Topic: Three Frets Up, and What You Find There

[Johnm]

Thanks, Gmaj7, for the thoughts on John Fahey as he pertains to this topic.  In the most general sense, I think much of John Fahey's sound derived from moving chord positions intact up and down the neck to get melody on the treble strings, an approach described as "melody taking the bass for a ride" in another thread here.  Indeed, I think the "American Primitive" sound to a great extent derives from use of that technique to play melodies while maintaining an alternating bass.  That having been said, I think it's important to recognize that the harmonic implications of moving chord shapes or even double stops three frets up, as addressed in this thread, are a special case, separate from all other instances of simply moving a chord shape x number of frets up the neck.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
In the various examples of "three frets up" discussed up to this point, moving the I chord three frets up, moving double stops three frets up, and moving the IV or IV7 chord three frets up, the presumption has always been that the chord or portion of a chord that you're moving three frets up derived from a chord with a major third.  What happens when you apply the three frets up idea beginning with a minor triad or a portion of a minor triad?

Moving a minor chord three frets up  The first example I'd like to look at involves moving a minor triad three frets up, and the move was employed by Buddy Moss, in his rendition at Berea College of "Careless Love, which Buddy called "Love, Oh Love".  The performance can be found at: 

http://sandbox.berea.edu/specialcollections/ac-vr-001-013-15/

Buddy plays the song out of A position in standard tuning.  At :31--:32 in his rendition, he is working from an A minor voicing on his top three strings, 5-5-5, going from the third string to the first string.  He takes that position up three frets intact, to 8-8-8, walks it down one fret to 7-7-7, resolves it back to 5-5-5 and then up to 7-7-7 again.  The sound is striking, and strikingly modern-sounding.  What is happening when Buddy uses the "three frets up" concept at this point in his rendition?

At 5-5-5 on his first three strings, with the open A string in the bass, Buddy has an A minor chord , with the root voiced on the open A string, the minor third, C, voiced on the third string, the fifth, E, voiced on the second string, and the root, A, doubled on the first string, so he is voice X-R-X-flat3-5-R.  What does he get three frets up?  The notes on the first three strings there are Eb, a flat5 of A on the third string, G, the flat7 of A on the second string, and C, the flat3 of A on the first string.  What Buddy ends up with by moving his minor triad three frets up, then, is an Am7flat5 chord voiced X-R-X-flat5-flat7-flat3.  This is a really dark sonority, and one that is not often encountered in Country Blues.  What does Buddy get when he walks that Am7flat5 down one fret?  Well, the notes there on the first three strings are D on the third string, F# on the second string and B on the first string.  That chord can be analyzed a couple of different ways relative to the prevailing key of A.  It sounds to me like the three upper voices, flat7, 9 and 5 of an Em9 chord, played over an A pedal in the bass (the open A string).  Since there is no third in that partial voicing, relative to E, you could also say it is the top of an E9 chord.  Or you could say it is simply a B minor chord held over the A pedal in the bass.  However you care to name it, the sound of the lick is striking, and the amazing thing is it can be duplicated by taking any three-note voicing of a minor triad, moving it up three frets, walking it down one fret from there and then resolving down two frets to where you started.

An instance of using a two-note shape derived from a minor triad can be found in Buddy Moss's version of "Blue Shadows Falling", here:



Buddy is playing the song out of E position in standard tuning, though tuned low.  At the :20--:22 point of his rendition, he leans on the third fret of the third and first strings over an E chord, bending each of the notes slightly.  Assuming he was tuned to concert pitch, what would those notes be?  The third fret of the third string is Bflat, the flat5 of E, and the third fret of the first string is G, the flat 3 of E.  So you could say that the double stop Buddy plays suggest a partial Em7flat 5, or even an E diminished seventh chord.  And when you think of it, his double stop derived from simply taking the open third and first strings from an E minor chord at the base of the neck, and moving them each up three frets.  He gets a similarly tough and nasty sound to what he had in "Love, Oh Love", though without quite the degree of chordal density he had there.

Another instance of a player using a double stop three frets up derived from a minor triad can be found in Willie Lane's "Too Many Women Blues".  Here is Willie Lane's rendition of the song:



Willie Lane plays "Too Many Women Blues" out of A position in standard tuning.  He utilizes the "three frets up" concept, starting from a minor triad, at the :37--39 point in his second verse, reefing on the eighth fret of the third and first strings.  He is essentially doing precisely what Buddy Moss did in "Blue Shadows Falling", but in the key of A rather than in E, where Buddy did it.  So it is that Willie Lane is pounding on the flat 5 of A on the third string and flat 3 of A on the first string.  I have to say, I think that this move, as utilized by Buddy Moss and Willie Lane, gives you major bang for your buck in the sound department.  It sounds so cool, and the beauty of it is that it is also easy to do, a quality much to be cherished.

I think these three examples  of moving a minor triad, or a two-note portion of a minor triad up three frets, provide a lot of food for thought, and present a host of possibilities that will sound good (and some which may not appeal to you) that have not previously been utilized by players in the style, but which nonetheless speak in the language of the style.  How cool is that!

