[00:00] [Music]
[00:01] out of mississippi there was a different
[00:03] type of blues that emerged that was
[00:05] different than delta blues this style
[00:07] was called hill country blue
[00:10] this style was often played in juke
[00:12] joints for people to dance and have a
[00:15] really good time too it's really more of
[00:17] an upbeat style and great for partying
[00:19] as you can see
[00:21] [Music]
[00:24] the techniques that were used to play
[00:26] the guitar in this style of music were
[00:28] completely different than the techniques
[00:30] used for delta blues the guitar parts
[00:32] would emphasize a really percussive
[00:34] strumming effect that would
[00:37] often be played without a band sometimes
[00:39] it would be played also with a band in
[00:42] this video i'm going to show you some of
[00:43] the masters of this style and show you
[00:45] some of the techniques that are used in
[00:47] order to get the right sound out of your
[00:49] guitar
[00:50] now there's a lot of guys that do this
[00:51] style and all their guitars sound a
[00:54] little bit different so in this lesson
[00:56] we're really just going to focus on the
[00:57] techniques and really focusing on the
[00:59] right hand this time
[01:06] all right so if you want to get into
[01:07] hill country blues there's basically two
[01:09] styles that you should focus on one of
[01:11] them is called
[01:13] delta drone and basically it's very
[01:15] similar to a delta blues guitar but
[01:18] often it's played on electric guitars
[01:20] and it's a little bit faster it's not
[01:22] something like this um
[01:24] [Music]
[01:32] so
[01:40] [Music]
[01:50] stuff like that and they play like riffs
[01:51] that will repeat often
[01:53] over and over and over again
[01:55] and it's kind of just like play
[01:57] [Music]
[02:03] things like that so basically kind of a
[02:05] monotonic bass and then minor pentatonic
[02:08] riffs or using blues scale riffs and
[02:10] stuff like that the second type that you
[02:12] want to focus on is something that we
[02:14] call hypnotic boogie and this is totally
[02:17] different than other genres this is
[02:19] totally different than delta blues it's
[02:21] it's a groove based
[02:23] type of music where the guitar is very
[02:26] percussive style made with this rhythmic
[02:28] strumming
[02:29] and that might sound like something like
[02:30] um
[02:32] [Music]
[02:47] and they'll repeat riffs like that over
[02:50] and over again one thing that you should
[02:51] notice here is that basically i'm kind
[02:53] of playing a bass line
[02:58] but then i'm adding that if you just
[03:00] play that it doesn't sound anything like
[03:01] it right you've got to add the
[03:02] percussive
[03:06] that percussive feel with the right hand
[03:09] okay that's the most important thing i
[03:11] think this hill country blues that makes
[03:13] it different than other genres because
[03:15] they don't do that as much in any other
[03:17] styles of blues this is the most
[03:19] percussive style and because of that
[03:21] it's really fun to play often also
[03:23] sometimes with that kind of hypnotic
[03:25] boogie style and with the delta drone
[03:28] style you'll have players play with a
[03:30] full band so
[03:32] you know with drums or something it
[03:33] might sound you know something like this
[03:40] real groovy
[03:44] [Music]
[03:55] okay
[03:56] and it's you know you they play it with
[03:58] and without the band so the
[04:00] arrangement's kind of the way they're
[04:01] playing whether or not they're playing
[04:03] with the band they're doing that super
[04:05] rhythmic strumming
[04:07] style okay so now let's check out
[04:09] actually some of these masters some of
[04:11] the guys that made this style popular
[04:13] they
[04:14] more or less invented this style there's
[04:16] three guys we're gonna check out one is
[04:18] fred mcdowell two is junior kimbrough
[04:21] and three is r.l burnside these are
[04:23] three of the biggest names in this genre
[04:25] and let's just jump in and check out
[04:27] what they're doing and i'll give you
[04:28] some tips on how they're achieving their
[04:31] sound
[04:31] okay so the first one is going to be
[04:33] mississippi fred mcdowell
[04:35] this is a song called shake him on down
