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Ok..

so I was talking to this guy about how to make a chord minor...

and one thing led to another...

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CAUTION.  This is going to be a long discussion.  PLEASE DO NOT attempt to read it from top to bottom and expect it to sink in.  Please take each lesson (deliniated by a line of "♬♬♬♬♬"  ) and take a few days or a week to try the exercises and get your head around it.

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One thing I've noticed on this site a lot of times is guys who balk at 'music theory'..

it scares a lot of people

because a lot of people present it in a scary manner, and so a lot of guys have had some dick present it in a way that intimidated or confused em before, and now they're scarred for life or something

and some guys will think 'oh jim over there, he knows his theory, but i can never get my head around that stuff..'

So I just wanna clear up a couple of misconceptions before we get into this..

1.   Music theory is just that.  Its not music law or music science or music math.  This is significant.  There may be an accepted western way of looking  at things, but its still just a way of looking at things, there are other perspectives.
2.   Partly because of 1 above, but for other reasons too, there is no 'knowing it' or 'not knowing it'  Its like space man, its forever.  I've never been into space.  Probably neither have you.  But I know how to walk to the corner store and buy a pack of smokes.  And thats movement in space right?  I mean, its not the rings of saturn but fortunately they got smokes right there on the corner.
3.  There are many ways to approach this stuff, just because some other guys approach baffled you does not mean that this stuff will be forever beyond your grasp.  It is simple, but a lot of people overcomplicate it for themselves.
4. There is math in it.  This is unavoidable.  But its not trigonometry, its simple comparative math.  Let us say you have an appointment at 5:15 and you steal a glance at your watch, the hour hand is approaching the five, and the minute hand is approaching the ten.  There is a lot of math happening in your head.  You have a little less than half an hour to get to your appointment, and you just know this.  The math has happened in your lower brain, it was subconscious.  Most people do this by the age of around twelve or thirteen.  This is how music can be, and thats going to be our goal moving forward, to just see these 'diatonic thirds' on the fingerboard just as we see the little less than half an hour on that watch face without even looking for it.  I can help you see these thirds on the fingerboard regardless of specifics like how many strings you got or how you tuned em.  What do you say? interested ?
5. chances are you already know quite a bit more of music than you give yourself credit for...

despite that this discussion is aimed to be accessible for beginners, there are

a few things I'm going to assume you know from this point forward..

• when you crank the tuner to pull the string tighter the string will make a note which is higher in pitch than before..
• when you use one of those wee metal jiggers that our wonderful host made his billions on (he calls em frets) to shorten the length of the string, that makes the note higher as well.
• after you shorten the string at a bunch of successive frets you get back to the note you started on, its the same note, but higher.  In the kind of music we make and are talking about here the number of notes before you returned to the same one is twelve, which is why its the twelfth fret where the two busted off sticks get jammed in.
• Despite that there is twelve notes, only seven of em are actually lucky enough to get names, and these names are letters from A to G.  The other five notes, which were not lucky enough to get a letter name are referenced by using an accidental (symbol) like ♯ or ♭, which might be understood to mean 'one higher than' and 'one lower than' respectively..

if theres any of this that troubles you, don't panic!

just inbox me or pop a question below, and hopefully we'll be able to branch off into a wee discussion about that off to the side somewhere..

ok those of you who do understand those things, stop telling people you don't know squat about music theory!! 

of course you do, you already know how to go to the corner and get smokes.  In fact you probably know how to drive to the mall and get yoghurt and beers too..

alright, lets do this

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Q.  What is a diatonic third?

A.  Its the distance from one note in a scale to the note after the next in that scale.  The note we start from defines the context, so in some cases its an interval of four frets (a major third) and in some its an interval of three frets (a minor third).

 lets take a look at a piano keyboard for a few seconds..

Don't worry we're not learning piano here.  But there are some useful perspectives to be had.

Now its really easy to change key on guitar, but not all keys are created equal on piano.  I just want to talk about the key of C.  The lowest (leftmost) note we can see in the keyboard image above is C.  The scale of C is made of only the white keys.  These are the guys we talked about before who each get a letter name, so you don't need those weird accidental characters to access them.

It may seem then that if a pianist is playing the key of C the black keys are entirely useless. In a sense this is true.  But in another its entirely untrue, without the black keys how does a pianist find his place? up in the middle of the keys (there are usually 52 white keys) the player would be utterly lost, far worse than you would be halfway up a guitar neck with no dot markers.  Also and more importantly again the black keys create context.  Because there is a black key between C and D the distance between C & D is greater than the distance between E & F, where there is no black key.

If we start picking out these diatonic thirds that I am talking about in the key of C on a piano keyboard we can see the difference quite clearly.  Starting from the first white key, C, skip a white and find your way to E.  There are two black keys (along with one white) that we passed over, which would correspond to three frets skipped over on a fretboard.  So C to E is four frets, major.

But a diatonic third from D, the second note in the scale will only pass over one black and one white, so D to F is only three frets, minor.

exercise 1.

try to pick out the thirds from each white key in the keyboard image and observe some kind of pattern.  If you have access to a piano or organ or cheesy little casio try it on that, play the two notes together, then slide it up and repeat.  Try to hear the difference between the major thirds (with two black keys between) and the minor ones (with only one black key between)

exercise 2.

Commit this simple sequence of numbers to memory.

2,2,1,   2,2,2,1 

break it into two like I have there,  two, two, one  (take a breath) two, two ,two, one.

repeat this sequence of numbers to yourself until it lives in your brain, we're going to need it, it's the foundation of what is coming.

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lesson 2, The beginning of the guts of it

ok we're back.

how did you go spotting the diatonic thirds from the keyboard image?

hopefully you did spot at least one pattern, there are only 7 kinds of white keys then they repeat,  The keyboard image above is three octaves.

and hopefully you got somewhere with the 221 2221 sequence.

Some of you may have already figured out a use for it.

Here's the most basic right now, grab any fretted instrument and start playing on the open low string.  Play an ascending line following the sequence, for a two slide up two frets, for a one slide up one.  Did it sound familiar?  Maybe a little something you call doh re mi fa so la ti doh. a major scale.

So whats the big deal about these thirds?

well, they're the basic building block of chords.  The keyboard has probably scrolled off the screen by now, so lets grab another copy

To make a C chord we just grab the diatonic third from C, then we stack on another one.

So we can see that the C chord is white keys one, three, and five.

Where the first third is major the second one is minor.  This means this particular C chord is major.

If we repeat the exercise from the second white key, D we find the opposite, the first third is minor and the second one is major.  So this D chord is a minor chord.

And we can observe that each chord is a third of each flavour, a major and a minor one.  This rule holds true until the seventh White key, B.

Now the seventh one is kind of the ugly duckling, the weird one.  It's chord is made of two minor thirds in a row, there is no major third.  This chord is called 'diminished'  but for now I want you to think of it as 'super minor' or 'double minor' or 'even more minor than minor'.  The reason this is unusual is the total span of the chord is one less, a major chord is 4+3 and a minor chord is 3+4 but this guy is 3+3.

One of the things thats really nice about the piano keyboard interface is that twelve keys are squeezed into the space of seven by making five of them black and pushing them up above in such a way that the white keys remain evenly spaced.  The reason I like this is that this is how music works, you can't use all twelve notes, you gotta narrow the menu down to only seven.  When a pianist brings one of the black keys into the picture, employing one of these bad boys (♯, ♭) this takes one of the white keys out of the picture.  Its like a basketball team or something, and theres 12 guys on the roster, but the coach is only ever allowed to have 7 of em on the field.

