that you totally know your Blues Scales inside-and-out and you can avoid having problems when playing the Blues with other players. It can also make it very difficult to learn the concepts that Johnny teaches in Killer Blues. We don’t really know who uploads those music charts to the different websites like Dropbox. Here’s the notes of the G Blues Scale/degrees:
G is 1, Bb is a flat 3, C is 4, C# is flat 5, D is 5, F Natural is b7, F# is 7, G is 8 (it’s also the 1-tonic of the scale)
Keep up the Great work Sxpoet, doing good 🙂

[Anonymous]

thanks for the feed back Michael – i’m not playing in the blues
scale, i’m playing in the basic blues scale G,Bb,C,C#,D,F
and for the sake of easy reading i’ve numbered theses 1,2,3,4,5,6
on the sheet.

I’ve got 4 more sheets of 1 bar riffs (which will probably bore you silly) supplied by my teacher to try out with the same backing track, before we progress further. My teachers goal is to have me improvising
properly sometime next year, so hold your breath a bit longer for
some real improvisation – unless i fall by the wayside and completely
give up playing the blues. I must admit i do find this early stuff
very boring.

I’ve only been using this mouthpiece a week, so there are a lot of
timing, articulation,notes not in tune issues – which i’m not
concerned about at this stage as its going to take me several weeks before i can start playing it properly in tune, the lower lip muscles
haven’t taken to it yet.

But yep – great to hear your feedback! Still waiting to hear something
blueish played by you.

[William Cingolani]

An Oldie. An R&B made famous by The Platters: The Great Pretender https://youtu.be/0PQLGPN5ppo

[Anonymous]

good song choice William! Thanks for sharing!

[Michael Bishop]

@ Sxpoet: you’re doing good Sxpoet and learning riffs/licks from sheet music like you are is how it all starts. With time, you’ll be able to take those riffs that you’re picking up and know how to make changes to them, use pieces from them, adapt them, etc.. into other songs that you play. You’re on your way, keep it up. It takes a while to adjust to a new MP as you know, for some people it can take a few months. You’re off to a good start, sounds like a keeper for you. I would stick with that MP for sure, sounds great on the Alto. Is the Durga 3 that you’re using in Hard Rubber? I don’t care much for metal MPs these days. Hard Rubber/Ebonite MPs gives me the flexibility I want. I will be uploading as soon as possible, as mentioned previously I had a health issue come up that I don’t care to talk about here on Johnny’s forum…..talk about discouragement. There are 3 members and Johnny who I confided in and they what I’m dealing with. I actually had a follow-up appt. with my doctor this morning at 9 am and things are going well. Hang in there and thanks for your patience 🙂
@ William: That’s a good one for sure 🙂 Thanks for sharing!

[William Cingolani]

Thanks Michael and sxpoet. I recorded “The Great Pretender” three times with three mouthpieces. First I used my Theo Wanne Metal Gaia on the 1st recording, the Theo Wanne Metal Ambika on the 2nd recording. On the final recording I used the MB Fat Boy with a new Java 2. I chose the Fat Boy for the video. The backing track is in the concert key of F so I had to blow in the key of G on the Tenor. I prefer to blow it in F on the tenor but I needed a backing track in the concert key of E flat. Next time I’ll just blow it in my F with no backing.
Michael, I wishing you the best. .

[Kevin]

James, good solid start on the Blues Riffs. The riffs your instructor gave you fit the chords, so get solid on those and then “spread your wings”…
William- that is a song I haven’t heard in decades, and is a good choice to my tastes. The Fat Boy is sounding awesome. Your timing to the backing track was not so good this time… Thanks for uploading a song that I def. want to ad to my list.

[jake]

Yea your coming along James I know you have said in previous posts that some of us know what we need to work on so some aren’t necessarily looking for feedback but rather sharing their progress. Not sure if you were looking for feedback or not. If you are I agree with a point Michael said. While playing your scales and working on the blues make them your own. Change up beat and tempo so it doesn’t sound as if you are working on scale exercises. Add some dynamics in there. In a musical sense tell me your story. Draw me in!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing. Hopefully it will encourage others to share as well. Even if feedback isn’t the goal it’s encouraging for others like myself to see progress of other friends here on the site. I often go to the blog where we use to share videos and look over the old posts from members and am amazed at our progress!!

[jake]

Hey William thanks for sharing. I initially missed your post. You should re post it in the members videos with a new category so it doesn’t get lost in other conversations. Here’s a piece of advice Johnny gave me a while ago. Change up your volume as you play through the music. Your volume seemed pretty consistent throughout. Maybe find a spot of the tune and quiet down your playing and then pick it back up. Will give it more expression. The sound seemed a little wavy as well. Is this something you were going for like a vibrato. Was your mouth maybe getting tired near the end? Just something else I was hearing. Cool video!!

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