Stuart I’m referring to the tab not the rhythm notation
Apologies. Yes you are right ![]()
My favorite lesson by far so far since the beginning. And I’m not a huge blues fan lol.
anyone have any tips for muting the strings right after playing the chords? cant seem to get the same kind of sound without muting, but im finding it really hard to do
hi @Drab,
Welcome to the community!
I think you are asking about the shuffle part. That is where I see the muting. I think Justin is doing that with the heel of his picking hand. I certainly do it that way.
If this is not the part you are thinking of, then maybe post the timestamp in the lesson would get the place you are having trouble with.
Actually, Justin is muting with this fretting hand. It generally happens after beat 1 (before the “and of 1” and sometimes on the other beats (always right after the beat and before the “and”). He quickly lays his ring finger on the bass string to mute it. This doesn’t happen when he’s playing variations of the basic shuffle.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Justin teach this technique, but he does it all the time in his videos. It’s a bit tricky to learn: getting the ring finger down to mute between the beat and the “and” does not come naturally. I have worked on it a bit, but never really mastered it.
When I play this set-piece, I use the edge of my picking hand to mute the strings between the end of the shuffle “riff” and the beginning of the “lick”. This is pretty straightforward, as I am already using that part of my hand to “palm-mute” the shuffle “riff”
Hope this helps.
So, I tend to watch through all the videos of a module trying to play along before going to the practice routine and then doing the daily work.
With this obviously I can´t go through the video in one watch - as it´s getting harder to memorize the whole riff/lick of a 30 minute video (I managed like the intro part today) - then later or tomorrow I try to go through some more minutes and parts of it - but I dont go to the next video of the module yet.
So it feels like Im already doing the work I should do in the 5 minute part of the practice routine later on while watching the video but Im not doing anything else of the practice routine.
So in short: Should I just skip the video and go on with the others to get to the practice routine and continue learning this riff/lick along with the video in the daily practice routine? Im probably answering my question myself, but yea so far I liked being through all the videos before I go on.
Yes ![]()
Hi there, just starting on this lesson. Looking at the 1st chorus showing open low e and 2nd fret a. If i play both together plucking up it sounds correct but looking on the vidio it seems justin is using thumb on just one string?
How do i get it correct with the thumb please?
1st Chorus?? This is a 12-bar Blues, and this composition consists of two complete12-bar Blues progressions. There is no “chorus” in a 12-bar Blues.
Can you describe your trouble-spot by calling out which bar of which 12-bar progression you are referring to? This being a Blues in E, there are lots of places where you play the open E and fret the A string at the 2nd fret. That being said, the shuffle parts of this composition are usually played with down-picks only.
Ed
So its actually from beginners 3 but the chat links to here. The e7 then a7 justin
seems to play with thumb on down strokes but it only sounds right if i use 2 fingers on the low e and a
Justin is strumming both the E and A string with his thumb all down strums muting the strings with some palm muting with his strumming hand. He’s doing the same when changing to the A in bar 4
When playing this style of blues the thumb plays the bass(all down strums) and the fingers play the treble
I see why Justin has it marked as Chorus 1 and Chorus 2, the licks in 2 are slightly different than in 1
Well, I never noticed that marking there. I couldn’t figure out why that “Chorus 1” would be there on the tab, so I did a search and found this:
The term “chorus” in this context refers to one complete cycle of the 12-bar progression, not the traditional pop-music verse-chorus structure.
I learned something new today ![]()
Stitch’s answer is spot-on!
FYI, I play this piece with a pick instead of with my fingers, and I play the E and A strings together with palm-muting.
Enjoy the Journey!
Thank you both, i guess i need to speed up with my thumb so both e and a ring out together, to get the correct sound
Clearly there is a significance to starting and stopping on beat 1, and the discussion mentions that you should not try beat 2 for “some time.” Just to be clear, is that the skill that we are developing with this exercise, moving from starting and ending at the end of the measure to starting and ending on the first beat of the following measure?
I don’t think there is a deep significance. It’s a simple rhythmic framework that Justin is suggesting to get you started on interspersing lead lines together with rhythm playing. Stopping and starting on beat 1 takes that variable out of the equation, letting you concentrate on all the other variables (playing the rhythm and the lead lines correctly, in time, etc.). Since staying in time is paramount here, while you jump back and forth between rhythm and lead, simplifying things makes a lot of sense.
Once you get this down, then you can branch out by stopping and starting on different beats and (eventually) improvising different licks, etc.
IMO, the main thing we learn from this exercise is to get comfortable with switching between playing rhythm (the shuffle part played during the 1st 2 bars) and single-notes (the licks played during second two bars).
I’ve been practicing this riff a bit! Thought I’d post videos performing on both electric and acoustic guitar. Feedback appreciated!
