Blues Standards

[mlfowler]

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone might be able to give me some pointers to help my development as a blues player. In particular I'm wondering what the "blues standards" are that people have learned, the "Stairway to Heaven"'s that Michael referred to at the slide festival.

I'm also interested in how people have approached learning these songs. Have you done it by ear alone or is there some decent printed/online material that you've used?

Thanks in advance!

-Mike (the unamplified electric lap steel player)

[Deleted]

Hi Mike

I'm really just at the beginning as far as slide goes and this forum is an amazing source of knowledge as far as opening my ears to a myriad of great slide players and tunes.
I'm not sure what the "standards" are either but I think there may be a problem in going down this route. In my limited experience I used to try to play tunes that were way beyond my current level of skill and hence got de-motivated.
EG I started listening to some old blues and thought wow I've got to be able to do that. So Mississippi Fred McDowell comes along and I get some tunes and some tab and think I'll soon get this down.
Oh dear. My brain is unable to separate all the parts into thumb, finger,finger, thumb etc oh yeh it's really fast as well.
All is not lost though. I went to MM's workshop at Pocklington and again at Percyfest and the basics are starting to sink in. I don't practise enough to get good quickly but it is starting to get easier.
Get MM's slide tuition DVD and just work through the parts.The mississipi one chord groove is great and I now keep hearing it in all sorts of places.So that is probably a "standard lick" I'm still getting to grips with it (and the fingerpicks ) .but is really is a fantastic aid
Saying that I have now started to work on 3 tunes that are probably standards but not too hard. ( Well you can get away with simplified versions)
Cant be satisfied in G
Rollin and Tumbling also in G
You gotta move.in D
There are some good lessons on you tube and also loads of versions of other people playing the tunes that you can learn a lot from.
Oh Little Red Rooster
Steel guitar rag
Crossroads & most of the Robert Johnson catalogue
Muddy WAters
Dust my Broom, Sky is crying- Elmore James-
Steel Guitar Rag
Ow my brain has started to hurt again I think I'll just go and do half an hour of mississippi one chord groove with MM

Cheers

Rob
PS At my age I have to watch how many new things I learn as I'm sure I have to forget something else in order to store it away. Like where I put my keys/slide/pick/lead/cd/dvd

[Michael Messer]

Hi Mike,

Good to hear from you

Are you only playing lap steel?

Are you asking about blues slide guitar pieces?

Tell me a bit about what you are trying to do, then it is easier to point you in the right direction

Shine On
Michael

[mlfowler]

Thanks Rob for the pointers, I shall have to dig out some recordings of those! You're quite right to warn me about getting trapped in playing songs beyond my current skill, it was a tough lesson I finally learned a few years ago after six years of playing "normal" guitar to no avail! I still can't play "Hotel California" but I can now play a host of other songs and one day I'm sure to attempt "Hotel California" again.

So I guess the hope of my question was to try and find out what other people felt were the well known and frequently played slide blues pieces so that I might dig them out, have a listen and try to work out a route through them.

So to anwers Michael's questions, so far I have only been playing lap steel but after Saturday I've raised the action on an old electric that I've not been using so that I might try some upright (chest?) slide playing. Before Saturday I hadn't realised just how much people do fret behind the slide, as obvious as it now is in retrospect.

I'm interested in slide pieces in general, but blues slide is an area I really don't have much exposure to so I suppose I'm hoping to find a way in. There is so much choice I just don't know where to start and my wallet's only so big!

I thought I'd list the slide pieces I've learned to date in case it helps to indicate where I'm at after 6 months of playing lap steel:

-REM's Man on the Moon
-Pink Floyd: Breathe, Great Gig in the Sky, Poles Apart, High Hopes
-David Gilmour: Smile, Take a Breath
-Eric Clapton's take on Blues before Sunrise
-MM Humming Birds in My Soul

Thanks again for your advice!
-Mike

[Deleted]

One good way to listen to loads of stuff to select what you want to spend your pennies on is to use spotify.
I use it a lot. There are loads of slide tunes on there. Load in some of my previous suggestions and you'll be presented with araft of tunes you can listen to for free
Other forum members use lastfm.com but i don't know much about that

Good hunting

Rob

[garrysmith]

If you want to be a Blues slide player, listen to singers. Bessie Smith springs to mind. Get THAT intonation and vibrato locked into your heart and mind and you won't need to play as many notes.

As for standards...

Come On In My Kitchen (see above)
Walking Blues
Few Short Lines

I have, over the years, avoided playing Dust My Broom out of sheer bloody mindedness and my heart sinks whenever I hear some pub blues band launch into it. Like Chuck Berry covers, very few people get the rhythmic subtlties.

I dunno. Do what I did and follow a random course. You may not end up where you meant to go, but it won't half be an interesting journey.

[mlfowler]

Thanks for the pointers, I certainly feel like I have more direction now - even if I haven't yet listened to these songs. I hadn't thought of using spotify in that way, seems kind of obvious now! I had heard/read somewhere that when improvising you should form sentences in your mind and play them so listening to singers would really help to tie that idea into music. I shall look up Bessie and have a good listen.

[ken1953clark]

Try this site for some ideas...
bluestab.skyrock.com/

lots of old finger-picking blues in (mostly) open tunings. Tab is universal but the site is in French so you might need a babel fish...
babelfish.yahoo.com/

[Deleted]

Nice one Ken.
Looks like a few years worth of lessons.
I'll definitely be back to that site on a regular basis

Cheers

Rob

[mlfowler]

Thanks Ken! I knew learning French as a child in Canada would come in handy one day!

[Steverb]

Ecky thump Ken, that is one serious website! Endless hours of fun and games to be had there.

[Deleted]

Hi.
I dont know whether this will help or not, it definitely helped me out when I was floundering around trying to work things out. I'm pretty new to slide playing and fell into the trap of trying to play stuff out of my league until I realised I actually had to seek help.

www.vanderbilly.com

Yet another forum, but there is some good and useful stuff there. Look for a bloke called "kenleber". He does some lessons called slide101. Basic stuff, Walking Blues, Crossroads etc. He explains and demonstrates clearly. I worked my way through his lessons which I reckon gave me a fairly good grounding. Since doing that, I have found that I am finally developing an "ear" and can decipher and adapt parts of other songs. You may actually be somewhat above those lessons, but it wont hurt to have a look. I reckon it always pays to have a look at anything and everything 'cause you always learn something!

I'm hoping my wife is going to buy me a copy of MM's DVD for my birthday at the end of the month. That should keep me busy for a while!