MINOR PENTATONIC BLUES: IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO!

The first soloing device most aspiring blues and rock guitar players learn is this minor pentatonic scale, sometimes called the blues box. Here it is in the key of G:

As you probably know, you place this pattern on the fret that corresponds to your key (e.g. the 3^rd fret for the key of G, because the 6^th string/3^rd fret is G). Then you can ad lib licks made up of the notes in that pattern, and you pretty much can’t go wrong…even as the chords are changing…and even if you haven’t a clue what you’re doing. It sounds like the blues, especially if you bend a few notes.

The thing is, the blues box is a gross over-simplification of what the real blues players (B. B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, all them Kings) actually do. They play lots of notes that are not in that box, and their starting point isn’t that pattern…it’s this moveable F formation:

To back up a bit, T-Bone Walker is the main architect of the modern electric blues guitar style. Around 1970 I saw T-Bone get on stage to jam with B. B. King at the Fillmore in San Francisco. B. B. put his arm around T-Bone and told the audience: “This is the guy we got this type of guitar playing from!” It seems to be a pretty accurate statement.

Before electric guitars were circulating, many acoustic blues players lived in the key of E. There’s a vocabulary of E licks that are primal blues licks…listen to Muddy Waters’ “Rolling Stone,” for example, which is his version of  “Catfish Blues,” one of the most primal blues tunes of all time (and the one that gave the Rolling Stones their name). Players like Muddy (once he went electric) and Jimmy Reed, Big Boy Arthur Crudup, 

Gatemouth Brown, Lightning Hopkins and many others favored the key of E, and if they wanted to sing in a different key, they’d capo up several frets so they could still play their key-of-E licks.

T-Bone figured out how to make those E licks moveable. Since F is just an E chord up one fret, you can play the E licks in the key of F by moving them up one fret (check out the accompanying youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LTOA07A8T4):

Since the F versions of those E blues clichés use no open strings, they can be played in any key. Voila, modern electric blues. Well…not quite. In any key, you can play the blues out of four positions. The F formation is the basis of the first position, and the other three go higher and higher up the fretboard. But it all starts with that first position. To make good use of it, you need to develop a vocabulary of licks that spring from the F position, like the ones you already looked at (above). Here are a few more. To play them, keep your fretting hand hovering around that F formation. You don’t fret it constantly, but you keep coming back to it (the youtube video of these licks is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBFq5LLVFn4):

The blues is a language, and those licks are like words. When you learned to speak your native language, you imitated the sounds made by all the people around you…learning how to physically make the sounds while learning what they meant. That’s how you learn to play the blues: you have to imitate the phrases and licks the blues masters play. Listen to the three Kings, and to Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Lowell Fulson, T-Bone…they perfected this language. Eventually you have a vocabulary of licks, and you can string them together in a way that says something. Instrumental music is non verbal but at its best it expresses feelings and emotions. Once you have a big enough vocabulary of blues licks, you can do that too. That’s when it becomes really fun and liberating to play the blues.

I wrote a book called Classic Blues Licks For Electric Guitar that has 177 licks, played on sound files that are free to download, and written out in tab & music. They're categorized in groups such as: First Position Key-of-E Licks, First Blues Box, Fourth Blues Box, Chord/Rhythm Licks, Bass/Boogie Figures and much more. Each lick is repeated several times on the recording, with band accompaniment. Practice tracks included…you can get it off my website: sokolowmusic.com.

I also have a FREE book (you pay $3 shipping) called Basic Blues that has a lot of instruction and tunes and exercises in acoustic and electric blues. It includes several good examples of modern electric blues playing in all four positions…also available from sokolowmusic.com.

If you have any questions about this subject, please feel free to email me at sokolowmusic@gmail.com.