And this is why the notes are named as they are, with only seven letters shared among twelve, its no accident (boom tish)  When an accidental  (in this example lets say ♯) is applied to F, plain ol white F is relegated to the bench.  The black key to his right is his interchange. 

Unfortunately our guitars and the weird things of that nature that we make here are not layed out like that, the twelve are spaced out as twelve.  But we gotta understand that five of these guys are illegal aliens, they got no green card so you can't give em a job.  (in the real world you can of course, but they can only ever do menial stuff, fry cooks etc.  This is just how those 5 guys are in music.  They can be a fry cook, but they can't ever be chief of police or mayor or anything.  If you try to make em police chief or mayor things will get real ugly, real fast)

now the 221 2221 thing..?   this tells you where those 5 guys hide out, this is the formula to stick to the seven 'whiteys' and to know how to identify (and avoid) the five 'blackies'  (there is no racial slur or joke or anything of the kind here, please don't misconstrue or misunderstand.  If piano keyboards were invented today they'd be blue and green for political correctness for sure)

ok Kid so are you gonna drop an enlightenment bomb on us or what?

Well yes, I was kinda planning one..  :D

ok so we said that each of the major chords had a minor third on top of their major third, and that each of the minor chords (except that super minor one, the last) have a major third on top of their minor third.   So it follows that the minor third on top of that major chord is the minor third at bottom of some minor chord as well.

Scroll up to the keyboard and have a look for yourself.  Picture that C chord, then find the Em chord.  The minor third (E,G) is part of both of em.  Now heres the interesting part.  Just play the E&G.  And let your brain fill in the blanks.  Most of the time your brain hears that C chord, despite that C isn't even there!

Each triad is made of a pair of consecutive diatonic thirds.  If you play an isolated diatonic third this is ambiguous, it could mean one chord, or it could mean another.  If there is another part, a bass, another guitar, a voice, whatever, that will influence what this third is saying by creating context.

exercise 3 - time to get out a guitar.

I'd like to start with a 3 string guitar thats tuned GDG (or EBE, CGC, FCF, DAD etc etc)

you may have a four, five or six string one that has the bottom end of its tuning like this, thats great too.

we want to leave the bass string open, and work on the two next strings.  Pick out the second lowest string, this is tuned to the (v) degree. We want to find the (i) note, which is at the fifth fret.  Fret it with your third finger.  It should be an octave higher than the open bass string, and the same note as the next highest string.  Ok so now we fret that next highest string at the fourth fret, fret this with your second finger.  Play the two together, this is a major third.  Ok now to run the scale, remember 221 2221.  we are at the (i) position, the start of this sequence.  So slide that third finger up two frets.  The harmony note, on the higher string must slide up one fret less to make the second third minor.  I'd usually fret that with the first finger, because they are two frets apart now rather than one.  Do you hear the harmonic movement, as one part slides up a fret more than the other part does?  The next move is to another minor one, so keep to those same fingers and slide the whole thing up two.  (the second 2 in the 221 2221..)  With the third movement (to iv) our third will go major again, so while the middle string moves forward only one fret, the higher string will move forward two, and you hear that harmonic movement again.  Awesome.  Try to descend again.

Now how do we know where the major ones are and where the minor ones are?  Well firstly, our ears will tell us.  But also, its hidden already in the algorithm.  With the 221 2221 stuff.  From where we are, if the total of the next two numbers is 4 (i.e. the next two numbers are both 2) then we're major.  If not, we're minor.  Simple.

Now these harmonised thirds are a guitar staple.  My main man Freddie King lived and breathed em.  So does every country pedal steel player ever.  All blues guys have turnarounds and licks built on this stuff.  But if I had to say this particular thing we're doing here belongs to one guy then I'd say Django.  Django Reinhardt was a famous jazz guitarist despite a disability to his fretting hand which limited him to a few repetitive positions (he had only two usable fingers on his fretting hand after a terrible burn injury), and he'd move up and down the neck a lot for harmonic movement which other guys could get in the one spot by virtue of their unhampered motor skills.  Check him out on you tube, he really had some great stuff.

As you move up and down you are actually playing your scale on two strings at the same time in harmony.  But you are also playing chords.  Try to hear how the third one sounds a lot like the first, but quite unlike the second.  Looking back to that piano again, and how the third might be top half of one chord or it may be the bottom half of another we can see why. So the first chord and the third are very closely related, like brothers.  The second has no relation to these guys at all, but he has his own brothers, the fourth and the one before the first, the last or seventh.

So heres a wee video demonstrating this first exercise on a six string guitar in open E (i think)  toward the end I moved up to the high B and E strings, same interval so it all works up there too.  nb the interval between this pair of strings is same as standard tuned guitars, so if you got one of those you can try it there too.

http://youtu.be/oJ25zDRulNs

Let me know how you're going below.

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 Week 3  (faking them changes)

Hi :)

ready for more incoherent babblings?

From here on out we've laid the foundation stones, and should be able to keep these entries shorter.  Thanks Turtle for your comment, I hope some of you other guys got something from that exercise 3 there. (and I hope that if you're struggling you'll let me know, there is no shame in asking for clarification, I don't want to leave anybody behind ok?)

If you've made yourself a strumstick try that exercise 3 on there.  Notice anything?  You've already done the hard work by leaving some frets out, you can just run up and down the neck and its already there, niiiice !!!

Do you remember how we talked about the first chord and the third chord being brothers, and the one in between being of no relation at all but having his own brothers?

When we're playing there's always a chord which we can thing of as 'home'.  This is where the music WANTS TO GO.  no matter what you do, you're either at home, or you're not.  And if you're not then theres some degree of tension, because you really want to go there.  Sometimes the music 'moves house', and 'home' actually shifts, this is called 'modulation' but i only want to mention it as a future possibility although it occurs in rock music all the time and is a standard vehicle (its also something a lot of jazz guys are contemptuous of, they often consider it a cheap mechanism to make boring music interesting), for now we will view 'home' as static, and if we are in G tuning then home is G, in D tuning then home is D etc.  A chord change is usually not a modulation, the music is temporarily 'away from home'.

So one of the key things here is to know if we are at home or if we are not.  Don't worry, there is a 99% chance you can instinctively do this already, if you can't you're unlikely to be reading this because you are tone deaf and probably do not appreciate music enough to have incentive to have already read 4000 words of my bullshit :)

So when we did exercise 3 there, we started at home.  The second position is about as far from home as we can possible be without hiring a hiring an illegal fry cook.  Then the third position is home again.  Then not again.  Its an odds and evens thing, do you see/hear it?  Well this is the key right here.  You don't NEED TO KNOW if a chord is C or D in order to sound like you know what you're doing, although it is nice if you need to explain to another player.  What you need to know is are you at home or not, and if not what are you going to do to get there.

You see, you can play just about any fucking thing.  Just don't get caught.  Know the way home, and know when you're not there.  And know (feel) when you really need to go there.  Got a mexican fry cook?  You can get away with that, hell maybe it makes your fries interesting.  Just have papers ready to show the government, you know?

Exercise 4 is the same as exercise 3.  Except we're going to do the full octave.  I'll tab it out and/or do a new video in a few days but it'll benefit you greatly to work it out for yourself.  221 2221 .  this thing cycles so its 221 2221  221 2221  This is great way to fake changes on a three string.   Well its not fake at all, its just that you don't necessarily know what it is.  Thats cool, just know where home is.   Try skipping one over.  Try sliding into them.  Try starting at a position other than the first, but be sure to resolve to the first (or third, or sixth).  Try repeating small phrases.  Try writing a song with it.

this link is the same video as before, i did some of these things in there, maybe you didn't notice.

http://youtu.be/oJ25zDRulNs

this video here has been up here for a couple years.  Its all just improvised.  From around the one minute mark its nearly all this exercise 4 stuff.