All best,
Johnm   

[Old Man Ned]

What I find interesting about '3 frets up' is in the Buddy Moss 'Love, Oh Love' example, in moving up 3 frets from the A minor to the Amin7b5 he gets to a chord which I, perhaps wrongly, more associate with jazz musicians. I've got the impression from some jazz players (ie Pops Fosters biography) that blues players were considered fairly basic and primitive in the musical sense but examples such as Buddy Moss seem pretty sophisticated to me.

Is it known if someone like Buddy Moss would have been aware of the 'theory' ie I'm going to move up 3 frets to an Amin7b5 or make that move just because it sounds good, unaware of the 'theory'?

[Johnm]

Hi Old Man Ned,
I don't know if Buddy knew the theory behind the move, and in a way I would be surprised if he did.  He was of a generation of vernacular musicians who either saw no need for music theory in their music-making or didn't have access to that information.  And in a way, it doesn't make a bit of difference.  The crucial elements here seem to be hearing and finding things on the instrument, by whatever means, and then making choices on the basis of what sounds you choose to select or reject.  The fact that Buddy chose to go for that sound in "Love, Oh Love" is an indication of how sophisticated a listener he was, and what "big ears" he had.  I think the same sort of thing when listening to Walter Davis or Robert Pete Williams play--they just heard, accepted and chose a wider range of sounds in their music, especially harmonically, than most of their peers.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I just really noticed for the first time another instance of a player using the "three frets up" concept.  The person utilizing it was Charlie McCoy in his seconding guitar part to Ishmon Bracey on Bracey's "Saturday Blues".  Both players are playing out of E position in standard tuning.  Over the first four bars of each verse, the vocal phrasing has a counter-punching sort of quality, coming in on the + of beat one and singing there and on 2+, going from a repeated bIII note hit twice, resolving to a I note on the + of beat 2, like so:
      bIII bIII  I   
    1   +   2   +
The pitches Bracey is singing here, in E, work out to being G-G-E.

Working in rhythmic unison with Bracey's motif, Charley McCoy goes from 8-7 on the first two strings, which gives him a G note on the second string and a B note on the first string, to the same position three frets down, which gives him a 5-4 position and the notes E and G# on the second and first strings respectively.  Thus, in this passage, Charlie McCoy ends up playing the melody notes in unison with Bracey on his second string, and harmonizing the melody with the next higher chord tones on the first string.  That's what I call high concept!  What makes Charlie McCoy's harmonization particularly cool, apart from how "hand friendly" and easy it is to play, is that in the first harmony, an E minor is suggested because you have the minor third of the I chord, G, there--but in the second harmony an E major chord is suggested because Charlie McCoy is playing a G#, the major third of E there.  It's just another example of how happy the use of the "three frets up" concept can be, given the right context.  Here is the song, so you can hear what Ishmon and Charlie were doing and get the sound in your head.



All best,
John     

[Johnm]

Hi all,
A particularly interesting use of the "three frets up" idea can be found in Charley Jordan's "Two Street Blues", and the sound of how he utilized the concept is really striking. He was playing out of E position in standard tuning, as he did for all of his solo recorded numbers with the exception of "Spoonful Blues" and "Raidin' Squad Blues". Here is "Two Street Blues":



After playing an intro which consists of the last four bars of his form, Charley starts right in with the idea as the first verse opens. If you think of an E partial chord in standard tuning voiced 2-1 on the fourth and third strings, Charley was using that shape, sometimes voicing both strings as he moved around, but just as often, voicing only the fourth string. At the base of the neck, that second fret of the fourth string voices the root of his E chord and the first fret of the third string is the major third of that chord, G#.
Charley begins his verse accompaniment with a big bend of the fourth string at the eighth fret. How can that be construed as a use of the "three frets up" idea? Well, its sense as being an instance of that idea becomes clear in how he resolves it. First of all, the unbent pitch of that eighth fret of the fourth string, is Bb, so by bending that note, he is pushing it towards the V note of the E chord, B. Charley then resolves downward three frets to the fifth fret of the fourth string, bending it as well, and sometimes sounding the fourth fret of the third string as well, as he does that. The unbent fifth fret of the fourth string is a G note, so in bending it, he is moving it towards the major III of the E chord, G#. The fourth fret of the third string is B, the V note of the E chord. He then resolves downward three frets to the second fret of the fourth string, E, the root of the chord, bounces back up three frets to the bent fifth fret of the fourth string, and resolves back down to the second fret before moving to his IV chord, A, in the fifth bar.
I think Charley's use of the bent eighth and fifth frets of the fourth string show a kind of genius, in the way he takes advantage of the fact that at those two frets the unbent notes are half-step lower neighbors of the fifth and third of an E chord, and by bending them he almost, but not quite, gets to chord tones with them. Those two bent notes sound grungy in the best possible way. Peetie Wheatstraw was later to use this very idea in a number of his solo guitar accompaniments played in E position, standard tuning. I thank Charley Jordan for showing us that the three frets up idea can work with single notes as well as two or three-string chordal shapes.
All best,
Johnm