CHORD-BASED LICKS, Steve Cropper-style

Most guitar instruction on “how to solo” focuses on scales and scale-based licks. Most lead guitarists, regardless of genre (rock, country, r&b, jazz, bluegrass) play scale-based solos, but they often base their solos on CHORDS, rather than scales - even when playing single-note licks. There is very little written about this technique in guitar literature, but all the great soloists do it.

There are several approaches to chord-based soloing, and I’m going to try to illuminate one of them. I first became aware of it listening to Bob Dylan’s lead guitarist (Bruce Langhorne) on the 1965 Bringing It All Back Home album, on songs like “She Belongs To Me,” “Love Minus Zero” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Then I recognized it in Steve Cropper’s licks on “Hold On I’m Comin’” and in James Burton solos or Eagles solos.

It’s a two-note system often called “sixths,” which I think is a misnomer, but never mind! It all starts with this common key-of-E blues turnaround (use your thumb & index finger to pick the pair of notes, or a flatpick and middle finger): (Watch & listen to all these licks on youtube, as indicated.)

see & hear it here: https://youtu.be/6bVLrrZnWXc

If you played that same lick in F (which is E “up one fret”) it’d look like this:

see & hear it here: https://youtu.be/x8PFaRWGync

Since the F chord shape is moveable, you can play that lick, and similar ones, for any chord (see & hear it here: https://youtu.be/WXRzd7FaUYw)

As those examples illustrate, you can play the two notes together, or separate them, and you can play an ascending lick or descending…in fact, there are an infinite number of variations. The idea is to FOLLOW THE CHORD CHANGES, PLAYING F FORMATIONS, and build licks off those F formations. Here’s an example of using those licks to play backup to the folk/blues, “Corrine Corinna.” I’m singing and playing lead guitar licks in this clip, but there should be a rhythm guitar, strumming chords. There are three chords in this blues, E (in which I use the turnaround lick & variations of it), A (in which licks are based on the F formation at the 5^th fret, because that’s an A chord) and B7 (in which licks are based on the F formation at the 7^th fret, a B chord). See & hear it here: https://youtu.be/iX_JtGmAqIM

In that sample, the lead guitar is playing fills, during pauses in the vocal. Sometimes a solo is based on these licks, but more often the F-formation licks are sprinkled into a solo that’s based on other strategies…usually chord-based ones.

There are many more solos and backup lead guitar parts illustrating how to use this technique in my Fretboard Roadmaps book/CD (2^nd edition) and the DVD of the same name, and in the book/CD Fretboard Roadmaps for Acoustic Guitar…all those are on my website, sokolowmusic.com. Feel free to email me with questions.

                                           

The Beatles and some Chord Lore

Now that Ron Howard's Beatles movie, "Eight Days a Week" is in theatres, I thought I'd do a Beatles-related blog. Admittedly, I have an ulterior motive: I have three Beatles books I hope will get a bump in sales from the interest in the Beatles that the movie generates. (The books have finger-style fairly easy-to-intermediate versions of Beatles tunes for guitar, banjo and ukulele.) But stay with me, there's some good musical tips coming.

            

                                   

BTW, if  you're a Beatles fan the movie is a pleasure to see. It's mostly musical footage and the joy those guys felt playing their tunes is communicated, you can't miss it.

A lot has been written about that first chord in "Hard Day's Night." What is it? How did they do it? I've read elaborate descriptions with chord grids and diagrams: the bass did this, one guitar did this, the other guitar did something else, and the piano etc. etc. To me the only mystery is: "what's the mystery?" Because if you play this G7sus chord on the guitar, it does the trick.
                                                                    
Whenever I play that chord and ask "what does that remind you of?" anybody who hasn't lived in a cave for decades gets it immediately. Without the 2nd guitar, or bass, or piano. It's that recognizable. So I thought it might be a good thing to talk about suspended chords and what they are and what they do and how they're used. But we have to start with some real basic musical info.

                                       ***************************************

There are basically three types of chords: major, minor and sevenths. The major chord is made up of three notes: the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale. So a C major chord is C, E and G, the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C major scale. Major chords have a sunny, complete sound. Play an A major chord, and compare it to an A minor.