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/zebrano

Keep me posted to your progress / questions.  If you write a cool riff or phrase please do put up a little video and we can talk about what you're doing there.

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Hey guys, Im back.  Hope you all had a great Easter.

Lets do some revision before we move on..

So heres one octave of our diatonic thirds mapped out,  It just repeats beyond there.

A diatonic third is an interval from one note in a scale to the note after the next.  They come in two flavours, minor (three frets) and major (four frets).  The distance from the D to the G string here is 5 frets, so one fret behind on the higher string is a major third ( 5 - 1 = 4 frets) but two frets behind is a minor one ( 5 - 2 = 3).

We find our way from one to the next with  221 2221 sequence....

a TRIAD (basic CHORD) is made of a couple of diatonic thirds, stacked; which means that every other diatonic third has a special relationship, they are or can be 'chord buddies'

For example if we look at the third one, at the ninth fret, this (minor) third might be the top of a i chord, or it might be the bottom of a iii chord

because of this when we play diatonic thirds we are (at least) twice as likely to sound like we have a clue what we're doing when we just randomly grab one.  If it turns out to be the wrong one we can just slide up or down to the next and it'll be like going home to warm cocoa and kisses and cuddles.

(note that the first degree in the diagram and the last are in fact the same notes. )

ok thats it for today.  Keep practicing these moving intervals.  Remember that the string that we have not been working is another G (or whatever) string.   So theres a sweet by product of practicing this.  We now know the major scale right up the neck!  

Here's a nice loping shuffle to practice.  Pay attention to the timing, its in 8s, so count  "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and.." etc tapping a foot can help for a lot of people.

Ex5

next time..

ok well I've been of two minds about where to take this next.  On one hand we can start building chords.  But on the other we can look at playing modally, using what we've already done in other contexts, e.g. going minor.   And i think that because we have so many blues fans here thats what we're gonna do.  Ok so next time, dorian mode, get your blues hat out.

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30 June 2014

GOING MODAL

OK our good friend Mr Turtle mentioned the mysterious world of MODES.  I gave a reassuring but ultimately cryptic reply. WTF is this modes stuff and why does it scare guitarists silly?

...

Well I'll get to that, but first lets have a frustrating chat about numbers.

heh

numbers, numbers they're every goddamn where!

Right at the start I was talking about threes.  Then there's twelve notes, but then somehow theres only seven.  Then theres this sequence of twos and ones.  Then we're counting time with numbers too!!  Im super confused.  WHAT THE FUCK ??

You're absolutely right.

Its confusing as shit.  So we need some protocols.  Ive already been following a few, and we could use even more.  If only we had more ways of counting.  Apparently the Japanese alter their counting 'number' words depending on what they're counting, so the word for 'two' fish is a different word from the word for 'two' busses.  We could really use that.

From here on out, if we're counting to 12 (counting the notes chromatically, i.e. also counting the black keys.  an example, counting frets) we will be talking in numerics, 1, 2 etc.

If, on the other hand we are counting to seven (scale degrees) we will be counting using roman numerals (i - pronounced 'one'  ii  - pronounced 'two' etc etc).  In my country young students are taught to refer to these as doh re mi fa so la ti doh, a really nice school of thought called 'solfa' but unfortunately solfa is not universal, only vocal students usually persist with it beyond childhood.  I'll do my best to remember to keep the roman numerals inside parentheses (i), (ii), (iii), etc because i personally find em more readable.

So the roman numerals are used to indicate - a note or chord, or a mode.  Which, as we will see, is basically the same thing.

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ok.  So playing in modes.  Well the first thing to know is this, we're already doing it.  We're always in some mode of the scale, if you weren't told otherwise then its generally the first (i) mode, which is where we have been.

lets have a look at what was going on on the high string in our exercise 3 before

hmm.  1 2221 22  ...

now theres that sequence of numbers i asked you to commit to memory waaay back at exercise two.  If you can't remember it immediately then you're reading too fast, slow down and do your homework slacker, its too late to do anything about tomorrows exam now!  it was  221 2221.  Now what if I say to you that 1 2221 22 that we found above is the (iii) mode of our 221 2221 ?

well we're playing thirds right?  and we started with a (i) note and a harmony note.  That harmony note is a diatonic third from (i).  Does it make sense that the scale might, from the perspective of that harmony note, appear in its (iii) mode?

each of the modes has a classical Greek name, which learned musicians (insert self deprecating pun here lols) like to throw around at each other.  In their head these guys are still converting it back to a number (ii) etc, unless of course they don't understand how the modes work and are learning each independently of the others, which is plain stupid. (and of course happens all the time, particularly among guitar players)  So these Greek names are actually a completely unnecessary confusing abstraction, and not something you need to commit to memory in order to understand and do it.  That said, here they are;

(i)  mode - Ionian (major)

(ii) mode - dorian (minor)

(iii) mode - phrygian (minor) (the best mode, cos its spooky)

(iv) mode - lydian (major)

(v) mode - mixolydian (major)

(vi) mode - aeolian (minor,  also known as 'natural minor' )

(vii) mode - locrian (diminished, but we're calling it 'super-minor' remember?)

.....

Ok so today we're going to have a brief crack at the dorian (ii) mode, partly because its the closest neighbour to where we already are, and thus easier to see, but also because its a great blues mode and you guys are gonna love it.

Before we go into (ii) mode, one last (for now at any rate) exercise in (i) mode, just to create context and because we didn't do it yet.  We're going to start the same, but descend a few degrees.

So here it is, I'm not putting any timing or rhythm guides in, because theres hundreds of licks and riffs in here, put your own stamp on it.

Ex6

Note that this is the top end of the previous diagrams, what i asked you to have a crack at working out for yourself for exercise 4, we are just descending from the (i) note.

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Now if a guitarist says to you 'this is in G dorian'.. what does that mean?

It means G is home, but not in the regular scale that we've been covering, but in its (ii) mode.  So its playing a tune in G, but with the notes from some other scale, the scale in which G is the (ii) degree.

Do we have to work out what scale that is? (even though in this case its dead easy)  Shit no, we do not, not for a fretted instrument.  We just put a capo on our brain.

So here's exercise 7, our first foray into the (ii) mode.  This stuff will not just mesh together with what we've already done, its an entirely different beast.  But its also exactly the same thing, just viewed from a different angle.  Its like that flashy chameleon paint that was all the rage on cars a few years ago, you know the stuff, it gradients from blue thru green as it passes you.  Well, thats music.  Go stand over there for a new perspective.  We'll get a couple exercises in and then we'll talk more about how its the same stuff, just eaten with a different spoon :)

ex7 is quite deliberately parallel to ex6.  Its a descending line, (i) - (vii) - (vi) - (vii) with tertian harmony (a diatonic third on top).  

heres exercise 7a, the same stuff with a little timing thrown in for a nice basic blues turnaround.  This is a triplet feel, so the count is 1 & a, 2 & a, etc.  Remember to tap that foot!

Play with that a while, then try to incorporate that phrasing and arpeggiation to ex6 (same thing but in the (i) mode )

This is getting cool isn't it :D

Exercise 7c is a parallel to ex3, an ascending run from the (i) note, but in the (ii) mode.

Once you've got those patterns together, try putting a shuffle together like ex5, except in the (ii) mode. 