[04:40] and this is he's playing it solo right
[04:44] open tunings he's got a slide here
[04:47] okay
[04:48] hear that groove
[04:50] heavy right hand groove here okay if you
[04:52] take a look at this right hand here look
[04:54] at that right here
[05:02] yeah good shot of the right hand here
[05:04] you can see he's using the thumb with a
[05:06] thumb pick and his index finger to kind
[05:08] of do some of this picking
[05:10] okay
[05:13] now this is what he's doing here this is
[05:15] the style
[05:15] [Music]
[05:19] okay let's check that out um
[05:22] so he's actually tuned to open e i've
[05:26] got my resonator guitar here my dobro
[05:29] that's tuned to
[05:32] i think like open c
[05:34] it's very similar but it's not
[05:37] i think he's kind of
[05:39] here so
[05:41] um or maybe higher but uh notice when
[05:44] he's playing here let's check that right
[05:45] hand out again
[05:46] let's see if we can get that groove
[05:50] okay
[05:51] see that real so what are you doing here
[05:52] is if you can take a look at my right
[05:54] hand i know this sounds lower in pitch
[05:55] but it's the same idea
[06:00] [Music]
[06:07] okay no really percussive style so check
[06:09] out my right hand here what we're going
[06:10] to do so basically what we're doing is
[06:15] kind of this alternating base where we
[06:17] hit the low string and then kind of
[06:20] chuck the big
[06:22] the
[06:23] and then chuck the thin strings down
[06:24] here so
[06:26] okay and it's not just about hitting
[06:28] those strings if you don't give it
[06:30] enough power it's not gonna sound right
[06:32] okay so you really gotta dig in
[06:35] okay
[06:36] and give it like that okay now second
[06:38] thing he's doing to give it some
[06:39] syncopation is he's
[06:41] alternating the index finger so without
[06:43] any notes it sounds like this
[06:50] okay
[06:51] so notice i'm kind of alternating one
[06:53] two and three and four and one two and
[06:57] three and four and now if we put some
[06:59] notes into that it sounds like this
[07:02] [Music]
[07:10] okay now he's adding a slide in there
[07:12] too so he's get some notes to sound like
[07:13] this
[07:15] [Music]
[07:21] okay so the main percussion stuff is
[07:23] make sure you're kind of hitting this
[07:25] and then really aggressively
[07:28] hitting those top strings okay now as
[07:30] soon as you hit those strings
[07:32] mute that with the right hand or the
[07:33] left hand you're doing a lot of
[07:34] different right and left hand muting
[07:36] here so
[07:39] [Music]
[07:41] it's similar that's not exactly what
[07:42] he's doing but it's very similar no just
[07:44] the right hand percussion is the main
[07:46] idea let's check that right hand out one
[07:47] more time
[07:52] that's so cool okay
[07:54] now he's gonna go up higher and play
[07:55] some more stuff okay so that's uh fred
[07:58] mcdowell he's one of the uh he's one of
[08:00] the pioneers of this style so definitely
[08:03] someone you should check out okay second
[08:04] we're going to check out um
[08:06] second we're going to check out junior
[08:08] kimbrough so junior kimbrough is another
[08:10] player uh amazing
[08:12] player he is often playing with electric
[08:15] guitars here and here you can actually
[08:17] see him playing with his band in one of
[08:20] these juke joints that we discussed so
[08:22] let's check his playing out here
[08:25] [Music]
[08:34] so this is cool this is that uh
[08:36] that kind of drone style where you've
[08:38] got a drone note and he's playing these
[08:41] uh repeated uh riffs
[08:43] on top of it so let's check that out a
[08:45] little bit more
[08:48] okay and this is going to be in a
[08:49] standard tuning
[08:53] we're similar
[08:54] [Music]
[08:58] okay now he's actually in um
[09:01] e flat standard tuning so it's kind of
[09:03] he's playing an a so he's playing
[09:05] [Music]
[09:10] yeah okay so here we just kind of
[09:11] monotonic based okay remember he's an a
[09:13] flat so it would be kind of this
[09:15] position
[09:15] [Music]
[09:21] okay um but he's actually playing in
[09:24] the a string so he's actually sounding a
[09:25] little more like this
[09:27] [Music]
[09:35] okay uh monotonic bass means you're just
[09:37] hitting the same bass note over again it
