You may not have intended it to be but sorry, it is a joke. The guy is nutty. Rule makers in music are to be avoided.
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Blues Rules (not a joke thread...)
- Thread starter ArtechnikA
- Start date
And yes, I suppose you could say these are "rules" but they are really just conventions that help things stay organized on stage. There's nothing saying you can't create a different sort of arrangement; you just need to agree on what you're going to do.
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That's pretty much all nonsense. There are many ways to start or end a solo in different places, and what comes before and after your solo can change what you might want to do.
Well, as you said, it depends on who you play with. There are certainly some tunes where a particular motif/line is wanted - though can often deviate from it on the verses which aren't vocal or heads. Played a ton of blues including a couple Saturdays a month for about 10 years at The Saloon in SF where we had great players with lots of room for improvisation. Could use all the jazz chord substitutions, chromaticism, etc and insert a lot of the jazz blues changes (such as Blue Monk, West Coast Blues, etc). I can see how it would really throw some people doing turnarounds like I-bIII-bV-bII or I-bIII-II-bII against I-VI-II-V but it was encouraged in that situation... Had Wendy DeWitt playing keyboards on a lot of those gigs and she's a killer boogie-woogie player and on the straight boogie-woogie stuff, it's absolutely true, the bass would have to lock with what she was doing with her left hand. But she could go way out on other stuff. Wonderful player. We also did a lot of stuff with horn section and those tunes tended to be more interesting in terms of changes, etc than some of the typical harmonica based tunes. Anyway, it's a very big genre with a lot of variation - which I think often gets short shrift as it's so often the default in jams and can be pretty uninspired in that context - or that some people can get super orthodox with their version of it.
Here's an example with that band. Not doing any crazy substitutions and bassline is based off a pattern, yes, but then varied a lot and there's clearly room to do pretty much whatever:
Yes, those are the kinds of blues gigs I like to do. Unfortunately, a lot of people just want the standard lines.
I played with a guitarist who wanted to do someone's version of Better Off With the Blues. I came up with a nice little lick to play along with him on the verse that was not the standard walk but complementary to the vocal and the guitar line. He flagged me on it and said he wanted me to walk there. I said "no."
It sounded good that way and it put our own stamp on it. If he had insisted, honestly, I would have walked. I mean, walked away. Not walked the bass. This was a sub gig. I still play with them, but I don't need the work. I would have done that gig, of course, and played it how he wanted. But that would have been the last gig.
I have little patience for people who won't deviate from the script in forms that are supposed to involve improv. Luckily, he accepted the change and I still think it sounds really good the way we do it. Too many people think they're playing the blues but they're really just mimicing earlier blues musicians.
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You are undoubtedly correct. I just recall one of the very few times I was playing with other musicians, the drummer looked at me at one point and said
"No, try to time it with my snare"
So my face got red, and I said "Which one is the snare?"
He just stared icy daggers at me until I packed up and left.
Problem is, I don't think he was one of those "decent musicians" you speak of.
But thank you for the encouragement!
We called them the "no notes after 1952 crowd"
I liked the distinction between types of walking - and can understand why you might have!
I don't think I would have known what a snare drum was when I first started out, either.
There are some things you just pick up by the experience of being around others, and it surprises me how much I learned during my early years that way. I think we have some great advantages today with instructional materials available online that I could have never imagined. Hopefully you'll keep working at it, learning things along the way. Don't be afraid to look for knowledge or to ask other players; it will help you in all sorts of ways, not the least of which is in knowing better how to communicate with other musicians.
And this is the clue to what Singer Guy SHOULD have done! The segue from the guitarist's ending into his line wasn't working, so he should have started talking about how to make it work. Instead, he lets it happen to him and complains afterwards.
Here’s some Albert Collins.
Nothing to do with the thread, I just like Albert Collins.
Nothing to do with the thread, I just like Albert Collins.
Better than a gin colonic...
Plus the great Johnny B. Gayden!
I still have a fret off of that same Tele Albert is playing - we did a refret on it (there was a huge gouge down the center of the back of the neck from decades of capo use).
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the blues ain't supposed to be rigid--it's the blues.
Look through the roster of many blues record labels--and as mentioned already--back in post #2--John Lee Hooker.
Now if what someone is playing doesn't mesh--okay--try something else.
But if it works--cool.
For blues -feel is king.
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I'd jump at the chance to play real blues again. But not the set-in-stone 12-bar all the way kind. God, I miss real blues.
how would people define the blues then?
besides just a fast change or slow change 1, 4, 5
pseudo walking bass lines
and turnarounds or not
we still havent figured out where the guitar goes!
besides just a fast change or slow change 1, 4, 5
pseudo walking bass lines
and turnarounds or not
we still havent figured out where the guitar goes!
It's a whole genre and a lot more broad than that. There are many blues which deviate from the standard 1-4-5 changes and 12 bar forms - 8 bar, 16 bar, etc - we used to do a Son House tune that was a 9 bar form - as well as those with different verse/chorus changes (even if those are less common). It can also be freeform and simply follow the vocals as with John Lee Hooker and some others. Most of it swings though there's nuances there, too (i.e. Chicago vs Texas shuffles, etc) but straight time, too.
I don't think what Willie Dixon was doing was pseudo anything
There's no single 'right' answer for where the guitar goes (though some singers want a cue at the end of solos - which I think was the crux of the original post even if the singer didn't know how to articulate it).
As a form, it's _typically_ a I-IV-V in 12 bars. Yes, there are plenty of exceptions.
What most singers and guitarists don't get is that to the rhythm section, the song starts at the start and rolls down the track until the end, paying attention to stops and dynamics along the way. Solo? Vocals? Don't care, all the same.
And they hear solo artists and SRV who have no trouble figuring out when to play and when to sing because - it's just one guy...
Then they add a second melody instrument and all of a sudden they are faced with a choice:
1) Script everything including the solo handoffs. And get pissed of when it doesn't go exactly to their expectations.
2) Learn the music and how to communicate with the other musicians. This is a challenge for beginners who really haven't figured out how to play blues solos.
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