-
Just bought the "Total Blues Guitarist", National Guitar Workshop book. Not great...same as most method books...a little help but poor scope and sequence.
QUESTION: How To Play over an A Blues. They say A Mixolydian over A7 (I7),
A Dorian over D7 (IV7), and A Ionian over E7 (V7).
Never thought like this before. I usually just play blues scale, pentatonic, with some outlining arps. Any comments?????????
Thanks, Sailor
-
05-05-2010 08:28 PM
-
This relates to the big discussion going on in the "SHOULD we study and practice scales and modes?" thread in the Getting Started forum.
How to play over an A blues?
One valid answer: spontaneously play a musical line that is an expression of your art, your musical voice, your creative impulse, right here and now.
Another valid answer: play any/all of a prescribed set of tones that have been deemed by theorists to be mathematically appropriate to the chords.
Neither answer is greatly useful to the developing guitarist. The first doesn't help you choose where to put your fingers; the second really helps only to avoid putting them in wrong (i.e. harmonically/mathematically inappropriate) places.
That's the trouble with the scales-n-modes school of improvisation: it limits soloing to a set pre-approved, academically endorsed note sets, all of which are guaranteed only to sound not-wrong. It's a way of safely filling musical space, rather than making music.
-
Sailor,
Sit down with a copy of John Mayall and the Bluesbreaker with Clapton. Then transcribe some of the solos, especially the Freddie King classic Hideaway.
EC 'borrows' (steals
)so many riffs from King, Johnson, etc, that you can't help but learn ther blues from this stuff.
Forget that technical stuff for the blues unless we're talking Monk or Parker. That stuff just tends to get in the way then
-
I studied the superimposition approach for a bit, but then abandoned it because it seemed somehow confusing to think in terms of A when playing over E. When the E7 is up, I'd rather just think in terms of E-based ideas, so I'd just play the b5 and M7 in my E7 line if I wanted to hear those intervals, as opposed to playing A ionian and getting those intervals indirectly, basically by accident. To me, that is pattern-based playing, not really thinking in terms of music. I want to be able to recognize all my note options for playing over a particular chord based solely on their intervallic relationship to the chord's root. Superimposition seems like a short cut to getting outside tones, but one that short circuits my understanding of the music.
But that's just me. I totally understand that many jazz greats use superimposition ideas all the time. So, I'm not dissing the concept, just saying that for me, right now, it seems like more of an impediment to learning for me. Although, I must admit, it definitely is educational to me to work through why those superimpositions give the tones they do.
You can acheive the same tones using the arps by just adding the chromatics you want to hear when you want to hear them.
-
I do all the above. I mix minor pent with dorian, super locrian, diminished scales, triads, mixolydian pentatonic, and various blues licks I have copped or come up with. I am just a hack, but do employ lots of ideas/material when playing blues.
Not sure who wrote that book, and frankly I am a bit surprised it is not laid out well. Usually the NGW books are pretty well done.
For me Chuck D'Alioa's Blues With Brains series (3 parts) is the best thing I have seen out there for getting out of minor pent only land. Chuck is a tremendous player in NY, and has a great, laid back approach to teaching. He covers minor and standard blues, and as his series continues, he moves more and more toward jazz and jazz changes.
chuckdaloiamusic.com
-
This is a great idea. I haven't heard this album in probably 25 years - but man did this record get worn out back in college!
Originally Posted by JohnW400
Methinks I'll go procure a CD copy from Amazon now...
-
Jazz blues (like Charlie Parker) or Rock/Blues?
-
Uh, looks like I had those intervals wrong on the E7. I was trying to do it in my head at work. A ionian over E7 just gives you E mixo, duh. It's the same as playing C ionian over G7, i.e. G mixo, right? So these superimpositions are just the same thing as playing mixolydian over each of these chords? I must be missing something - why not just play A mixo, D mixo, E mixo?
These transpositions confuse me, as you can see, which is I guess why I don't do this much.
-
Thanks guys...some good responses. I too prefer to think/play blues scales, licks, arps, etc....and not think too much of the mixo of each chord in blues.
Sailor
-
I agree with JohnW400, to a point. Originally Posted by JohnW400
EC 'borrows' (steals )so many riffs from King, Johnson, etc, that you can't help but learn ther blues from this stuff.
That point is, why borrow from a borrower? Go to the true sources of electric blues guitar. T-Bone Walker, B.B., Freddie & Albert King, Albert Collins, Hubert Sumlin, Johnny Moore, Lowell Fulson & Johnny Watson, to name a few, are well represented on CD.
The Mayall album with EC is a good album. But, IMO, EC's covers of the Kings, Ray Charles, et al. have always paled in comparison.
My next piece of advice would be: Stop buying books to learn to play blues. Listen to recordings and watch great blues players. Performance DVDs of many of the above mentioned players are readily available and are worth much more in the long run than any book.
In the 44 years that I've been playing, I've seen neophytes go from hunkering over record players slowing down LPs to trying to learn from books and magazines that amazing, stupendous, transfiguring results but fail to deliver. I believe that listening to and slowing down recordings is still the best way to learn. I've yet to hear a really good (not to mention great) blues player that got his mojo from a book.
