Following up on my session on Phrasing For Slide players, I was inspired by a great little clip of B.B.King describing his approach to phrasing over a slow groove.
Here is the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33WTBinPIEI
B.B. King is the master of creating these lovely little phrases with lots of space between and as he says in the clip : “It’s like I'm talking to the person”
So this week, let's look at how we can inject a bit of this into our slide playing and make it talk!
In the world of slide, with all those sustained, smooth sounds, it's easy to get lost in endless notes. But there's something magical that happens when you approach music like a conversation, injecting space and breath into your playing.
To demonstrate this, I have put together a little solo for you over an 8 bar blues based on the standard: Key To The Highway.
A real master of this in terms of slide playing is Derek Trucks and the first phrase here is borrowed from his version.
Here is the tab:
As you can see in the tab there are lots of rests - (these are the black squiggles if you don't read notation).
This means stop playing! This is not always the easiest thing to do, especially as a slide player. The slide has so much sustain that it can be very tempting to let it fill all the gaps.
Check out the video here to see that in action: https://youtu.be/21CTTJzBynI
Of course sometimes you want to lean into this and enjoy the sustain but having this approach up your sleeve as well gives you more options and can help to set your playing apart.
Give this a go over the weekend and let me know how you get on. Next week we will look at some more phrasing from the great Elmore James.
Happy sliding!
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