Blues Rules (not a joke thread...)

[Paul New]

Ha! Lame.

Nailed it! This is lame.

The only way to develop good blues taste to is listen to a ton of it, good players, and if you have an aptitude and work like hell you might pick it up. Just because it's a simple form doesn't mean that you can reduce to a few lame rules.

 

[chadds]

Like Country, Blues can have modest chord changes. The discipline it takes to play well with excellent note choice, perfect time and musical inflection is huge.

 

[Texaspandj]

I don't know what the one or two or four is.
But here's our band playing a lil blues. That's not my bass amp and not our drum kit and not the guitarist #1 strat.
I figured good as place as any for a music break.

 

[micguy]

Starting and ending solos at specific times may be something that's widely done in the Blues, but I've played in a couple of Blues bands, and none of us ever even mentioned that there's a rule about it.

 

[dalkowski]

I wouldn't call it a hard, fast rule per se, but I do know that a proven first step to writing a blues song is to wake up. This morning.

 

[Ulf Buck]

 

[12BitSlab]

I don't know what the one or two or four is.
But here's our band playing a lil blues. That's not my bass amp and not our drum kit and not the guitarist #1 strat.
I figured good as place as any for a music break.

Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Pings Bass]

First rule of blues club is put up or shut up. If you're trying to do it "by the book" you've already failed.

 

[wes stephenson]

Nailed it! This is lame.

The only way to develop good blues taste to is listen to a ton of it, good players, and if you have an aptitude and work like hell you might pick it up. Just because it's a simple form doesn't mean that you can reduce to a few lame rules.

It also helps if play with actual real Blues musicians.

 

[Max Bogosity]

As Buddy Guy reportedly said about Eric Clapton, "I don't know what that guy has, but it's not the blues. The pinks maybe."

 

[Jason Hollar]

I thought the only applicable rule was: “Bluesmen don’t wear shorts.” … unless you’re BB King …

 

[Skip Chucker]

Anyone who really plays the blues knows that the blues don't care about any rules. You just play how you feel.

 

[Mushroo]

I speak fluent singer. Allow me to translate:

There was a timing or communications issue "passing the baton" back to me, at the end of the guitar solo. I was expecting the guitarist to play a specific musical phrase or "turnaround" at the end of their solo, to "cue" me that it was my big moment to come back in again with the vocals. But instead, the guitarist played something rhythmically surprising or unexpected, and it threw off my timing coming out of the solo, back into the verse.

I want to give the singer the benefit of the doubt, that indeed there are certain blues "turnarounds" and standard phrases that guitarists use, to signal to the rest of the band that they are done soloing. If the singer previously worked with guitarists who have a good vocabulary of the stock, cliche blues turnarounds, but this guitarist is lacking in that department, then I can kind of understand the singer's point of view.

You were there; what are your thoughts? Did you hear the guitarist step on the singer's toes at all? Did they miss any important cues/transitions? Or is the singer off-base with their criticism, and the guitarist was tight, with a good grasp of the blues idiom?

 

[GeorgesEric]

I think the singer has to lighten up.

Who cares where the solo starts, ends, pause, etc.

I play bass, I don’t the tell the others how to do their jobs, I just enjoy playing with them and we go where our stuff is taking us. I think that’s the cool thing thing about playing music, we play.

Can you imagine having to deal with a singer like that? It must be special.

 

[cxcxcx]

The singer is absolutely full of it, and is a Texas size, military grade, triple-decker style major league charlatan.

For every single one of his imaginary “rules” he spells out, I promise that you can find at least 100 examples of recordings of recognized major artists breaking the same exact rule.

Nobody sits around talking about formulas and roadmaps about this stuff. This singer probably saw a Jamey Aebersold book somewhere and took it way too literally.

 

[fhm555]

A blues band needs guitar players who don’t map out solos. The band needs to set up a way to communicate when a guitarist wants to take a solo, and when they are ready to get out of that solo. Blues guitar is a testifying activity and should be approached as such. Let the guitar man speak as long as they have something worth saying.
Never forget, “Lightnin change when Lightnin wanna change”.

 

[mntngrown]

The only questions I have ever asked in the several blues bands I have played in is if it resolves? to the 5 or not and if they want to do a2/5 turn around

 

[longfinger]

" Never (rarely) start a solo on beat one, usually it is a done on beat 3 or 4
of 12th bar as a pickup.
End your solo on beat 2 of the 12 bar for a transition/or ending to get back
to vocals/ending riff. "

Basically he is hearing the last bar as a pickup to the next chorus. The chorus would be bar 12 to 11, and not 1 to 12.
Many folks do play like this. It moves the music forward.

It does not need to be a rule though. Many folks don't play like this. They might wait a few bars before they start. Take their time, start small, build it up over many choruses.

However, maybe he was complaining the guitarist was still ending his solo while he was trying to start the vocal pickup for the head out? That kind of overlapping is a undesirable.

Example: The soloist ends on beat 1 of the new chorus, expecting the singer to head out, but the singer was supposed to start a pickup phrase in measure 12 but couldn't because of a wanking soloist. M. 1 is too late to start, so now a whole new chorus has to pass by...

Cue the Bass Solo!!

Maybe this is your chance to have a bass solo on every song? When you're done soloing, play the walk-up / walk-down riff that cues the vocals-out in clearly and without doubt.

This is your chance. Seize it. ;-)


(I will add this.... to have a singer who can accurately count beats and bars of music is a rare and special thing. Sad, but true. So appreciate a singer who can count, and a guitarist who bungles solo endings that makes a bass solo on every song a necessity.)

 

[two fingers]

I wouldn't call it a hard, fast rule per se, but I do know that a proven first step to writing a blues song is to wake up. This morning.

The irony of this is that I have lived "the blues". I have literally lived through times when I lost my job, my woman done left me (actuallyshe had an affair with my drummer), ain't got no money, AND my car won't start. During those times I stayed up drinking all night and woke up about the crack of mid afternoon. I never woke up "this morning" with the blues. I woke up this AFTERNOON with the blues.... and a hangover.

 

[mntngrown]

Imagine him 'auditioning' John Lee Hooker!!

Yeah Carlos Santana said he was a major influence in his development. Roy Rogers is one of the most under rated slide players on the planet. I imagine when he toured with John Lee Hooker it was Hooker rules. Not something from a book.