Respectfully,
monk
-
For major(dom7) blues, start out mixing up minor pentatonic and major pentatonic.Take away the major pentatonic for minor blues.Throw in your arpeggios, add some chromatics, and keep a strong sense of rhythm.Play with authority and listen to what you are doing.Hear the melody in your head,don't let your fingers take control,and try to apply words to your solos.(my boss laid me off/my women left me/she's not coming back no more.etc.) This gives your lines a vocal quality and puts periods/rests in them also. And that's just for starters.
-
Originally Posted by monk
I originally thought the same but then I thought more about it. EC robbed so much and put in this one album that it would be cheaper to buy just this one CD
more bang fot the buck
Any blues guy worth his mojo would do though.
-
John,
Given today's economy more bang for the buck is important.
I will also admit to a certain amount of favoritism. When I was learning to play EC was "that British rock guy that used to play with the Yardbirds." Here in the States, the duck with the fuzzy nuts was a guy from Chicago named Mike Bloomfield.
Bloomfield was a brilliant but erratic player who did more than anyone to raise my generation's awareness of what the blues really was. He never failed to give credit to B.B., Muddy, Buddy Guy and others he learned from. While playing with the Butterfield Blues Band, his friendship with Bill Graham at the Fillmore was responsible (more than anyone else) for getting these players off the Chitlin' Circuit and exposing them to the huge baby boomer audience.
Insomnia, drugs, disgust with greedy record companies and distaste for travel combined to take Bloomers out of the limelight but when he was on nobody could touch him for tone, time, speed, note choice and phrasing. At his best his phrasing was a liquid thing that flowed across the rhythm section like quicksilver.
Due to his first hand exposure to the blues while growing up in Chicago, Bloomfield was also one of the few white blues players who understood that there was more to blues guitar than the minor pentatonic scale.
Regards,
monk
-
I remember when Lazy Rooster Roosevelt was passing through town and was jamming with some other blues dudes down by the railroad tracks. I asked him the same question about using a mixolydian scale and he just laughed and threw a big rock at me. Yikes! He told me not to come back unless I brought a bottle of Old Crow with me. He said that's how you learn the blues.
-
Where the question is "how to play over an A blues?", how does listening to a record provide a helpful answer?
The transcription process may help you learn how another guitarist plays over an A blues and, assuming you like his style, you could then be able to imitate him. But you'll be no closer to understanding how to express yourself in a solo.
-
Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
Did he also metion he was the 'backdoor man' for Miss Crabtree. Norman " Chubsie-ubsie" suspected but never knew for sure.
-
Totally disagree. Transcription of great solos is one of the tried and true cornerstones of learning improv. Originally Posted by fivebells
-
That goes for me too, I couldn't have explained it better myself! Originally Posted by derek
/R
-
I can appreciate the EC and Bloomfield and King's sentiment.
But that is not what I listen too. I listen too what I like most. And if you're transcribing, pick the blues players you like the most.
For me it's Robben Ford and Larry Carlton.
-
Yeah, the rhythm and phrasing are where it's at. Over time my blues (and all types) playing has improved a lot but I am still playing the same notes, but as my phrasing and feel has gotten better, my lines have become more authentic sounding. Originally Posted by Tony Santodonato
-
I agree with you - I think you would like my personal favourite in jazz/blues too, Mr Chris Cain - lend him your ear! Originally Posted by fep
/R
-
It may be one of them, I won't argue. Originally Posted by FatJeff
However, what's under discussion here is the range of notes available for the soloist's selection. And I don't think telling someone to go and listen to records addresses that suitably. Techniques that are usable with a guitar in hand would be better.
-
you don't transcribe just to steal licks and ape your idols, you transcribe, analyze, assimilate, and make what you picked up your own.
I'd hesitate to get too far into any book that addresses a three chord blues modally. Sounds like the book could be titled "The total wanky blues guitarist."
-
That's correct. And if Sailor sit's down and figures out "Hideaway" he will learn a whole bunch of useful notes to use against E7, A7 and B7. Which he can then transpose to other keys. Originally Posted by fivebells
He will be learning riffs based on the Pentatonic major, minor and blues scales as well as mixolydian and dorian mode .
What's even better is that instead of learning these scales using a bunch of 'dry' excercises he will actually be applying the concepts in a playing situation.
And if he's ambitious he'll take each riff and learn how to play it in a few positions or with different fingerings.
If you prefer though , I can list every scale and arpeggio that you could possibly play (I know quite a few ) but I think that would be more confusing to someone looking for a place to start. If you're not sure about improvising (which Sailor is not) then the place to start is by listening and figuring out how other people do it.
-
I not talking about listening. I'm talking about hearing. I'm talking about sticking your head way up inside the speaker and not pulling it back out until you've until you can play every note of the solo. After you catch your breath you do it again and again and again......That's how you become a good blues (or jazz or country or bluegrass) guitarist. Originally Posted by fivebells
Great guitarists, in any style, begin by listening to and copying those who came before them. Django, B.B., Chet, Wes, SRV, EVH, no one is exempt. Not them, Not me, Not you.
When I was at GIT in the early 80s, Howard Roberts stated that the fastest way to "master" a style of music was to copy from recordings. I've never known that advice to fail anyone who took it.
Mr. Beaumont & John W400 are testifying here. The wise among you will heed their words. Those who are looking for "short cuts & secrets" will still be asking the same questions a year from now.
Regards,
monk
Reply With Quote
2 new & excellent Jazz Comping Truefire...
Yesterday, 10:22 PM in Comping, Chords & Chord Progressions