The Totality And The Backbeat
Published: Fri, 04/12/24
There were main stage performances every evening, but for many people, the main point of Kerrville is the music in the campgrounds, and we came equipped. I have this Flatiron mandolin I paid twenty-five bucks for on the street in Brooklyn, and for the past year or two I've brought it along to any casual music situation. There are usually more than enough guitar players, and I like being able to play the backbeat. Plus, mandolin cuts through like nobody's business.
It also creates an opportunity to figure out something I'm not that great at, which makes any jam more fun. Having spent possibly too much time thinking about how music works, playing an unfamiliar instrument with other people gives me a chance to experience music more from scratch again – "Hey, that actually worked!" Or, "I wonder what that one chord they keep playing on the chorus is?" And mostly, "Wow, I am not keeping up. Do I just need a better mandolin? I better go on Reverb when we get home."
We got mostly clouds for the eclipse, but they parted just enough to provide a couple of long glimpses of The Totality, which were met with cheers from all over the hill we were perched on, and completely worth waiting for. The night we got home, I continued noodling around on the Flatiron, and stumbled across some three-note voicings I had never played before. I soon realized with a shock that they were more or less the upside-down-and-backwards equivalent of the Freddie Green voicings I've spent so much time on with the guitar, which was surprising indeed.
I started trying to figure out how to string them together like I would on the guitar, and immediately ran into all the usual troubles – the chords all look similar enough that it's tricky trying to keep them all straight, much less remember in what order they proceed up the neck. And yet they sound so much cooler than the basic voicings I've been using up until now that I'm dying to get them sorted out so I can do more with them. By May it'll be hot as sin in central Texas but we'll probably brave the upcoming festival anyway – and if we do, I want to have my slick new mandolin chords ready to go. If I can figure out how to practice them without it feeling too much like work, I'll have a shot at it.
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This week in the Fingerstyle Five membership, we're continuing to work on the melody to John Hurt's "Nobody's Dirty Business." Syncopation is a big part of what makes roots music melodies sound good, but it's also what can make them hard to play, especially over an alternating bass. Ultimately, most blues syncopation consists of taking notes played on the beat – right on the "one," "two," "three" or "four" – and playing them half a beat earlier or later – moving them to the "and" of one of those beats.
You can practice this in a few steps: first, getting the alternating thumb bass itself dialed in, then putting melody notes right on the downbeats with your fingers, and finally, slipping various notes a half a beat away, from the downbeat to an "and." If you can put syncopated notes over an alternating thumb on purpose, you can pretty much play whatever melodies you want to and make them sound good. In today's Youtube lesson, I go over this three-step process with a few specific examples you can work on right away:
Essential Right Hand Exercises
The Fingerstyle Five includes a deep archive of traditional and contemporary blues tunes, and every song includes step-by-step lessons to help you learn the bass pattern, memorize the melody, and put them together into a solid, grooving arrangement. But there's something nice about starting on a new tune at the same time as a bunch of other folks – you can compare notes, face the same challenges together, and ask questions without feeling like a dork.
To join us this month and get started with "Nobody's Dirty Business," sign up at the link below:
The Fingerstyle Five
More soon,
David