Hi everyone,
Pay Day is a very funny tune in that the licks that make up the song are very easy to learn but I always had trouble getting to point where I could sing and play the tune in it's entirety because MJH's version on "Today" is just so varied and for this particular tune, I wanted to play the song as he performed it rather than make my own arrangement. While I'm sure MJH was just playing and not thinking about, I'm hoping that doing this kind of work will help me eventually create my own variations in the tunes that I play (for example, not singing for half a verse and just letting the guitar play, or cutting a verse in half, or hanging on for an extra bar or two as MJH does here and other Country Blues greats do).
What I've done below is created a 'structure' map for the arrangement that should greatly help anyone who wants to play "Pay Day" along with the record. The song is about 4 minutes, there are 8 singing verses and MJH does something a little different in almost everyone one. Note that I"m talking about the arrangement and I'm not getting into how to play the tune. John Miller has a great two-DVD MJH instructional video available on Stefan Grossman's site and for the more experienced players this tune is easy to pick out if tune down to Vestapol D and put a capo on the 2nd fret to get to open E.
I prepared this primarily for myself as I've been dying to play this tune live for a couple of years but could never sit down and figure out the arrangement. This is an attempt to provide something of value to this board as I've benefited a lot from coming on here and asking questions. Any feedback is welcome provided you remember that I'm just an amateur (be gentle). If this little arrangement got you to sit down with the tune and figure it out, I'd love to hear!
Given that this little intro has become so long, I'm going to post the actual arrangement structure in a reply to this thread.
Pay Day is a very funny tune in that the licks that make up the song are very easy to learn but I always had trouble getting to point where I could sing and play the tune in it's entirety because MJH's version on "Today" is just so varied and for this particular tune, I wanted to play the song as he performed it rather than make my own arrangement. While I'm sure MJH was just playing and not thinking about, I'm hoping that doing this kind of work will help me eventually create my own variations in the tunes that I play (for example, not singing for half a verse and just letting the guitar play, or cutting a verse in half, or hanging on for an extra bar or two as MJH does here and other Country Blues greats do).
What I've done below is created a 'structure' map for the arrangement that should greatly help anyone who wants to play "Pay Day" along with the record. The song is about 4 minutes, there are 8 singing verses and MJH does something a little different in almost everyone one. Note that I"m talking about the arrangement and I'm not getting into how to play the tune. John Miller has a great two-DVD MJH instructional video available on Stefan Grossman's site and for the more experienced players this tune is easy to pick out if tune down to Vestapol D and put a capo on the 2nd fret to get to open E.
I prepared this primarily for myself as I've been dying to play this tune live for a couple of years but could never sit down and figure out the arrangement. This is an attempt to provide something of value to this board as I've benefited a lot from coming on here and asking questions. Any feedback is welcome provided you remember that I'm just an amateur (be gentle). If this little arrangement got you to sit down with the tune and figure it out, I'd love to hear!
Given that this little intro has become so long, I'm going to post the actual arrangement structure in a reply to this thread.