![]() I've heard good things about the Woody Mann instruction video Stefan sells as well. The Blake book available from Stefan Grossman's guitar workshop is quite good. I say "versions" because I'm still far from playing any of them authentically at any speed, let alone at Blake's blinding tempos. I can do versions of West Coast Blues, Diddie Wah Diddie, Police Dog Blues, and Chump Man Blues (just learning that one now). Its real easy, now, after learning some Blake, to do fingerpicking Charleston rhythms, and swing rhythms, which makes for interesting songwriting, irrespective of the fact that I will never be even one-tenth the guitarist Blake was. I've suggested to him that he film an instructional video of his Blake renderings, and put it online, but haven't pinned him down yet.Īt any rate, I've learned an awful lot from my investigations of Blakes technique, anyway, and find that it is very useful for my own music.and that keeps it in perspective, as I struggle along. Mark, I'm glad to hear that you are progressing with your Blake adventures (and it is an adventure, for sure).my best friend can do dead on versions of Diddy Wah Diddy and Blind Arthurs Breakdown (vastly more Blake-like than any I've ever seen or heard), both of which he learned in a month or so-it is really uncanny (and sickening)-but he is a gifted guitarist, and was opening for guitarists like Guy Van Duser and Chris Smither at coffeehouses in this area, long ago, when he was only 13-playing his Dad's 30s 0-17. I think I've got a pretty good handle on WCB, and Keep It Home, and several others, and it took about 3 years of constant practice.Too Tight Blues#2 and others are still works in progress for me, but Pat Donahue does a verbatim version of Too Tight Blues #2 that is stunning. Its a difficult technique to describe and even more difficult to learn, never mind to master. ![]() But everyone's technique and the nuance of it is rooted in their phenotype and physiology, and no 2 people are exactly the sameįor Blakes most idiosyncratic pieces, like West Coast and Too Tight Blues #2, you have to learn what he's doing with his thumb, which is more easily demonstrated than spoken of.however, it involves playing a lower, sympathetic note on the bass string, an 1/8 before the beat, which is when the root bass note is played."double thumbing".for example, when he moves form the C chord to the E chord in WCB, he plays in succession, in E chord formation, and with his thumb, the B note on the A string, the E note on the D string, the open E note on the low E string and the B note on the A string.īlake never misses the downbeat.never. ![]() You can get close.if you have an old maple bodied Kalamzoo KG14, or something like that you can get a bit closer. I think you can solve the riddle of nearly exactly what he is doing with his right hand-but playing it exactly like Blake did is another story. From the first time I heard it in the 60s, I wanted to learn to play West Coast Blues just like Blake does.
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