By now the similarities between these (i) and (ii) modes ought be reasonably obvious to you.  A lot of you may have already stitched the whole thing together.  Here it is, the dorian (ii) mode in diatonic thirds for 3 string guitar.

Our 221 2221 needs to become 21 2221 2.  This is not a new sequence.  Its just starting at a different position.  Thats why i still put a space after each 1.  So which position do we start at?  well we were talking about the (ii) mode weren't we?....  Once we have that we can work it all out as we did the first time, follow the sequence, if the next two add to 4 we're major, if 3 minor, yadda yadda.  Same same.  But different different.

Yep, its just the same stuff shifted backward by a couple frets.  Same pattern, but home is a different spot within that pattern.  Keep burning those intervals guys, now you got two cool ways to do em, one in a major key, one in a minor.

Note that you can't do this on a strumstick.  You'd have to put some of the frets you skipped over back in.  Then you'd need to rip a couple out in order for it to still be a strumstick.  But you can do it with a strumstick and a capo.  In fact if you stick a capo on the (ii) fret of a strumstick (yes, we will count the frets on a strumstick with romans!!) then you will see the fingering for the (ii) mode.

Back soon, please keep me posted with comments and questions.

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8 May 2014

Going Modal part 2.      ( or is that (ii) ???  )

AKA..      We just put a capo on our brain.....    WTF does that mean?

Oh man that (ii) mode is awesome huh !!

I should just give you guys a few weeks off to play with that shite..

ah well if you want it I'm sure you'll take it.

Now if you were paying me $60 a week for lessons we'd go through these modes one at a time.  Heh.  You know its true.  Or id make a dvd for each one.  But really, guys its the same shit, different shovel.  Guitar teachers can milk your wallet for years with new diagrams, patterns etc.  Believe me, I've got a filing cabinet full of em from pre computer days.

I knocked up this new diagram in illustrator today

this is the (i) mode (for now), same as ex4 was, Ive just drawn out the frets so that I can mark the notes with dots rather than numbers.  The colours mean nothing other than making it easier to see the pairs.  We were starting on the pink, so on the middle string pink is a (i) note at the 5th and 17th frets, and on the outer strings the pink is a (iii) note at the 4th fret and the 16th.

And we don't need to remember the whole thing with precision, because from the (i) note we can recreate it with   221 2221 and from the (iii) note we can with 1 2221 22 right?

so, because we don't need to remember it all, it won't hurt your head too much when i expand it, cos this thing wraps on itself (cycles)

dont panic.  Its more of the same.

Ok now remember when we went into (ii) mode last week?

well this pic above can cover that too.   remember that "We just put a capo on our brain." from last week?  Well its actually more of an uncapo.  an anticapo..  If ex4 was the above diagram, from pink to pink, then ex7 from last week was purple to purple, only shifted back so that the purple on the middle string is at fret 5 (our root note, G for me).  So if we wanna try (iii) mode (Phrygian, the best mode.  They named it after me btw, no shite) it follows that thats just the dark blue to dark blue, starting at fret 5.

Of course you don't need to be staring at no diagram.  221 2221 right.  go into (iii) mode.  That'll be 1 2221 22 .  off you go, have fun. Lets call it ex8.  Its a minor mode (because there first two numbers in our sequence add to three)  sounds like flamenco/spanish guitar maybe?  If you crank the distortion and pick shit outta that thing you might hear some Kirk Hammett from Metallica in there.

Take some time in al the modes.  the (vii) one (remember it was weird) doesn't really work out all that great in this tuning, because its (v) note is diminished.  But all the other 6 can work great on a cbg.  Explore.  That major scale is really something when you learn to explore all its perspectives.   :)

Thats going to be it for modes for now, unless any of you have any questions.  I honestly don't see any merit in exploring each of em individually if you understand the concepts well enough.  We will crack this can of worms open a little later after we look more at chords and see how and why they are in fact the same thing.

will one of you guys please post a video and share with the goddamn class ?

Be nice to old people

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14 May 2014

.. looking back..

Keep practicing that ex4 guys.  You wanna know that stuff inside and out.  Try your best to see ex7 {(ii)mode} and ex8 {(iii)mode} as what they are, variations on ex4.  Same thing, just starting in a different spot.  I'm going to keep referring to ex4, and I need you to know it inside out.  Its a friend.  Too close a friend to be called ex4.  So let's call him Ian.  This is our friend Ian

and here's another perspective on him

You wanna know that stuff inside and out so we can move on to...

Arpeggios (i)

we're going to go back to the (i) mode, Ian, although we're doing something that will hopefully tie the other modes right in.

Hopefully you remember how we talked about one of these diatonic thirds having the capacity to join forces with the one after the next, or with the one before the last, and 'wonder twin powers activate'  make a triad, or basic chord.

So i opened up the diagram of the Ian as we've been playing him, with the harmonised thirds and deleted a whole bunch of pretty colours, so we have only the (i) and (iii) positions left.

Don't worry about the top one right now, lets just stay down at frets 4-9 and look at the four notes down there....

Except there isn't really four notes is there?

ok so this is key right here, although we didn't mention it yet, it ought be reasonably obvious.  The harmony note is a diatonic third.  If we skip over two positions, thats also a diatonic third.  Thats why these two are 'chord buddies', the top and the bottom slice of a triad. They both have the middle note, on top of the bottom half and on bottom of the top half.  So lets omit one.

or..

Eureka!  A voicing for our chord!

Of course in both cases there is a string which is voicing more than one note, so we can't just strum through it (its a stretch anyway) but we can arpeggiate it.

lets try that

and..

In both cases try to finger as you are fingering for Ian.   With the first we start out just as for Ian in the (i) position, but then we slide that high note up a (minor) third.  Hopefully you feel a sweet resolution as you finish the chord.  The second is fingered just as for the (iii) position of Ian.  With practice you can incorporate these arpeggios right into Ian, breaking up the movement or finishing on a sweet 'home' chord.

HOMEWORK.

try voicing the different chords from within Ian.  Observe that almost all of them (except for that weird super minor one, (vii)) the first and last notes are the same positions relative to each other, it is only the middle guy who moves, and determines wether the minor or major third comes first in the chord.

Im going to be breaking a break from this blog for a little while guys.  Im Continuing the discussion here.

Keep your eyes peeled for a new one, >=5 , which will lay out a cool pentatonic based perspective on the fretboard.

keep practicing :)

Jackson's Blues by John Bolton

Monday, November 25, 1963
Detroit, Michigan

It was a sad day in this negro man’s life… The day of JFK’s funeral. It was after supper and I was sitting alone in the kitchenette, living room and bedroom of my one room apartment. I was sippin’ Ten High whiskey from a jelly jar and listening to ‘Heat Wave’ by Martha and the Vandellas on WKNR. Not blues, but good music.

Most evenings I will play me some blues. Most evenings I feel the blues. Felt the blues that night, but didn’t feel like playin’ em.

My second hand Kay guitar was leaned against the two burner gas stove with only one working burner. The cigar box guitar I’d had since 1912 sat on that gray, threadbare, broke leg sofa.

That sofa be propped up with a brick where the leg was broke off. Me an’ that old sofa. We ain’t good lookin’ but we is comfy.

A knock come on the door and startled me so bad that I spilled whiskey on my pants. I muttered sumpin’ bad, turned down the radio and opened the door. Standing on my front stoop was a skinny white man in a dark, cheap and wrinkly suit. Weren’t many whites in my neighborhood. Specially’ after dark.

