Acoustic Blues Guitar Picking - Learning The Blues


Well, How Hard Can It Be To Play Acoustic  Blues Guitar Like The Old Guys?


It almost goes without saying that elementary finger picking is quite easy – you strike one string with the thumb and the following one with a finger, or pluck two or 3 strings in unison with thumb and finger(s)! Got it ? Of course, it’s how we apply our thumb and fingers which can generate an exciting effect. Acoustic Blues Picking is a little different. It’s rather tricky to play blues finger picking easily so that it flows.

I’ve noticed that a lot of,old school guitar masters simply applied one finger on their right hand– Doc Watson, Reverend Gary Davis, Scrapper Blackwell, Blind Boy Fuller, Floyd Council, Big Bill Broonzy, and the list goes on and on. We are really lucky to have old film clips of blues men similar to Broonzy and we can get an idea how these folks developed these fantastic sounds.

The right hand thumb can travel over to the treble strings to help out, which adds to the syncopation. We start to see that the right thumb is the driving force behind the greatest acoustic blues. It can double the beat to reproduce the heartbeat, strike off the beat , pluck two or more strings at a time and create single string runs when used together with one of the fingers (typically the index.) Reverend Gary Davis was a main exponent of this fashion of picking .

Davis might perform with picks or naked fingers, but preferred to use  a large plastic thumb pick and a steel finger pick steel pick on his index finger. It creates a strong, penetrating effect which permitted his blues sound to be heard over traffic din in Harlem when he sang and performed on the busy street . His stunningly rapid individual string runs picked with thumb and finger are really tricky to replicate faithfully . Davis was widely revered as a excellent blues guitar teacher. For the student keen to learn the blues, the Reverend was sent from heaven.

Other great players such as Doc Watson and Chet Atkins, had a clipped, economical way of picking, but Doc utilizes a plastic thumb and finger pick, whilst Chet used a plastic thumb-pick and bare finger nails. Doc utilizes one finger of his picking hand, and Chet employed three (at least).

In the late 50s and beginning of the sixties , youthful students looked for the old blues guitarists and quite a few of the old players started to play their guitars one more time, either as performers or instructors . As the years pass, they are now thin on the ground , so it becomes far more hard to locate a real original blues guitar picker who can play in the old way.

Over the last 5 years, the sources accessible for the student guitarist interested in finger picking the blues are incredibly varied . However, this can additionally slow us up a little.

How to begin? Where to locate a master of the old style ? What technique to follow,  blues from the delta or Piedmont ragtime blues ? Modern acoustic blues can be a little over-complicated and it seems that the formula " Fantastically Complex = Far better" even now holds true in a lot of quarters quarters. Fortunately, some guitarists are searching a lot more in direction of the roots again in current years and more fans are looking for the authentic sound of acoustic blues guitar . Going back to the roots is the best way to learn how to play the blues.

Which is not to say that these original blues guys couldn’t make some incredibly complex sounds, but the sensation powering the fingers is what it’s all about really. A Texan blues legend, Lightnin’ (Sam) Hopkins frequently performed a easy pattern in E, let’s say , with a sturdy monotonic bass rhythm . At times he would double the beat and the bass sound grew to become a heart beat.

In contrast , he might move up the neck of the guitar fast like ‘lightnin’ and push over the higher strings, producing hypnotic notes. The impact was music that spoke to your heart and it speaks the truth – that's the blues.



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