The follow-up to Jimmy’s original “Rocking the Blues” is coming out in July!
Yay! 🙂
Please watch and post your comment!
Now, we’re approached this in different ways
at different times, but this one is a little
bit more distinctive, a little bit deeper.
So I’m going to play this now, play this whole
pattern and then I’m going to show you some cool
licks that you can play within that. All right?
So here’s how it goes. To the B.
Now, there’s one part of this I left out that
I want to show you. And this — we talk about
descending lines and ascending lines. When
you’re moving from a 1 chord to a 4 chord, for
instance, there’s many ways to do this, you want
to have something that’s colorful that takes you
there. And sometimes you want to signal that
change and usually a great way to signal a change
from a 1 chord to a 4 chord is a 7th. So I’m playing
like this. And then all of a sudden you hear…
That can only mean one thing. We’re heading towards
the 4 chord.
So a 7th will signal a change, but as important,
you want a way to walk up to that chord that’s
interesting. So that’s where this comes in handy.
We talked about descending lines, now let’s talk
about ascending lines. Ascension of the blues.
Yeah. That’s fun. It’s an ascending line. It
takes you from a 1 to a 4. It’s a great little vehicle.
So what you do is you hit your low E and then
what you do is you jump up to your F sharp on
your low E, and your third finger moves up a
half a step to your A note. Now you’ve got —
it looks like that. Now, you are picking-up your
B string there. See that? So it’s a pinch with
the index and the thumb. Hammer-on, pick-up with
the second finger, that B string. Then you move
to this pattern, which is your F sharp and your A,
pretty simple. Now, the next two are very simple,
just chromatic, right? Nice little dissonance there.
And you’re ready for your A chord.
Now, the beauty of these passages I’m showing you
is that they weave together the chord changes in
kind of a flow to your playing. They cause a flow
to your playing. So now, one more time with the
ascending and descending lines all together. If
you can get this down, it’s a little bit of work,
but I guarantee you if you get this down, these
are tools you can use over and over in any key.
It will really serve you well. It really adds
some deluxe flavor to your blues. Here we go
with this little deluxe blues piece.
You notice I’m picking-up that high E once in a
while. Now, here comes the walk-up. Now you’re
on your A. Notice I’m picking-up that G string
right there. Back to your E. Now to your B chord.
You can claw that, go right at it. Get a little
aggressive. Now your A. Now you come down on
your low E and your descending line.
Now, if you want to really get bluesy, do a
sharp 9 chord to a 9 chord. We’ve all heard
that one before, right? How blue can you get?
