Topic: Fred McDowell's You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques

[Rivers]

Blueshome and I have been chatting off list and agreed us slide players should have a topic for discussing slide moves, both upright and downright, as practiced by our heroes.

Slide licks are elusive as very few of them have a common name you can use that people understand and can immediately know what you're talking about.

I was thinking it might be good to try and coin some names for them where possible. For example, 'The Fred McDowell octave slide break' that we were discussing elsewhere. To that end I'll post another youtube of Fred and move the subsequent discussions to this topic.

For starters here's another youtube, Fred giving us a lesson in Fredness with a smokin' version of Shake 'Em On Down. I love the washboard rhythm groove and the trick slide moves over it:

[Rivers]

To reiterate from the other thread, things I notice in this video of Fred in Vestapol tuning:

1) Right hand tends to lead with the alternating thumb on the higher of the bass strings (4th string) on the one and three of the bar and follows through with a big sweep with the thumbpick across the 6th, 5th and 4th strings on the 2 and 4 beats. The energy from the multiple strings sounding on the 2 and 4 beats gives it that great swing feel. The sweep also gets damped alternately with the right hand to accentuate the scratchy washboard sound and keep it tight, see 2:18. He breaks this pattern a lot to get different effects and syncopated licks but always finds his way back to that core, danceable groove.

2) The high octave breaks start out very fast and clean, the second time (2:05) he actually looks around the room and then jumps on it, bit of showmanship there perhaps, or maybe the producer was signaling him to start ending it. No fluffing around looking for multiple string licks at the 12th fret, just vibrato and flatting on one string. He keeps it simple, less is more, but breaks out of it to play a lick that, in the first break, includes a speedy high note (first thought it was a flat 3rd at the 15th fret, now think it's a sharped I at the 12+ fret (first high octave break starts around 0:44)), whatever it is it's very effective. He lets us down easy with a descending treble line back to the lower neck, and often ends it with a rapid-fire single string slide home.

3) The open 3rd string (major 3rd) is usually damped/skipped entirely and sometimes fretted at the first fret (sus4), though this is more apparent on other youtubes. This is classic 'modal' Delta blues, the major 3rd is too pretty so he kills it or alters it. Having said that I watched again and couldn't swear he never hits the 3rd string open. It sounds crap when I do it.

4) Slide on the inside strings. Fred likes to play the I on the second string 5th fret so he can slide up to it, use vibrato, and drop down to the 7th. Also noticed the use of slide on the lower three strings.

5) Glass slide on the ring finger. I'm a slide on the pinky guy myself but I wonder if Fred would have sounded like Fred if he'd done it any other way.

[blueshome]

Rivers, A couple of observations:

The alternation from 4 to 6 in Vasterpol can also be found in the playing of Furry Lewis.

Fred quite often incorporates a hammer/pull on the 3rd string, 1st fret as you note.

The slide to the tonic on the 2nd string is a regular trick to allow vibrato on that note - B.W.Johnson did it all the time, but so did most players I think.

[Rivers]

My thought was we could try to identify important 'building blocks' and lay them out for discussion, revision for some, new information for others. Which players used these building blocks in which songs, how to execute them, and variations of them.

So I guess I'm into pointing out the 'advanced basics' in case it's useful for anyone just starting to play slide, recognizing that hitting 'inside notes' cleanly are an important building block and can lift your playing a notch when you're starting out. It took me a while to latch onto that fact many moons ago and I'm sure we all hear slide players who don't play inside, and wish, for the sake of their performance, they would!

Use of chords in various inversions in combination with the slide and used as rhythm riffs are another building block I'd personally like to explore. Implied V, 7ths, sus 4, rel. minor, all these come into play. Of the old guys that I know of, Fred McD, Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Booker White, others, are interesting chordally. Of the modern players focused on country blues, Steve James is exceptional at this aspect, it's bread and butter to him.

Damping, left and right hand, that's another building block.

Let's stick with Fred for a while, here's another youtube, posted by Stefan Grossman by the looks of it, Louise, Vestapol:

[Rivers]

Synchronicity, it's Freds birthday today, b. January 12 1904, Rossville, Tennessee. Larry Munroe is playing a lot of Fred and Fred's followers as we speak, on the Blue Monday show on KUT Austin tonight: http://kut.org/items/show/15353

KUT Austin is a great reason to live here. God I missed having any semblance of good radio in the last few countries I've lived in. Slim Harpo's birthday yesterday BTW

Googling Fred I was surprised to see he did a session for the late and much missed John Peel's show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/sessions/1960s/1969/Feb26mississippifredm/  ...do any of our UK readers know if the tapes survived?

[Prof Scratchy]

Damping, left and right hand, that's another building block.
/quote]

I've never quite mastered right hand damping and tend to use the trailed fingers of the left hand:


However, my pal Ritchie has perfected right hand damping, which he demonstrates here:
http://pickinparlor.vintagenationals.com/_Regular-Tuning-Slide-Guitar-Lesson/video/402438/51645.html

(you might want to fast forward through the Cook's Guide to the guitar)!