He looked like a bill collector or a repo man. He had a little pudge belly, a white shirt, a skinny tie, loose at the neck. Bare headed, losing hair from the front . Little mouth under a beak of a nose. Looked like a jew, maybe. Bout’ 35 year old.

Strange ass time and place for a white man to come callin. I looked him up and down, thinking, ‘ I don’t owe no money. You is not my land lord. What the hell do you want?’ But what I say is, “Yeah, sir?”

White man says he lookin’ for the Jackson Black that played harp and guitar on Willie Jefferson’s records made in 1919 in Memphis.

Huh! That surprised me plenty. That record was long forgotten by most peoples. I said, “That’s me. Jackson Black.”

The man grins, looking like he means it. He says, “I’m glad to find you. I would have called but I couldn’t find your phone number.

I didn’t have no phone. Could not afford one right then. Did not want one. Man points at the Kay saying, “Looks like you still play. My name’s Howard Jensen. I’m collecting stories on the old time blues people and recording their songs.” He put out his hand to shake.

Howard Jensen ain’t no jew. He is a musicologist. Now I ain’t got nothin’ against Jews. The few I been around treated me better than most white folks. Musicologist. First time I ever heard that word. Means kinda what it sound like.

Howard was music crazy. I think he liked ever’ kind of music. But what he loved was the blues and that old time Gospel. That was sumpin’ we had in common.

He told me bout’ some of the peoples he’d ‘interviewed’. Famous folks like Howlin’ Wolf and Hubert Sumlin. And lesser known names that I still knew. And some folks I never heard of.

I told him “I knew Howling Wolf when he was plain ol’ Chester Burnett down on Dockery Farm in Mississippi.”

We visited a spell and then Howard went out to a black 61’ Ford Falcon with them skinny white wall tires. He came back lugging his tape recorder. He sat the machine on my red Formica table and threaded a black ribbon through the wheels. I pulled a C harmonica out of my breast pocket and played the melody of that old Blind Blake song that bout’ half way fit my situation.

Howard surprised me then. He knew that song and on the second verse I played, he started singin’ it. And he weren’t half bad. That there showed me somethin’.

When I start makin’ money, she don’t need to come around.

When I start makin’ money, she don’t need to come around.

‘Cause I don’t want her now, Lord. I’m Detroit bound.

I put the harp back in my pocket and picked up the Kay.
I said, “Tell me another blues you can sing.”

He chose ‘Midnight Special’. I played it and he sang it. With me trying to sing harmony on the chorus. Howard said that was real fine and he asked if could still do any of Willie’s songs.

I started in on one and he stopped me he waving his hands telling me, “No wait. I want to get it recorded.”

I was nerved up because I had never heard myself sing on a machine. I played on Willlie’s record but did not sing. So, I played the introduction to Willie’s ‘Sunflower River Girl’. Slow and soul. Like Willie did. Got that song as dead on as I ever could. You know I ain’t the singer or player that Willie was.

Howard shut down the machine and said what fine songs Willie had wrote. He played it back for me. Sounded funny hearing myself, but is sounded good too. Better than I thought it would. Simple good blues. Bout’ all I am good for.

I did three more of Willie’s songs and Howard put em’ on tape. We took a little break and Howard told me what he knew about Willie. It wasn’t much and he had it wrong about when Willie died.

I said, “Uh huh. Well some of that ain’t right. I can tell you the truth. But first I gots one more of Willie’s songs. Last one. My favorite.”

Back in the day, I had me a thang for a pretty little milk chocolate gal name of Luvina. Willie started a song about her as a joke. Just Willie givin’ me grief ~ teasing me. But it turned out a good song. I said, “See that old seegar box guitar there? That’s the one I played on Willie’s record album. Just on this one song. A little guitar lick that sounded good on the three string.”

That made Howard pleased as punch. We taped ‘Sweet Luvina’ with me playing the cigar box git. It still sounded right. Some songs need simple and true. That old box has a lot of it.

Sweet Luvina pumpin’ water at the well.
Ask her for a drink and she give me one.

That sweet Luvina pumpin water at the well.
Ask her for a drink and she give me one.
I say, “What chu’ doing Saturday? Let’s have some fun.”

. . . . . .

Then I told Howard about my friend Willie. Course’ you know my name’s Jackson Black. I was born on Dockery Plantation in Sunflower County, Mississippi in the last century, 18 and 99.
We were a few miles from Cleveland, Mississippi. My momma worked Dockery Farm. We had two rooms in one of the big workers’ boarding houses. Bunch of folks there. More’n fifty souls livin’ in them buildings that size on Dockery.

Willie, that is Willie Tom Jefferson, was born on a cotton plantation near Dubbs in Tunica County Mississippi. I was born on the first day of winter in December 21 of 99. That’s the first day of winter. And Willie was born on February second, 1900. That is Ground Hog Day. Huh.

Willie and his family moved to Dockery farm when we was both about three years old. We were friends from that day on. We was poor, colored and living on a cotton and sawmill plantation. But we was little and we didn’t know we was poor. We had folks to love us and a passel of kids to play with. Seemed just fine to us then.

We went to school and we worked and we played. I remember hoeing cotton, picking cotton and workin’ the truck gardens from the time I was seven. Not long days then, just breaking us in to know how to work. It was hard. I remember big ole popping, leaking busted blisters on my hands and crying to my momma.

We had some fun in the fields too. We’d listen to gossip and stories. We’d sing songs and do those old field hollers like:
Who’s been here since I been gone, honey?
Who’s been here since I been gone, babe?
Pretty little girl with a red dress on.
Some people calls Mississippi the home of the blues. But the way I see it, Dockery Farm or like some folks calls it, Dockery Plantation, that area right there.. Sunflower County and nearby – That is where the ball really got rollin’.

Dockery was big. They say near bout’ ten thousand acre. I cannot picture that in my mind. But it’s mighty big. Lots of folks livin’ there all the time and they say at planting and harvest times we had bouts 2,000 workers and lots of them had kids too. Most of us was colored, but there was Mexicans and white folks too.

Dockery had its own railroad and its own general store. We had a post office, a school, a doctor, and our own churches. There was more music at Dockery than you could shake a stick at. We had us fiddle tunes and string bands and dancing on Saturday nights. On Sunday mornings we had hymns and
Gospel songs. In the afternoon we had more music and what I think was some of the first real blues.

Seem like it was more fiddles and banjos till bout’s 1909 or 1910. The blues started comin’ on then, Guitars got to be what people wanted to hear. Popular. Me and Willie wanted a guitar real bad…….

First singer and guitar player I remember liking a lot was Henry Sloan. Now he was good. There was a young feller on Dockery you might have heard of. Name of Charlie Patton. He was seven or eight years older than me an’ Willie. He got his self a guitar and took schooling on it with that Henry Sloan. Me and Willie remember Charlie doing ‘Pony Blues” before it was ever on a record.

Charlie Patton could of passed for a white boy. Even working the fields he stayed kinda light complected. He had whitish hair that was straight and long. But he had negro blood, so he was colored too. That is how it worked. How it still works. But for a while, Charlie was the music king. All the young mens wishing they get a guitar and do like Charlie Patton.

Later on we had Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson and Eddie House. They started calling him Son House later on. Robert Johnson would hang around, but he was no great shakes for a player when I first saw him. Robert would hang around Son House and them good players and watch their playing hands.
I stopped and asked Howard, “You know Robert’s story?” Of course he did. I went on about how Robert left for awhile and come back able to do things with a guitar we’d never even dreamed of. Had good songs too.

