Like most musicians, I get asked from time to time, "So, what kind of music do you play?" And like most musicians, the harder I try to give an accurate answer, the more evasive I sound.
How do I explain that, well, I play blues, but...not electric blues. But also, not really Delta blues either? And well, I play some traditional material, but I also write most of the songs I
perform.
So yes, ok, kind of like a singer-songwriter, but...no, it's not exactly folk music, although – well yeah, I'm one guy, fingerpicking and singing – and blues is folk music, but...
A lot of people, myself included, when put on the spot about what we do, feel pretty much like Pete Seeger in that scene from A Complete Unknown: Here, Judge, don't take their word for it – or mine. Let me just show you what I
do.
When it comes to teaching, I feel differently. Teaching, unlike performing, is an explaining business, so when someone asks "What are you going to be teaching?" I'm happy to explain what the upcoming explaining is going to be about.
As far as tomorrow's Fingerstyle Standards workshop goes, we'll be looking at three things during the two-hour class:
- How to play and syncopate a melody over an alternating bass, when you're dealing with more than
just I, IV and V
- What notes you can choose to play over each chord in a progression, from chord tones to scale tones to chromatic notes, and
- How to use those notes, chord by chord, to build a 32-bar solo while maintaining an alternating-thumb bass
For today's Youtube video, I've made a preview demonstrating exactly how this works on the first eight bars of the tune "Indiana."
In the actual workshop, we will, of course, go through that entire 32-bar
tune, ultimately looking at three complete model solos that I have tabbed out and included in the accompanying downloadable PDF that comes with the workshop.
So in addition to seeing how to play the tune itself, and learning how to find all the important notes to use on each chord, you'll see how it sounds when you put it all together, with written-out solos you can learn from, emulate, and steal all the licks from.
You can find my preview of all of those
ideas in today's Youtube lesson:
Soloing On A Standard
Click below to get all the details about the workshop and sign up: