this is one of the great blues songs, similar to champagne and reefer.
the 12 bar blues is a "parental" blues form. this is a 15 bar blues, however... if you count it as a 12 bar using some classical nomenclature technique it is actually very easy to follow along.
it starts on bar 2 of a 12 bar progression, so we have bars 2..3..4..5.. and 6 then it goes back to the beginning to bars 2..3..4..5.. and 6 then back to the beginning for bars 2.. 3 and 4
then it skips to bar 9 "the 5 chord" bar 10 "the 4 chord" then back to the beginning bars 2..3..4..5.. and 6 wash rinse repeat..... for simplicity sake i have left out the intro... this is the body of the song.
First, it uses a 12-bar blues variant where the first phrase (the one that usually starts on the I chord) is instead the same as the second phrase (the one that starts on the IV chord).
So (counting just chords and not how long they last), instead of :
I IV back to I V-IV-I (maybe a V at the end)
It goes
IV back to I IV back to I V-IV-I (maybe a V at the end)
However, it also adds a fifth measure of I at the end of each phrase.
So, now counting the bars, you get:
IV IV I I (I) - (I) being that extra fifth bar IV IV I I (I) V IV I I (I)
Thanks for posting - I love this song and this version. I finally got my band to start playing it. I also got them playing Champagne and Reefer for a while - also one of my favorites.
the blues at its most basic .. is, .. 4 bars of the one chord .. 2 bars of the 4 chord.. 2 bars of the 1 chord..the 5 chord.. the four chord.. and 2 more bars of the 1 chord
so one way to look at it.... 8 of the 12 bars are the one chord....
chew on that for a moment...
Last Edited by 1847 on Oct 31, 2017 11:24 PM
ok.. so what we want to do is.. we want to extricate the very first bar, it is a sub-prime tranch
we will sell it to goldman sacks for a small commission. they will slice and dice it and have moody's rate it as triple A investment.... and then sell it to the bank of Scotland and deutsche bank.. that's ok... we are lucky to get rid of it like a hot potato.
so what we have left is the last 3 bars of the one chord.
It depends on the meaning of "at its most basic", but a case could be made for blues of that kind being a large number of bars -- a whole tune! -- just played on the I chord. Regardless, Winslow´s way of describing the form is superior, I think. I´ve met musicians who for some strange reason have a hard time understanding I-II-III-IV-V chords and so on -- what, I take it, is called the "Nashville system" -- but I can´t for the life of me understand why.
Ok so we will start on bar 2 of the progression So we have bars 2 3 and 4 the 5 th bar of a blues progression is the 4 chord. So we now have bars 2 3 4 5 and 6 In standard musical notation a repeat sign would be used. Two dots and a double bar. So we simply repeat the first section and we will have 10 symmetrical bars of a fifteen bar blues.
I /7 I /7 I /7 IV /7 IV/7
I /7 I /7 I /7 IV /7 IV/7
We now only need the last 5 bars. This will keep things symmetrical.
I /7 I /7 I /7 IV /7 IV/7
I /7 I /7 I /7 IV /7 IV/7
I /7 I /7 I /7 V/7 IV/7
The advantage is there is no extra bar to trip us up.. by starting on bar two, this puts the 4 chord And the 5 chord where they belong. And makes it quite simple to follow along.
Keep an open mind and try counting it this way. Super simple
Last Edited by 1847 on Nov 01, 2017 9:46 AM
@1847: What I found hard to understand was that some musicians found the Nashville system hard to understand -- not the system per se. (That is rather simple.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_number_system
A lot of people that play an instrument are self taught and never learn too much about music.
If you can copy a song you do not need to know much about music. If someone calls out a tune in A … the harmonica player grabs a D harp, never asking himself…
The song is in A why am I playing a D harp? It’s not necessary to know what chords are being played or how they are constructed, just grab a D harp and wail away.
Am I alone in finding it irritating? Which leads me to the question, is the structure Muddy's or Johnny Winter's? I think one of the reasons I find it irritating is the clompy drumming which, imo, rather pedantically signals the structure to the others. ---------- Andrew. -----------------------------------------
let’s re-work this a little. Let’s start from where the vocal comes in. 4 4 1 1 1 4 4 1 1 1 5 4 1 1 1
that is what winslow has.... this is correct
what i am trying to express is the 4 chord is typically the fifth and six measure of a blues tune. so that is how i am counting it. the five chord is bar nine and the four chord is bar ten. after that point you can count it either way 4 4 1 1 1 4 4 1 1 1 5 4
1 1 1 4 4 1 1 1 4 4 1 1 1 5 4
the reason i do this is when i hear the 4 chord i know that it is typically in bar five and six so i can count this as bars
2 3 4 5 6 2 3 4 5 6 2 3 4 9 10
he is adding a bar i am subtracting a bar. we end up at the same place.
as long as you are counting and know where you are in the progression, that is what matters.
not sure the average harmonica player counts. i think it is vital. but hey who am i... just an average harp player myself.
I think it's good to count if there's any doubt and I usually do it whenever listening to a non 12 bar (Aki will actually play these at his jams so I'm fortunate to hear a 15 or 27 bar blues done well at a jam) to exercise the ear and confirm what I think I'm hearing. Then once I'm sure I've established the form in my mind I let it go and just feel the changes.. I just make sure I know where the changes are first and then that's my reference. In this case, changes on bar 6 and bar 11. But I don't even really think that, I just feel it as Winslow wrote it, three four bar phrases with an extra bar at the end of each one.
and to me that first IV chord signals "top of the form!", it's the anchor of the tune in my view, you can always re-sync from there or from the V chord if you get lost.
I dunno, whatever works best for ya..
---------- 4' 4+ 3' 2~~~ -Mike Ziemba Harmonica is Life!
