Story Behind the Song
Here in lesson three, Road Rattle, you will expand on the major sound by combining the minor to major 3rd slur with the major 6th and 7th in IV and V chord bars. The first part of the lick uses a downward rake accross the root, 5th and 4th (that's C G and F) on the first three strings. In a rake, you hold all three notes down while you sound each separately, so that at the end of the rake all three notes are ringing. Use a 1st finger bar across the first two strings to play the root (that's C) and the 5th (that's G), with the 3rd finger holding the 4th (or F) on string 3.
The major blues part of the lick then hammers upwards from the minor 3rd ( or Eb) to the major 3rd (or E) followed by a root (or C). In bar two, the lick is repeated except that instead of a C, a flat seventh (or Bb) is the last note. In bar 3, you leave your second finger on the E after the hammer, then you pick the bar's final root (or C) with the 1st finger, while still holding the 2nd finger down on the E. Then add the 3rd finger on the minor b7th (or Bb) while still holding the E and C and all three fingers are in place for the C7 chord in bar 4.
In bar 5 we adapt the lick to the harmony of the IV chord, as we did in Swift Jab, by hammering up from the 2nd (or D) to the minor 3rd (or Eb). In Swept Clean, however, we end the lick on an A in IV chord ( or F7) bars, because A is the 3rd of the F7 chord.
In V chord (or G7) bars, namely bars 9 & 12, we hammer up from the 3rd (or E) to the 4th (or F) and end the lick on a 7th (or B) because B is the 3rd of the G7 chord.›
Lyrics
The Soul of the Blues series teaches the "major" blues sound made famous by Delta bluesmen like Robert Johnson, but alive today in the music of B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix and countless other greats. The major blues sound adds the third, si xth, seventh and ninth notes (that's E, A, B and D in the key of C) that are left out by blues players who only know the minor blues notes, that is C, Eb, F, Gb, G and Bb.
Historically, the blues originated from the ultimate downbeat situation, that is slaves who were trying play microtonal African notes on the American fretted guitar. The result was "dominant" chords--that is, chords that use a major third, or E, with a flat seventh, ninth and thirteenth, that's Bb, D and A. Minor blues melodies, skip these notes and just use the flat 3rd, flat 5th and flat 7th, or Eb, Gb, and Bb, skipping over the major notes or E, A, B and D.
When you combine major blues notes with minor blues notes, as players like Stevie Ray Vaughn do constantly, you no longer play off a scale, but instead adapt every lick to the harmony of the changing chords. Luckily you can accumulate this ability to follow "changes" one lesson at a time from the Soul of the Blues series.
In a nutshell, the major 3rd, 6th and 7th are part of the chords in I, IV and V-chord bars respectively, but these major notes are skipped by players who only know the minor blues scale. The Soul of the Blues series shows you when to play these major notes. For instance, you can slur from the minor to the ma jor third of whatever chord you are playing, such as slurring from the flat 3rd to the 3rd, or Eb to E, in the key of C. Slurs like slides, bends and trills can lighting the mood of an otherwise downbeat melody, a la B.B. King.
In IV chord bars (that i s, F7 bars of a C blues) you can transpose the major sound up a fourth, so that you slur from the flat 6th to the major 6th (that's Ab to A) instead of from the flat third to the 3rd. This is because the F7 has an A as its third. Likewise, in V chord bars (that's G7 bars) you can slur from the flat 7th to the major 7th, or Bb to B, because the third of G7 is B.
The major blues sound also uses the "higher" major tones above the octave in the 7th chords, namely the 9th and 13th tones of the C7 chord, or D and A. These major notes can combined with minor blues notes in I-chord bars without slurring. Luckily, these same Ds and As are also the 6th and third of the F7 chord as well as the 5th and 9th of the G7 chord, making Ds and As especially useful for melodies using the major blues sound. ˇ
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