I thought I would answer a couple more questions I've received about Saturday's Blue Note Blues workshop. As a jazz dropout, I could particularly identify with the second one...

FAQ #1: "Does this material apply to playing fingerstyle blues?"

Not directly. Mostly because the three musicians we'll be looking at all play in a very linear – that is to say, single-note – style and also play across a pretty wide range in terms of register. So the licks would be hard to fit into open position, even if you could keep your thumb going while you played them.

That said – while I'll be playing all the examples with a pick, everything we discuss about how to think about the blues changes, what chord substitutions are involved, what scales to use and some of the actual licks, could of course be transposed to a guitar-friendly key like E or A and made use of in one way or another while playing fingerstyle.

FAQ #2: "I've stared at transcriptions before and kind of gotten nowhere. How will this workshop actually help me play better?"

I know what you mean. Once, in college, I transcribed five choruses of Joe Pass from a half-speed tape. That's sixty measures! Number of licks I actually retained in the process? Zero.

In Blue Note Blues, we'll start with a look at the way musicians from this era play the twelve-bar blues progression – what chords they include, and what chords they don't (goodbye, diminished!)

Next, we'll go over the three positions on the neck where the licks we're covering sit the most comfortably, and how to spell out the six scales and arpeggios you'll need to play the blues in Bb.

Then we'll start looking at the transcriptions – two twelve-bar choruses by Grant Green, one by Hank Mobley and one by Wynton Kelly. Where does it all sit best on the guitar, how do their ideas progress from one moment to the next, how do they phrase, how do they spell out the changes, and what kinds of chord substitutions do they imply?

We'll also compare what each musician does at similar points in the progression, the different ways they use the same scale material, and how to break up the transcribed solos into a collection of licks you can apply to your own soloing.

Finally, we'll look at how to use some of those licks as models for variations of your own, so you're not limited to the licks you've just learned in the class.

And that, as they say, is the plan. You can still sign up for Saturday's workshop at the link below. If you can't attend live, a complete replay will be available afterwards as well for anyone who registers for the class:

Blue Note Blues – Register Now

If you missed it on Tuesday, I did a whole Youtube lesson on one of the Hank Mobley licks we'll be covering on Saturday. You can find it here:

Hank Mobley Plays From I To IV

More soon,

David