Hello all
we all know that blues main tarde-mark is the shuffle ryhthms. Every lesson or book around usually tell you that to play shuffle you have to leave out the second note in a triplet so that the result is that you alternate long and short notes (better saying the first note becomes twice long as the second). Well I've always found difficulties to play it until I read a small tip in an excellent book (with enclosed cd) by a French guitarist: to ensure that the first note is twice long as the second, instead of counting, you only have to end the first downstrum with a small circle under the strings. The time you spend to move your right hand in circle after the end of the downstrum will give you the requested delay. I can assure you that it works because with this tip I've been able to play the blues exercises enclosed in the afore mentioned cd, in perfect time with the cd tracks!
Matteo
It doesn't have to be an exact thing like triplets with one left out, anyway. It's more a "feel" than counting thing. I think of the sound an old flat tire makes going down the road.
:D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Just think of the sound you make dragging something very heavy up hill - you raise a foot and - uh - draw breath, then you push down and exhale - huh - uh huh - uh huh......
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
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Oh man, I had the hardest time getting the shuffle ryhthm down. Either I would forget the progression or play straight 8th notes rather than the shuffle. It took a little bit of focused practice and now I can play it just based on feel.
I wish you had posted this a few months ago. :)
Cheers
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funny, I always thought of it as a heartpulse-kinda rhythm.
I teach it as a heartbeat.
We do it first by just tapping the top of the guitar - first triplets, then broken triplets. Then, like Ricochet said, it's more of a 'feel' thing - you just internalize it.
The real advantage to playing it by feel instead of by count is that blues shuffles, although often in 12/8, don't have to be - shorten the first note a bit (making it roughly 3/5 of a quintuplet) and it'll sound 'lazier'... extend it a bit more, so it's closer to a dotted eighth-sixteenth pattern, and it'll sound more urgent.
Listen to some of the blues masters - especially in live recordings - and you'll be amazed how often they stretch/contract their timing in response to the other musicians, the mood, and the audience. But it still sounds perfect, and very natural.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
This discussion is very helpful.
I wanted to learn the blues shuffle, but stopped:
- It sounds pretty reasonable to do
- I could tap it out without thinking too much about it, and it sort of sounded right
- And then, I looked at it in some lesson, and tried to actually count it, and just couldn't get it. I just could not get it right to play the first stroke, count the skip, play the next.
I just decided to postpone it till I started lessons with an instructor, which I have just started. But, we are working on other things like scales, music reading and some songs, before we will come to this.
But, based on this discussion, I think I will go back and try it, and do it more by ear and feel this time around.
--vink
"Life is either an adventure or nothing" -- Helen Keller
The main thing is, listen to lots of good blues. That'll get the feel into you.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
