In another thread, BarbequeBos said,"If you're phrasing blues off the 1 and the 3, it ain't blues anymore".
I need some education. I know to hit the tamborine, clap machine, and/or cow bell on the 2 anf 4 beat. But I may be guilty of "phrasing blues off the 1 and the 3"
Does anyone have a sample of right and wrong that I can listen to??
First thing to listen to, but without harmonica, are some blues guitarists like Magic Sam, BB King, and Albert King, who clearly plays off the 2 and the 4 most of the time, and that's where the snare drum hits. In most music today, more so in black music as a general rule, bass drum is on the 1 and the 3, snare is 2 and the 4.
If you play off 1 and 3 a lot, you often wind up playing way too many notes, and often times jump way ahead of the beat, and playing off 2 and 4, it's easier to adjust to the real blues groove, which is behind the beat, and you don't need to play as many notes plus it allows the tension to build, and this basically is all about the groove. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Jun 03, 2010 12:00 PM
When I am playing a blues solo, I play like how I might sing something relevant to the song.
Like I might play some notes articulating something like "my baby she don't love me, I ain't got nothin' else to say"...I'm playing that phrase through my harmonica.
Some very good blues is phrased off the 1, 2, and 3, riff-style. The second chorus of "Juke," as played by James Cotton and Billy Branch, is a good example: bam! bam! bam!, right on the downbeats. Big Walter played like that, too.
Here's Billy hitting hard on the 1, 2, and 3. Check out :11 to :21.
Interestingly enough, a lot of early rock 'n roll hits the 2 and 4 really hard. My favorite example is Bill Haley and the Comets on "Rock Around the Clock." The opening of the song makes this clear: one-TWO-three-FOUR, with a heavily stressed off-beat, starting around :09. (And note that the girls are clapping on 2 and 4.) But when the horns start riffing later, at 1:21, they're doing exactly what I describe above in "Juke": stressing 1,2, and 3 equally, smack on the downbeat:
I'm gonna ponder on what BBqBob said,"If you play off 1 and 3 a lot, you often wind up playing way too many notes" There's a few in our group that loose the beat because they are always jumping in on the ONE. I may suggest holding back, (giving it some sapce)
@Shanester. I listened to Freddy King. It's good blues, but I do not think it is a good example of playing on TWO and FOUR. Too many times I heard him starting on the ONE. Though I did hear him starting on the TWO and FOUR (maybe even the THREE)
@Adam. Thanks for the examples. I have heard one person say James Brown was famous for putting the beat back on ONE and THREE. And after listing to your 2 examples and the one of Freddy King, maybe my phrasing is not as bad as I think.
I would still like an example of right and wrong to share with the gang. I may have to make and record my own version of right and wrong. OR maybe there IS NO right and wrong????
That may not have been the best example, i was searching quickly, but to my ear, the intensity and the "strong" notes tend to hook up around the 2 and 4 beats.
I think when you come in heavy on the 1, you kind of "rock" the beat.
A lot of the masters play with timing and phrasing even within the same song, keeping it loose.
I think though, that if you are really familiar with the music you're playing, you're better off staying out of your head and in the moment with what feels right.
For many people, playing off 1 and 3, one almost naturally falls into playing ahead of the beat, and playing off 2 and 4 makes the transition into playing behind the beat much easier. 2 and 4 is more relaxed wheras 1 and 3 tends to be more "in a hurry" and pushing it more.
To master any of that, this is where the typical thing too many musicians, be it harp, guitar, or anything else, just listening to solos makes it difficult to pick this up and listening to the groove is huge and I often see too many people in many open jams often don't pay really close attention to the groove.
I you hear Ray Charles singing Drown In My Own Tears, much of the vocal is off the 2 and 4, plus he's playing FAR behind the beat and then damned near the slowest tempo on the metronome.
Using space is something that a lot of musicians often don't learn very well and they often have to seemingly fill every space up and the music doesn't breathe and playing more off the 2 and 4 forces that to happen more. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I suspect that BBQ will agree with me that one of the modern masters of deep/relaxed timing is Paul Oscher, who learned that from Muddy. The slower he plays, the better he gets. For my money, he may be the finest living practitioner of that particular style. Here's a video that gets some of his magic. If you search his name on YouTube, I'm sure you'll find other, better clips:
Here's another. God he's good. Nothing flashy; an anti-flash aesthetic, in fact. He's jes' playin' and singin'. The focus is always on the song, not the harp.
OT: Longtime followers of my ravings about the need to "modernize" may be surprised to hear me sing the praises of a guy like Paul, since he is, by any measure, completely immured in the past. And the truth is, if I want to be critical, I might make the point that he is NOT an innovator like Butterfield, Musselwhite, Kim Wilson, Jason Ricci....I'm not sure he meets the 3-second test threshold: considered purely as a harp player, I'm not sure whether he's contributed a new and distinctive voice to the instrument. Would I quickly know his harp voice if it came on the radio? I honestly don't think I would.
Except: I think he's arguably the best in the world right now at this sort of relaxed, old-school Chicago blues. He has the pedigree, god knows. And he's reached a place where the harp is merely an instrument for creating a mood. He never, ever, EVER forces it. He just unspools perfect stuff that somehow never sounds merely recycled. There's a magic in that that I can't deny. I've seen him up close and personal and he blows me away. The guitar playing is part of it: he's not just recreating a "Muddy style" on the harp, but he's simultaneously recreating that particular groove on the guitar. This double-barreled attack--or relax-attack--is, I think, where some of the magic comes from.
Every ideologue has his weakness. Paul Oscher's playing is this particular modernist's weakness. He's got it. I can't quite put my finger on what sets him apart, but he's got that thing. That same thing, as Muddy might say.
Oscher is doing the real deal here. In the one with the chromatic it's very clever how he has the button either taped in or has taken the thing apart and reversed the slide so it plays in Eflat as the default key. Splendid work by someone who knows what its all about.
