At some point, when I was living in New York, I made the bulletin board at Mandolin Brothers, that vaunted Staten Island temple of vintage six-stringery.
As a result, I got the occasional phone call from someone who only knew that they wanted lessons and that I apparently gave them. Those discussions often went like this:
Caller: "So, I'm interested in lessons. What would you be showing
me?"
Me: "I don't know. What do you want to be able to do?"
Often, the answer to a question like that is simply, "get good." Or its slightly less ambitious variation, "get better." Sometimes, to get the ball rolling at the start of a live class, I'll ask everyone "So, why are you here?"
If someone looks stumped, I'll say "If you were totally happy with your playing, you wouldn't have come. So, tell me where you're stuck. What do you
think you still suck at?"
That usually does the trick. And then I hear what I'm looking for: well, I can do this, but I can't do that. It sounds like this, but I want it to sound like that.
There are, of course, a lot of ways to define "getting good," and a lot of ways to get there. Not to mention the fact that the longer you spend explaining how to do something, the more ways to you find to explain that thing.
That said, I think there are
few things that can help nearly anyone interested in fingerstyle blues:
- getting your thumb and fingers to work together
- knowing how to create a basic song arrangement
- learning how to add improvised licks to a tune
Those are the three things I'll be talking about in this afternoon's free online workshop. I'll have right-hand exercises for your thumb and fingers, a five-step process for making a tune sound like a complete song, and
specific licks to practice swapping into a basic blues vamp.
I'll demonstrate these ideas on a steady-bass version of "Key To The Highway," talk a little bit about the two blues tunes I'm teaching this summer in the Fingerstyle Five, and answer as many of your questions as I can along the way.
Join me this afternoon:
My 3 Rules For Playing Better Fingerstyle Blues
Sunday, July 6 • 2:30pm Central
More soon,
David