[sustaireblues]

Prof Scratchy, man you got it going on!
I'm going to be studying your playing and see if I can pick up a few licks, very powerful stuff, indeed!
And one heck of a blues voice as well.

And yeah your buddy Richie does wonders with that slide in standard tuning. Nice demo of how he does it, gonna take some work, fer shur!

I'm new here, 1st post, been doing some lurking, but I like this place!

Thanks,
Joe

[blueshome]

Right & left hand damping. This is a subject dear to the hearts of all slide players!

My personal view is that it is damping with the  picking hand that really helps produce/control the sound. I use the edge of my hand at different angles and pressures and positions along the strings according to the effect I want to produce. It just then boils down to practice until you get it to give you the sound you want.
BTW my main slide instrument is a Fine Resophonic triplate, and I don't find that the hand rest inhibits damping at all, although I know some players do.

Damping behind the strings - again useful for producing particular sounds, but I'm not a believer in always doing it. I think it is necessary to know how.  I don't believe that the old guys did it all the time - this just seems to be something deemed as essential by modern players and instructors but doesn't always work for me when trying to get that "old" sound.

[Slack]

Welcome Joe - glad you found us and thanks for de-lurking!

[sustaireblues]

Thanks for the welcome Slack.

Prof Scratchy, would you consider breaking down that song for us a bit? Help out us aspiring bottle-neckers and show us those licks with a little more light on the action? Great song and powerfully performed. I love the way you have such a strong simple driving groove between the licks. The way you leave space in the song, and then the licks zing in there. I need to learn to leave that space, reminds me of the way a good singer works to a crescendo yet also has the quite moments. Am I making sense? As opposed to same thing going on all the time which of course gets boring.

Thanks,
Joe

p.s.  -sorry if I'm putting you on the spot, but if you don't ask for help, what will you get?

[Prof Scratchy]

Hi Joe- thanks for your kind words. I'd love to try and break it down a bit for you. But two wee problems at the moment: one is I'm in Switzerland at the moment - a long way from home....and second is that I know I'll screw up if I try and play anything at slowed down speed! I've got this programme at home - I'll send you a link to it when I get back - that slows down videos so you can study them step by step. I've just remembered - it's called SloMo-director. I'd recommend you give it a try,  and if there's anything else I can help with, send me a message with any questions. Cheers.
Prof S
BTW - although I've changed things around a lot in this number over the thirty-eight  years that I've played it, I did actually learn it first hand  at the feet (literally) of the great Johnny Shines, who was a wonderful, distinguished, patient and graceful man.

[uncle bud]

Nice playing, as always, perfesser. You've been holding out on us with your new video ? I watched a bunch of perfesser videos this morning before getting on with work. What's that thing you're playing on the Henry Thomas? A tiple? (Edited to add: doh, says right there in the description, an old koa tiple). Nice!

[uncle bud]

For starters here's another youtube, Fred giving us a lesson in Fredness with a smokin' version of Shake 'Em On Down. I love the washboard rhythm groove and the trick slide moves over it:

1) Right hand tends to lead with the alternating thumb on the higher of the bass strings (4th string) on the one and three of the bar and follows through with a big sweep with the thumbpick across the 6th, 5th and 4th strings on the 2 and 4 beats. The energy from the multiple strings sounding on the 2 and 4 beats gives it that great swing feel. The sweep also gets damped alternately with the right hand to accentuate the scratchy washboard sound and keep it tight, see 2:18. He breaks this pattern a lot to get different effects and syncopated licks but always finds his way back to that core, danceable groove.

Riv, I think the video is out of sync, but oddly syncing in time. On other words, I don't think Fred is alternating 4 to 6. To my ear, the main part starts on the 6th string, alternates 6th string to 4th string. It's really a brush stroke on the 4th, 3rd and possibly 2nd strings, damped quickly to give it that washboard sound, with the brush stroke on the 2 and 4 of the beat. Fred does alternate from the 4th to 6th string in places in other songs I think. But I'm not sure I see (or rather "hear) any of that here. This 6 to 4 pattern is evident in the high octave break as well, where the low end bass drops out and the 4th string brush stroke stays on beat 2 and 4 - another trick Fred likes to use to great effect, not just when using the high octave.

I also wonder whether the damping of the brush stroke is actually the right hand. I am guessing left hand damping here.

OK, so I'm being a contrarian!  But that's what I think.

Great video, although the later video of Louise is even better. What a cool tune.

[Rivers]

Oh dear!  I'll watch again later. I thought I was finding it hard to do, might have wrecked my technique. I'm skeptical though that it could be 180 degrees off but stranger things have happened, plus you can see the same thing in other Fredtubes.

[uncle bud]

Oh dear!  I'll watch again later. I thought I was finding it hard to do, might have wrecked my technique.

Nah, you'll just be able to say you can play Fred backwards and forwards. I'm pretty certain about the bass. However, after trying it out on an actual guitar, I'd agree that damping for me here is done almost exclusively with the right hand.