Then later yet we had our Willie Jefferson and Honeyboy Edwards. And a big old boy named Chester Burnett. Later on he’d be the ‘Howling Wolf

Willie was as good as them that got famous. And we had lots others that was ‘wanna be’s’. Back then I was mostly blowing harp and Willie was on guitar. I was never real good,
but had me some fun and I loved the music. Still do.

I got a harmonica for Christmas when I was 10. It was second had, but it played sweet and true. I was playing “Camptown Races” by New years.

Four or five fellas had didley bows with one single wire string they would play at. Me and Willie made one of them when we was bout’ twelve. Willie would make up songs on it.
And there was a few cigar box guitars around. Some of them had tuning pegs carved out of hard wood. Some had bolts and wingnuts for tuners and them worked better. Held pitch.

A real guitar bought from a catalog or even second hand cost way more than most of us could pay or even save up for.
And there were not used guitars around back then. Not much.

Willie got lucky and got the best cigar box guitar anybody around there had ever seen or head. It was a three string with two geared machine head tuners. And a third friction peg tuner off an old banjo.

Got it from his daddy for Christmas. Willie’s daddy worked the sawmill on Dockery. He was a carpenter and
a handy man. And a pretty fair fiddler. Made his own fiddle.

Willie’s daddy knew how to make something that would play right and sound good. He got those machine head tuners from somebody’s busted guitar. He got a cedar cigar box. He made a good neck out of seasoned southern yellow pine. That’s that same guitar right there. Willie gave it to me after we got a store bought guitar. Catalog guitar.

Willie’s daddy bought used strings off Charlie Patton and Charlie tuned it up and taught us how to tune it an open chord he and got us started off on the right foot. Charlie was real nice about how good a lil’ git it was.

Me and Willie would both play that thing. Willie soon got good enough to play in front of folks. And Willie was a singer. I wasn’t bad, myself. It was just that we had Charlie Patton and Willie and them others that…. outshined me, I guess.

A real guitar was the dream for us. We were done with school for good the spring we were thirteen. I was the scholar. I went through all eight grades. Momma made me. Willie got held up a year with pneumonia and sickness. He called it good after 7th grade.

We was working Dockery at whatever they put us too. And together we saved up and ordered a guitar from a catalog in the Dockery store. Paid for it with the Dockery farm coins they paid us with.

Willie, he could play about anything. Guitar, banjo and a little fiddle like his daddy. Most of the time we tuned that store bought guitar to an open G chord. Like we did the cigar box. It fit our voices and Willie could do wonders with a bottle neck slide. He kept improvin’ and pretty soon he was playing house parties and dance parties. And getting his food and drink for free and sometimes for money.

I would go sometimes if it was nearby and sit in on harp for a few songs. But I had more interest then in sweet Luvina than the blues.

World War One came along and me and Willie went to join up. Lots of colored men did. We called it the Great War back then. The docs said I had a heart murmur. Shee-it! I could work dawn to dark in the fields and that Army doctor said I was not fit to serve.

Willie went. He wanted to fight and they told him he would get his chance. They put Willie to cooking. He hated that. Finally, they sent him to France and he did get to fight. Lots of colored soldiers never did get a chance.

Willie was in that trench warfare. Got gassed near some little town that I cannot remember the name of. Made him real sick. Got pneumonia again. He came home bitter and mad.

Not long after Willie come home we went up to Memphis and made that record. Early part of 1919. Colored records was just starting to sell good. I played on it, but mostly cause’ he was such a good friend of mine.

Willie made that record and it was good. But he never got to see it come out for sale. Never got to hold it in his hands. Spanish influenza was killing a lot of folks then and we both got it. After all he’d been through in the war, poor Willie Jefferson got killed by a little ole’ flu bug. That’s what happened to Willie.

****************************************
Author’s Notes:
Willie Jefferson and Jackson Black are fictional characters based on similar people of the time and place. Luvina is fictional.
Howard Jensen is a fictional character based on Alan Lomax and other musicologists.
I have done my best to keep the other names, places and stories historically accurate.

Story #2  Willie Jefferson’s Christmas Guitar 
By John R. Bolton

Walter Jefferson had a tired smile on his face as he sawed out a dance tune on his fiddle. He was one of two fiddlers in a string band with a tenor banjo and washtub bass. All four band mates had worked dawn to dark helping with the cotton harvest on Dockery Farm. It didn’t matter that it was a Saturday. Didn’t matter that Walter was a carpenter and sawmill worker. Come planting and harvest time, the bosses put workers where they were needed.

The band took a break at eleven and moseyed outside the house for drinks, smokes and trips to the outhouse or bushes. Every piece of the home’s furniture was in the yard to clear room inside for dancing. Admission was charged and home brew beer and moonshine whiskey were being sold in the yard. It was a money making venture for the house dwellers. They had a sick child and doctor bills. Folks knew this and came to spend hard earned money on a good cause and a good time. Most of the money spent was Dockery Farm coined money - not legal tender of the U.S. of A.

The band waived their usual small fee and agreed to play for three drinks apiece. Thereafter they would pay like everyone else. Walter Jefferson quit after three beers.

A harvest moon cast a pale yellowish glow over the house, yard and the town of Cleveland, Mississippi. It was warm for October and it had been downright hot playing inside. Walter sipped a cool beer from a Mason jar and rolled his neck and shoulders to stretch sore muscles.

Some kind of ruckus broke out in the side yard; one man’s angry cursing and a murmur of other voices. Walter worked his way there to see what the fuss was. He got there in time to witness Robert Jones slam a guitar to the ground. It was a guitar that Robert had worked and saved for and ordered from a catalog in the Dockery store.

Robert Jones was usually a nice fellow. Put too much booze into him and he was a mean drunk. He had pitched a fit over some slight from Lucie Brown. The guitar that Robert worked so hard for was broken at the upper neck. Robert, now even madder, gave it a crunching stomp and followed that with a vicious kick.

Walter Jefferson, who loved most any stringed instrument, rushed to the fallen guitar like it was a hurt child. He cradled it in his arms and felt his eyes grow wet with sadness and anger. Two men from Robert’s work gang took him by the arms and ushered him away toward Dockery farm.

Walter carried the guitar’s earthly remains back into the house. The band played until midnight and the house party was over. People carried the furniture back inside. Most everyone headed for home. Sunday morning church time was not many hours away.

Walter trudged back to Dockery with his fiddle and carrying the broken guitar in a borrowed gunny sack. Christmas would be coming and Walter had two music loving boys. Willie, his eldest, had taken quite a shine to the guitar playing and singing of Henry Sloan and Charlie Patton. Walter had big plans for the salvaged guitar parts.

* * *

Early December of 1909 blew in bitterly cold. Ice formed on the edges of the creeks and the Sunflower River. Snow flurries swirled, but did not accumulate on the ground. Work on Dockery slowed for the field workers, but the saw mill was at its peak. The 14 horse power Russell steam engine billowed white wood smoke into the chill air as it labored to turn the belts that powered the saws.

Still, Walter Jefferson found time to put the finishing touches on his handmade Christmas presents. Doll cribs for Alberta and Bettie, a sling shot and a one string diddley bow for nine year old Chester and a three string cigar box guitar for Willie, who would turn eleven in February.

Each of these presents was equally important to Walter. But loving music and instruments as he did, it was easiest to pour his heart into the cigar box guitar. And from teaching Willie to play fiddle, Walter recognized a talent considerably beyond his own.

What Willie really wanted was a factory made guitar like he saw Henry Sloan and Charlie Patton playing. Walter knew that. Of course money was scarce and that was about as likely to happen as Walter getting his dream of his own farm and a good mule. That was not likely.