Minor chords (like the Am you just played if you're following me here) have a melancholy sound. Minor chords are like major chords but the 3rd is flatted. So Cm is C, Eb and G.

It takes four notes to make a 7th chord: 1, 3, 5 and flatted 7. So C7 is C, E, G and Bb. (B is the 7th note in the C major scale so Bb is the flatted 7th.)  Seventh chords are bluesy and have tension in them...they feel like they want to go somewhere. And they do: they want to go up a fourth. When you play a G7, it makes you want to hear a C major chord (C is a fourth above G). An E7 makes you want to hear an A major. Try it on your uke, guitar, banjo, whatever, and you'll feel the tension of the 7th chord and the feeling of resolution when you play the major chord that follows.

In fact, in most popular music, a 7th chord is followed by the chord that's a fourth higher. My wife is a bass player, and if I'm playing a song she doesn't know, I'll use 7th chords as cues: If the song goes from G to C, I'll play a G7 and she hears that and knows the next chord is C. For musicians, this is survival stuff.

There's an exception: the blues. In a lot of blues tunes, there are 7th chords everywhere and they don't necessarily lead up a fourth; they don't resolve. You can even end on a 7th chord. I guess that's because if you resolved everything, you wouldn't have the blues anymore!

WHAT ABOUT THAT G7 SUSPENDED CHORD you may be asking. A suspended chord is like a major chord with the 3rd raised to a 4th. So Csus is C, F and G, or 1, 4 and 5. Like its name, a suspended chord creates a feeling of suspense. It resolves when you play the same chord without the suspension (like going from Dsus to D). Here's an example:

Uke Chords                                                                     Guitar Chords

And a 7th sus chord, like the G7sus that starts Hard Day's Night, is a 7th chord with the 3rd raised to a 4th: 1, 4, 5, b7. G7sus is G, C, D, F. Seventh sus chords have even more tension than a 7th chord. The 7th and the suspended 4th both make you want to hear a resolution, which could be the same chord (but a major chord, like G7sus to G) or it could be a major chord a 4th higher, like G7sus to C.

Suspended chords and suspended sevenths are all over pop music as well as jazz. Here are some grids for guitar and uke,to get you acquainted with these sounds and shapes:

Uke Chords
    

   Guitar Chords









My commercial announcement: You can get the Beatles books on my website, sokolowmusic.com. The uke one has an optional CD.  This youtube video shows how Beatles songs can sound on a uke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7nCluzqPOE

Welcome to my first blog! I'm planning to post some musical tidbit once or twice a month that will help bump your playing to the next level. It will be a song, or a lick or musical technique for guitar, uke, banjo, mandolin, Dobro or lap steel. 

I thought it would be fun to start with something that's useful to any player in any genre (rock, blues, jazz, country, etc.): the CIRCLE OF FIFTHS. You've heard of it, you've been totally confused by explanations of it...so I'm going to try to demystify it for you, because it's really helpful once you understand it.

I've created a circle of fifths fake tattoo and a vinyl cling-on circle as well (a static cling, no glue to mess up your instrument's finish), both pictured here:

 

FIRST, SOME MUSIC BASICS

The Numbers System

The language of music is often expressed with numbers rather than letters. Musicians say, “Go to the 4 chord,” or “Go to the 2 minor.” The numbers refer to the major scale. Since C is the first note in the C major scale, a C chord is the 1 chord in the key of C. D, or D7 or Dm is the 2 chord; E is the 3 chord, and so on. In the key of D, E is the 2 chord.

No matter which key you’re in, going from the 1 chord to the 5 chord has a certain sound. So does going from 1 to 4. It’s the spaces between chords — the intervals — that give a chord progression its unique sound. Once you can recognize the sounds of the various intervals (1 to 4, 2– to 5)*, you understand how music works, and you can play a song in any key. You’re not just memorizing letter names; you’re feeling the song’s structure.

