Country Blues Musicianship – John Miller
In this 2-Part lesson, master musician and teacher John Miller provides you with a thorough background in the musical language of the Blues, providing you with the tools that will enable you to be a more complete musician.
Beginning to build a repertoire of songs that you can play comfortably is the first important step in getting started in the Country Blues. But once you’ve got that repertoire-building process started, it can be enormously helpful to become acquainted with the Blues in a more general, less song-specific way, learning the various stylistic pathways that enable experienced blues players who have never met or played together before to sit down and make music together. When you see that happen, it seems like magic, but it’s really just a matter of their knowing and understanding the language of the blues.
In this 2-Part lesson, master musician and teacher John Miller provides you with a thorough background in the musical language of the Blues, providing you with the tools that, with work and practice, will enable you to be a more complete musician—one who is able to:
• recognize the form and know the progression after playing through it once or twice;
• join in at jam sessions;
• provide chordal accompaniment and “play time”, and
• know where to play fills without clashing with the vocal
In Part 1, John starts out explaining the I, IV and V chords and shows how they provide the chordal basis for the blues. Then he goes on to explain and demonstrate the various blues forms most commonly encountered in the Country Blues, 12-bar blues, 8-bar blues, 16-bar blues, and 18-bar ragtime blues. As he works through these different forms, John demonstrates how the phrasing in each of these blues types is directed by the vocal, and how the accompanying instrument responds to it. This information is delivered in clear detail, not skimmed over, so that you’ll recognize the different blues forms when you hear them in the future. Disc 1 finishes up with performance footage of Blues greats Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee, John Jackson, Pink Anderson, Dave Van Ronk and Libba Cotten playing songs in the various blues forms.
In Part 2, John addresses other issues involved in being a more confident and complete musician: Rhythm and timing, playing rhythm guitar, using a capo to create musical space when playing with other guitarists, turn-arounds and how they work, how to move ideas from one key to another on the guitar, and how to create an arrangement of your own.
The PDF files which can be found on each of the discs of Country Blues Musicianship expand on John’s instruction on the video and include tips that will help you understand and master the concepts that are being discussed in the lesson. Let Country Blues Musicianship help you get to the place where you can join in at jams, know where a song is going next and recognize and understand new songs with calmness and confidence.
Duration: 226 minutes
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