Walter got a Sqaurona cigar box from one of the crew cooks. He had never heard of that brand, but it was a handsome box made of a dark wood that Walter could not name with certainty - maybe a mahogany from South America. The box had a warm resonant tone when he thumped the top. Not wanting to spoil that pretty top, he cut two circles into the side for sound holes.

He made the neck from a seasoned and knot-free piece of southern yellow pine. He shaped it with a draw knife and a four in hand rasp and he sanded it smooth.

The frets were salvaged from the broken guitar. One disappointment was the machine head tuners. Walter had used one for Chester’s diddley bow. It later turned out that only two of the remaining tuners were in working order. Walter scrounged an old friction peg tuner from his banjo playing friend. He mounted the two geared tuners on one side of the peg head and the friction peg on the other.

Secrets were sometimes hard to keep on Dockery where people knew most everybody that lived and worked nearby. Willie found out what his daddy was building and managed to show up at the right time to catch Walter in the act of rubbing linseed oil into the neck. Walter let on that
he wasn’t sure what he would do with his creation. Maybe keep it. Maybe sell it.

* * *

Charlie Patton was to come around on the Saturday before Christmas with used guitar strings. Charlie was playing in Clarksdale that night. Walter worked it so Willie was there when his guitar playing hero came for the stringing.

Charlie Patton strung it up and fussed over the tuning. When things were to his satisfaction, Charlie said, “Dang, this lil’ box sound fine.”

Charlie picked an introduction and played one of the songs that would soon make him famous: ‘The Pony Blues’. Charlie taught Willie how to tune that cigar box guitar and play three chords.

Less than a week later the Jeffersons, and future blues man Willie, celebrated the finest Christmas he would ever have.

Willie Jefferson’s Blues
A short story of historical fiction and of blues music and
cigar box guitars.
by John Bolton
-------------------------------------------------------------

Story #3  Jackson Gets His Mojo
By John R. Bolton

It was a Saturday night in 1915 at Emmett’s Juke near Cleveland, Mississippi. Henry Sloan finished his first set and put down his guitar for a break.

Willie Jefferson and Jackson Black hustled up for a chance to play. Willie used Sloan’s six string and broke into ‘Casey Jones’. Jackson played a nice harp, adding to and complimenting Willie’s singing and playing. He never got so loud as to overpower him.

The boys were just fifteen years old, but they were getting good. They finished their fourth song and Sloan reclaimed his guitar. Speaking loud enough for everyone in the juke to hear, he said, “Gimme that guitar afore
you younguns takes my job.”

Sloan was one of the best players in Mississippi. Maybe in all of the Delta. He had a new and better paying gig starting the next week. He wanted to help the boys and his friend, Emmett, who owned the juke. He took more breaks than usual, showcasing the boys. They did twelve songs and not a song was repeated.

Every Saturday for two years, Willie and Jackson had washed dishes, cleaned and did what was asked of them, including digging new outhouse pits.
They played every chance they got. In return, they received pocket change,
encouragement and playing tips.

Emmett was happy. The crowd was good and he made money. Nobody made trouble. After they closed and cleaned up, Emmett called the boys for a sit
down. He told them, “You done good tonight. Henry Sloan is playing in Clarksdale next Saturday. I needs a band. I thinks you ready to play for pay. But I gots conditions. Willie’s got to borrow a six string. That cigar box git ain’t loud enough in here. You knows that.

And Jackson, you gots to sing out, boy. You ain’t loud enough. And
you gots to sing a couple of songs on your own. Willie starts off strong,
but I hears his voice fading after he sings a lot.”

The boys walked home to Dockery Farm. Willie was exuberant. He knew where he could borrow a decent six string and he figured this was their chance. Jackson felt pressured. He didn’t think he was good enough to be singing leads. He did not want to do it. It had been hard enough to get up
and play harp the first few times. He’d done it for Willie.

But Willie would not shut up. He said, “Jackson, you can do Saint Louis Blues and the Wreck of the Old 97’. Shee-it, you sing Casey Jones better than I do.”

Jackson felt his face go hot and he screamed out, “Bull shit! You get
somebody else to sing. Get Luvina if she’ll do it. Get Johnny Stokes for a few songs. He thinks he can sing.”

Willie knew Jackson could sing well enough when he put some air behind his voice. When he let it loose. He’d been on Jackson to do just that.
Willie figured Luvina was the one to turn Jackson’s head. Jackson was sweet on Luvina.

Luvina was a year older and had her eye on Johnny Stokes. At almost seventeen, she felt she would soon be an old maid if she didn’t find a man.
Johnny was nineteen, a hard worker and a good prospect. But Luvina liked Jackson too. She wanted to help and she had an idea she thought might work.

She figured she knew what the problem was. When Jackson was little, he’d had a bad stammer. It seemed like he was pretty much over it now. She could tell that he tried to hold his tongue until he knew what he wanted
to say. And then he spoke in a deliberate way.

She remembered how Jackson had hung his head in school and tried to avoid reciting his arithmetic or anything else that called for speaking out loud. She remembered him getting made fun of too. And she remembered how the
teasing came to an end.

One day when Jackson was twelve, an older boy named Lucious, mocked his
stutter and ridiculed him. Willie got mad and goaded his friend in a way
he had never done, asking him “Whaa wha why don’t you kick his ass, Jaa
Jackson?”

People had urged Jackson to stand up for himself before, but he’d never done it. A light bulb went on his head that day, a revelation.

Luvina saw it all. She watched him get a mad on and let it boil. He made himself available to Lucious and Lucious took the bait. Jackson slugged him in the belly and followed with a punch to his face. He had not yet learned how to fight, but he could wrassle and he could punch. He took the older and larger Lucious down and pummeled him as though he was every person that ever made fun of him.

That happened a couple more times with other boys. Once Jackson took a beating. But there was no quit in him. The mocking stopped and as time passed he stammered less and less.

Luvina was a superstitious girl. Her idea was to make Jackson a mojo. She lost sleep thinking about which ingredients to use and how many to use. Of course it had to be an odd number. Even numbers were unlucky. She settled on seven. She told Jackson the number but would not tell him the ingredients. She got red flannel and black thread and sewed up a handy pocket sized mojo bag.

Saturday night came around and Willie and Jackson were on the little raised platform in Emmett’s Juke and looking out at a full house. Willie had a grin so big his jaw hurt.

Jackson’s Luck  - Jackson's Blues #4

By John R. Bolton

Early March 1919
Southbound on the I.C. (Illinois Central Railroad)

Willie Jefferson and Jackson Black rode in the colored car sharing a pint bottle of whiskey in a paper sack. They were in a celebrating mood and bound for home after Willie had achieved his dream of recording his songs in Memphis.

Willie was so happy and self satisfied he would just start chuckling and
then tilt his head back and cackle. Jackson told Willie, “Tone it down,
man. You’ll get us in troubles. Our good luck can turn to shit real fast.”

Willie just laughed again and replied, “Maybe you’s right Jackson.
I feels a head ache comin’ on. Gots to lay off this good liquor.”

It was more than a head ache. Soon Willie’s back ached and then his whole body. His throat hurt and he was starting to sniffle and cough. As the train slowed for the home station, Willie said, “Man, I hopes this shit aint the Spanish flu.”

Jackson helped Willie get home and was met there by Willie’s daddy, who told him, “Better get on home Jack. Your momma’s real sick.”

