Notes On Mr. Hunter

Published: Fri, 10/15/21

My Charlie Hunter obsession proceeds apace, as evidenced by today's Youtube lesson. While I neglected to mention it within the video itself, the initial impetus for this week's lesson came from a Charlie Hunter clinic on Youtube in which he threw down a particularly badass rendition of the eight-bar blues "You Got To Move." Side note: I hadn't noticed until now the extent to which "You Got To Move," like "Things About  Comin' My Way," "Come On In My Kitchen" and, to a slightly lesser extent, "It Hurts Me Too," shares roughly 95% of its musical DNA with "Sitting On Top Of The World." Maybe that's a future playlist.

Hunter plays "You Got To Move" over a groove somewhere between a walking bass line and a Chicago shuffle, starting out with more of a static Chicago feel that gradually morphs into more of a walking thing each time he gets to the I-VI-II-V turnaround. I thought it would make a good start just to come to grips with his initial vamp, so I set about figuring out where you'd have to play on the neck to grab a few blues licks while simultaneously holding down a root-6-5-6 groove.

Part of the thing is that said groove takes place all on one string. In Charlie Hunter's case, I'm not sure if that's to keep the tone consistent, to provide access to the upper register for the licks, or both. In other words, I still have no idea what he's actually thinking, but that's cool. Maybe he's thinking about the groove and then finding a place to play the licks, maybe he's reaching for the licks he wants and then figuring out how to keep the required bass line going.

Given his emphasis in various clinics on the groove, and on finding "combinations" that work for playing more than one thing at once, I'm guessing he works from the groove upwards, so in trying to wrap my hands around this extremely petite fraction of what Mr. Hunter's up to, I took a similar approach. One thing's for sure: there's nothing like stretching way outside of your existing chops to make you appreciate the things you already know how to do. So even if this week's lesson strikes you as an exercise in weirdness and/or frustration, take it out for a spin anyway, if only to appreciate how much else you've already got under your fingers.

This month marks the two-year anniversary of my Fingerstyle Five membership. We've done almost two dozen tunes, including blues standards like "St. James Infirmary" and "Nobody's Fault But Mine" Travis-picking versions of "Stagolee" and "Nine Pound Hammer" and several original blues instrumentals in the same vein as my Truefire material. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be offering a series of live streams on how to develop your groove, build your repertoire and start improvising. The idea, of course, is to highlight the ways in which the membership can help you play better fingerstyle blues, while also providing some clear, organized lessons and answering your questions about them. As part of this series, I'll be presenting three essential concepts straight out of the Fingerstyle Five while teaching a steady-bass arrangement of "See See Rider" in E. It's a great way to check out what we've been up to for the past couple years in the membership, and I hope you'll join me for some or all of the lessons, either live or on replay.

In the meantime, here's this week's lesson:

Blues Licks Up The Neck

You can download the tab for the lesson here:

Get The Tab

More soon,

David

P.S. You can learn more about the membership right now, and sign up, at www.fretboardconfidential.com.