Blues Guitar For Dummies. Jon Chappell
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Название: Blues Guitar For Dummies
Автор: Jon Chappell
Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited
Жанр: Музыка, балет
isbn: 9781119748960
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I think I got the blues.
The method to the music: Chord progressions
What defines a blues song is the way chords are put together, or the chord progression. Although there’s such a thing as a jazz chord, there’s not really a blues chord (but don’t worry, there’s no such thing as a classical chord, either). But if you put certain chords together in a certain way, you can definitely have a blues chord progression. The most common blues progression is the 12-bar blues, which I cover in Chapter 6.
Chords used in blues include major and minor triads (simple, three-note chords), dominant-7th chords — triads with the flatted (lowered by a half step) 7th added, and sometimes even jazz chords (with complex-sounding names like G13♭9/♭5).
The guitarist’s language of melody
The blues definitely has a harmonic and melodic language, and even a scale named after it: the 6-note blues scale. If music is described as “bluesy,” it usually means that the melody borrows or enlists notes from the blues scale (nicknamed “blue notes”) rather than the standard major and minor scales that make up other, non-blues styles. Blue notes are the minor third, minor seventh, and flatted fifth (in shorthand, those notes are ♭3, ♭5, and ♭7). Figure 2-1 shows the C major scale (the familiar do, re, mi — and so forth) with the blue notes shown below their unaltered counterparts.
FIGURE 2-1: The C major scale with blue notes.
When playing the blues, guitarists incorporate aspects of both the major scale and the blue notes to come up with two new scales of their own: the 6-note blues scale and the 5-note minor pentatonic scale (covered in detail in Chapter 8). Figure 2-2 shows both scales in letter names and in music notation.
FIGURE 2-2: The 6-note blues scale and 5-note minor pentatonic scale.
The expression that invokes your senses
One of the best things about the blues — and a huge relief to beginning guitarists — is that the blues isn’t all that hard to play, technically speaking. Playing lead or rhythm in most blues songs requires only intermediate technique. What is harder to do — in fact, you never stop figuring out how to do it better — is to play expressively. Expression in the blues is what turns craft into art. Check out these ways to make your music more bluesy:
Use bent notes. Bent notes are notes where the pitch is raised slowly upwards in a continuous fashion, and this element is closely identified with the blues.
Make your music shake. Vibrato is a technique that makes the notes of the music quiver by using left-hand finger wiggling, which gives blues a signature sound. B.B. King is well known for his expressive and soulful vibrato. Because much of the blues is set to medium tempos, players hold notes for long periods of time. Vibrato is a great way to bring notes to life, so they don’t just sit there.
Give it some slide. If you don’t hit notes straight on and rather slide into notes from above and below, you give music a bluesy feel and breathe some life into your notes. Guitarists often draw their inspiration from vocalists and horn players (saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and so on), who exercise the slide technique on a regular basis.
Slur your notes. Connecting notes through slurs — where you don’t restrike the second note with the right hand — is a good way to loosen up your playing in the typical way a blues player does.
Allow the rhythm to flow. Blues also allows a certain rhythmic liberty to be taken with melodies and especially letting the melody notes deliberately fall after, or behind, the beat. Backphrasing is actually more of a rhythmic alteration, or rubato, but it’s generally thought of as a phrasing technique. It’s been described as lazy, devil may care, or cavalier, but it sure makes the notes sound more bluesy.
The groove that sets the pace
Groove is often used informally to mean “on the mark” or “in sync with,” but the term refers to the meter, rhythmic feel, tempo, and the instruments’ role in providing the accompaniment, or backing figures. Several different grooves exist within the blues:
A shuffle is a type of groove that uses triplet eighth notes with the emphasis on sounding just the first and third notes played at a medium tempo. “Sweet Home Chicago” is an example of a song in a shuffle groove.
A slow 12/8 blues (the “12/8” refers to the time signature) is another type of groove that’s also based on three-note groups, but the tempo is slower and all three notes of the beat are pronounced. “Stormy Monday” is a song in a slow 12/8 feel.
A straight-four groove is where the eighth notes are evenly spaced apart, rather than in the long-short scheme of a shuffle. “Johnny B. Goode” is in a straight four.
Jump is another groove that is an uptempo shuffle, but it requires a slightly different approach in phrasing and rhythm.
Given the infinite forms of expression the blues takes, it’s nice to know that at least from a technical standpoint, only a few grooves need to be mastered to play most of the blues music out there.
Dissecting an Acoustic and an Electric
Anatomically speaking, guitars come in two sexes: acoustic and electric. Since solidbody electric guitars do not make sound acoustically, but through electronics, they have more chromosomes — er, components — than do acoustics. Some of the functions of these gizmos aren’t even obvious until you plug in and start messing around with them. So electric guitars may seem more complicated at first, but really, you learn very quickly what СКАЧАТЬ