* In the numbers system, “two minor” is written “2–“.

The 1-4-5 Chord Family

Regardless of a song’s key, the 1, 4 and 5 chords are the “usual suspects” — the chords that are most likely to occur. Millions of folk, country, blues, bluegrass and classic rock songs consist of just those three chords. They can be in any order imaginable. It’s helpful to have the chord families memorized: 1, 4 and 5 in the key of C = C, F and G, for example.

Relative Minors

Every major chord has a relative minor, a closely related chord that is a sixth higher. For example, D is the sixth note in the F major scale, so Dm is the relative minor of F. If you play an F chord and a Dm chord on the guitar or uke (the easy, first-position chords), you’ll see how similar they are. If you strum the F and the Dm over and over in a rhythm, you’ll recognize the familiar sound of the relative minor in context.

If a tune has more than just the immediate chord family (1, 4 and 5), the next chords most likely to occur are the relative minors of 1, 4 or 5. In the key of C, for example, C, F and G are the immediate chord family, and their relative minors, Am, Dm and Em make an extended chord family. A song in the key of C is likely to include any one, two or all three of these minor chords.

HOW TO USE THE CIRCLE

THE CIRCLE OF FIFTHS GROUPS CHORDS IN CHORD FAMILIES

Look at the C at the top of the circle. F (the note or the chord), a fourth above C, is one step counterclockwise. G a fifth above C, is one step clockwise. The same applies in any key. The chart says that if you’re in the key of E, the 4 chord is A (one step counter-clockwise) and the 5 chord is B (one step clockwise). The chords inside the circle are relative minors, so the chart enables you to view any extended chord family at a glance. For example, looking at the key of G: G is the 1 chord, and Em is its relative minor; C (one step counter-clockwise) is the 4 chord, and Am is its relative minor; D (one step clockwise) is the 5 chord, and its relative minor is Bm.

THE CIRCLE OF FIFTHS HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND CHORD PROGRESSIONS

Many chord progressions consist of (or include) circle-of-fifths motion. That means you leave the chord family and return to the 1 chord by going up by 4ths. This happens, for example, in these typical first eight bars of “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue,” “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone” and many other songs:

C  |  E7  |  A7  |  A7  |  D7  |  G7 |  C  |  C  |

The key here is C. You leave the C chord family when you go to E7. Then you go up a 4th to A7 (A is the 4th note in the E major scale), up a 4th to D7 (D is a 4th above A) and up another 4th to G7 (G is a 4th above D) and up still another 4th to C, finally resolving the progression (coming back to the home base).

Look how this motion looks on the cirle: You jump from C to E7, then you go counter clockwise (up by 4ths) until you get back to C.

As you ascend by 4ths, the chords along the way can be minors instead of sevenths. One of the most often-used circle-of-fifths progressions is the “Rhythm Changes,” named after Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.” It’s 1, 6-, 2-, 5, or, in the key of C:

C  Am  |  Dm  G7  |

Countless pop songs include the “Rhythm Changes.” Some examples: “Blue Moon,” “Be My Baby,” “Heart And Soul,” “Please Mr. Postman” and “Stand By Me.” Sometimes the entire song is 1, 6-, 2-, 5, over and over again, as in “Stand By Me.” Once you become acquainted with these types of progressions, they’re mapped out on the circle for you; they become visual and easy to understand and remember.

When you purchase the vinyl cling or tattoo from my website you'll get some more info on how to use the circle of fifths to transpose (change a song's key). The vinyl clings are $3 or two for $5, and the tattoos are $2 or three for $5 at my website: 
 
 http://www.sokolowmusic.com/instructional/general

I hope this interests you and that you'll subscribe to this blog and get similar info on a regular basis! I won't share your email address. Also, feel free to leave a comment if you have a question or suggestion.

Keep playing!
Fred Sokolow
sokolowmusic.com