[09:39] gives that drone that's why we call it
[09:41] that delta drone style let's check out a
[09:43] little bit more of that
[09:44] okay
[09:45] and with the band
[09:47] it's so cool
[09:51] [Music]
[09:53] you can see
[09:54] you barely see in the shadow here you
[09:56] can see his right hand just that thumb
[09:58] is just continuously
[10:00] [Music]
[10:05] just continuously going like that
[10:09] groove based music groove bass blues
[10:12] that's what this is
[10:15] yeah
[10:16] [Music]
[10:17] and again you know when people are
[10:18] playing this style it's always you know
[10:21] about dancing about having a good time
[10:23] you know um
[10:25] they're always kind of playing these in
[10:26] these juke joints kind of like dive bars
[10:28] where people are just having a really
[10:30] really good time dancing and you know
[10:32] it's about that groove you know without
[10:34] that groove people can't dance to it so
[10:36] that's that's the whole point of this
[10:38] style
[10:40] so third let's check out let's check out
[10:42] one more
[10:43] uh this time we're going to check out
[10:44] oral burn side he's
[10:46] another one of the great players
[10:48] here we've got him playing
[10:52] just solo electric by himself
[10:55] and he's doing that that rhythmic
[10:57] strumming here so this is a really cool
[10:59] song this is a see my jumper hanging on
[11:01] the line
[11:03] one of his most famous songs
[11:07] he got a really good angle of his hand
[11:08] here
[11:16] very cool very cool right and then we
[11:18] have notice
[11:20] the position of his hand you don't have
[11:21] to hold your hand crazy like this you
[11:23] know you can keep it in a comfortable
[11:25] position down here also notice he's not
[11:27] using a thumb pick he's just using his
[11:29] thumb and remember guys you don't have
[11:30] to use thumb pick it just
[11:32] it's kind of helpful sometimes
[11:33] especially if you play for a lot of
[11:35] hours long time the thumb pick is really
[11:37] going to help
[11:38] save your thumb from getting torn up
[11:40] because this style is really going to
[11:41] tear your thumb up because the way you
[11:43] have to go
[11:43] [Music]
[11:45] okay like that
[11:47] okay um
[11:49] so you saw his hand there it's doing
[11:51] that same motion
[11:53] it's almost like a strumming pattern
[11:54] that you kind of continuously do
[11:58] like this two three and four and one two
[12:00] three and four hand beats two and four
[12:03] you're really slamming hard on those top
[12:05] strings that's another reason why the
[12:07] thumb pick is pretty useful
[12:10] one two three and four and one two three
[12:12] and one two three and four and that's
[12:14] the basic pattern check them out
[12:20] he's also in f so he's tuned his guitar
[12:22] up to f but um
[12:24] [Music]
[12:30] but here in e this groove
[12:32] i'm gonna play this groove it's similar
[12:37] [Music]
[12:42] okay um basically kind of a similar
[12:45] groove that he's doing there but
[12:46] basically we're doing that
[12:47] [Music]
[12:49] baseline along with
[12:53] that chunk of chunka sound one
[12:55] so if you just a good way to practice
[12:57] maybe just instead of doing that
[13:00] just go back and forth between the low e
[13:02] and this string instead so that would
[13:03] sound something like this
[13:06] [Music]
[13:13] a very simplified version they don't
[13:15] usually have that straight kind of
[13:17] just root fifth motion they usually do
[13:19] kind of more bass lines like i was
[13:20] playing earlier
[13:22] [Music]
[13:27] okay now notice how different that is if
[13:29] i don't play the chuck part so
[13:32] that's not the same song right
[13:38] [Music]
[13:57] so notice those two beats two and four
[13:59] i'm really slamming that real hard um
[14:01] with the thumb so one two and three four
[14:04] one two and three and four then
[14:08] plucking the index finger upwards
[14:10] for the and beats to make it syncopated
[14:14] all right cool so i hope you learned
[14:16] something on this i'm gonna do a lot
[14:18] more videos and a lot more detail you
[14:19] know specific song lessons and things
[14:21] like that coming up very soon so stay
[14:24] tuned guys i'll see you in those later
[14:26] videos
[14:34] you