Word of the flu had been spreading faster than the flu itself. Jackson prayed it was just a bad cold going around. That prayer was not answered the way he wished. His momma barely woke when he got home. She told him weakly, “Stay back Jack. I don’t want you getting what I got.”

“Too late, Momma. I think I gots it too.”

Jackson did a little for his mother and then Miss Ethel, the old midwife and plant doctor, stopped in and checked on them both. Jackson soon felt like he had been run over by a team of horses. Every muscle ached and every cough made it worse. He had the chills and shakes and could not get warm. He laid on his pallet of blankets and coughed and suffered.

Miss Ethel came by in the morning and let herself in. Jackson’s momma
who was only thirty six years old, had passed away. Two days later Jackson lost his best friend. Willie passed too.

Miss Ethel came by twice a day to put mustard plasters on Jackson’s chest and back and to admonish him to take ten deep breaths an hour and hold them in for a count of three so’s he would not get pneumonia. Jackson did that and was able to attend his mother’s burial in the colored cemetery. There were more fresh graves than he’d ever seen

His mother’s funeral was a blur to him. He was physically better for Willie’s funeral. Willie’s daddy played the old hymns on his fiddle and the right Reverend Johnson said the eulogy. Willie thought Jackson would have wanted him to play, but there was no way he could sing or blow his harp without coughing.

* * *

Two weeks and two paydays later, Jackson packed his momma’s satchel with a wool blanket, his spare pair of trousers, two spare shirts, socks his momma made, underwear and a picture his momma holding him when he was just a button.

The neck of Willie Jefferson’s cigar box guitar poked out one end of the satchel, covered with an oil cloth. Jackson wore a good second hand suit, and a good hat cocked to the side. He carried two harmonicas in his pockets. These were the harps he had played for Willie’s record. He wished Willie’s daddy had given him the store bought guitar instead of the cigar box. He might need to stand on the corner and play for change like he’d seen done in Memphis. You never knew.

Jackson was bound for Chicago and the hope of more opportunities and a better life. Friends walked him to the station, laughing and joking and wishing him well. He was taking that Cannonball train north. The freedom train. Leaving Mississippi in style.

Leaving Mississippi in style was a bit of a sham he put on for his friends. He departed the passenger train at the first stop in Tennessee. His ticket would take him no further. He had money enough to ride to Chicago. But he thought it could take time to find work and he wanted to get there with money in his pocket.

Jackson was both excited and afraid. He had never stolen a thing in his life excepting produce that he ate while working the fields and fruit off a tree here and there. Now he planned to steal a ride north on an IC freight train.

He’d heard stories about how to do it. Never take a car with any whites. Hop aboard a slow moving train on a curve so there would be less chance the engine crew or the brakeman would see you. No matter what, don’t get locked in a box car. Don’t ride in a car full of grain or it might suck you down and suffocate you.

Jackson’s first ride could not have started much better. He hopped on a flat car and tucked in snug and out of the wind behind a load of wooden crates marked for a destination in Chicago. Jackson could not believe his good luck when he read the destination.

Hours later the freight was shunted to a side track in Effingham, Illinois in a rail yard to the side of the downtown area. Jackson read the town name rolling in, but had no good idea where he was except still short of his destination.

It was late evening and dark. The train sat there. After a while Jackson pulled out his blanket and wrapped up in it. He managed some sleep, but woke up cold and hungry in the late dawn. He was peeking around wondering what he should do and how long the train might sit. Someone unseen shouted out, “Hey! There’s a nigger on that flat car!”

Jackson grabbed his satchel and scrambled off the side of the car away from the voice. He sprinted then loped toward a small timber in the direction away from town. As he reached the timber’s edge he looked back and was relieved to see no pursuit.

He smelled wood smoke and spotted a white man sitting by a fire. The man called out, “Over here Bo,” and beckoned him with an arm. It took a bit more urging on the man’s part, before Jackson warily approached. On closer inspection, the white man looked old. Around sixty, Jackson guessed. The old man asked, “Headin’ north or south?”

“North,” Jackson replied. “Chicago, I hopes.”

The man told Jackson to call him ‘Dollar Dick’. Dick was a hobo. He explained to Jackson that tramps work when they are forced to, and bums don’t work at all. “Hobos,” he said, “Are workin’ men who travel, who ride the rails between jobs.”

Dollar Dick was heading for Minnesota by way of Chicago. He said, “That rattler you rode in on is leavin’ here at 12:30. When the noon whistle blows we walk up the track a piece and away we go.”

Dick shared hard boiled eggs with Jackson and spent the wait and later the ride asking Jack about his life and taking him to school on how to ride the rails, find work in the city and just plain get along. They parted as friends in Chicago, Illinois.

Around suppertime, Jackson stood at the bar of a crowded tavern in a colored section on the south side of Chicago. He’d taken the edge off his hunger with free crackers, cheese and hard boiled eggs in the tavern. He had a cold beer in his hand and he was drinking with a friendly, big Louisiana man named Dupree. Dupree had a place Jackson could sleep and would help him get him work a loading dock.

Jackson could not believe his good luck. He wished Willie could see him. He wished his momma could see him. That caused him to wipe away a tear.

Dupree bought him a beer for the road. It was Jackson’s fourth. They strolled off toward Dupree’s place. They walked a few blocks and Jackson marveled at all the houses, buildings and people. They hit a dark patch and an alley in the middle of a block. Dupree suddenly rushed Jackson and knocked him down sprawling. The next thing he knew, there was a shiny revolver in his face and Dupree was snarling, “Gimme your money, you dumb Mississippi nigger.”

Jackson hesitated and then started to struggle. Dupree, shoved Jackson’s face with the heel of his hand and slammed him in the side of the head with the pistol. Things went red and dark in an explosion of pain.

The next thing Jackson clearly knew was that Dupree was gone and blood was rapidly oozing from a gash in the side of his head and down his neck. His satchel was there, its contents strewn on the ground. His shoes were off and that left him stunned and puzzled. Did Dupree steal his shoes?

He held a hand to his bleeding head and groped around with the other hand. His money was gone. His good hat was gone. But his shoes and every other possession were there. He thought to himself, ‘I’m still lucky. If he’d a took my shoes I would be in a real bind.’

Through the kindness of a stranger, his head was sewn up. Six nice stitches with red thread, done by a kind woman from Jackson, Mississippi. But she had children on her floor and no room for Jackson. He slept on her porch that night. Or tried to sleep.

He had no success finding any kind of a job that next day. He did not look or feel his best. Late in the day his stomach was gaunt and it sounded like it was calling him every bad name it knew.

He found a tin can for tips and stood in front of a shoe repair place near 35th and State Street. He played the cigar box guitar and the harps and made enough to eat that night and had twenty cents held back for breakfast.

Funny thing. Jackson still felt lucky.

* * *
Historical Notes

Spanish Influenza was a nearly worldwide pandemic from 1918 to 1920. Approximately 25% of the world population was infected and about 3% of the world population died from the flu. Unlike most epidemics, most of those who died were young adults.

The Great Migration: 6 million blacks moved out of the southern United States between 1910 and 1970 ~ leaving the rural south for urban industrial cities of the northeast, midwest and later the west.

So this is where I was a week or so ago. I needed to finish the wood and insert the electronics. Oh, and fix the problem with the frets.

I put two coats of varnish on it, sanding after the second. The mohagony wood looks great. The final color constrasts slightly with the box. I was hoping for that. In this picture you can see that I started on the electronics. I'll put volume and tone pots in there. To be honest, I soldered it all together a couple days ago in a cardboard template, and the test went horribly. I need to re-do it.