We are in open G this week in Slide Success classes, and we are going to start looking at a useful straight groove picking pattern. This one formed the core of the riff we looked at last week and it is very useful to have this as a rudiment pattern that you can use in other ways.
Here is a little vid taking you through this one: https://youtu.be/D9N2VQYAXPw
Now what we are going to do is drill changing from a shuffle feel into this straight picking feel. This is a great exercise for getting you comfortable shifting between the two feels.
Then taking this exercise and adding in the chord changes of a 12bar blues progression, so playing the shuffle on the 1 chord (G) then switching to straight on the 4 (C) and 5 (D) chords:
Check out the video to see this in action : https://youtu.be/yzNp3KLT6Ss
To finish off, let's hear how this ability to switch and shift the feel is a key feature of the playing of Delta master Robert Johnson in the piece Walking Blues.
This piece is often played as a full on shuffle, the fantastic Eric Clapton version being a good example of this. I teach this piece to my students as a good way into the Delta style as it has all the key elements of the piece but stays rhythmically fairly straightforward.
The Robert Johnson version, on the other hand, has a bit more going on. It starts with the shuffle feel but then seems to drive forward into a more straight and dancey feel and shifts this feel back and forth.
Check out the video here where you can hear what I mean: https://youtu.be/UFn7kXyPJTM
The Delta players would have been playing in environments where it was important to get people dancing and grooving around so the driving straight feel was very important. This ability to seamlessly shift the feel like this makes the Delta music fascinating from a rhythmic point of view and once this music moved to the more band oriented electric Chicago Blues style, a lot of this subtlety got smoothed out.
If you are a solo blues player and can inject a bit of this feel shifting onto your playing it will give your playing an interesting and very authentically Delta Blues vibe.
Give this a go and let me know how you get on!
If you are still struggling to get to grips with the slide technique, book a call and we can talk about getting your technique sorted over the next few weeks. Explore my courses on my website to find the perfect fit!