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It's rather ironic that many excellent blues musicians want a sound that's almost diametrically opposed to what most luthiers spend their lives trying to achieve - George Gruhn, http://www.gruhn.com

Author Topic: Fred McDowell's You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques  (Read 7339 times)

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Offline blueshome

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2009, 06:24:45 AM »
Watched a guy playing slide the other night and despite good equipment and being a good picker he really struggled to get a good tone. You could see that his slide hand was floating around with his thumb in front the neck giving him little control. He had been shown this by his regular teacher who "didn't play much slide".

So, tip for the day is to ensure good sliding hand position so that the thumb supports the hand on the neck without anchoring it too tightly. This allows good control over the slide and will lead to good tone development.

Offline jrn

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2009, 12:50:43 PM »
Hi guys! Cool thread. I'm curious....what is meant by "inside notes" and "inside strings"? Thanks
Quitman, Mississippi

Offline Slack

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #17 on: March 18, 2009, 01:01:21 PM »
Hi JRN, welcome to WeenieCambpell.  You'll probably get a more detailed description but....

Inside strings are strings 5432 e.g. the strings between the 1st and the 6th.  Inside notes are played on inside strings  :D  Outside strings are a little easier to get good clean tones from than inside... and you can get cooler effects from inside strings  ---  for example hitting an open 1st string is a lot less cool than sliding into the same note on the 2nd string, 5th fret.

Cheers,

Offline jrn

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2009, 01:48:21 PM »
 Cool.Thanks! Thats what I was thinking it was, but was'nt sure. 
Quitman, Mississippi

Offline Mr.OMuck

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #19 on: March 18, 2009, 03:53:13 PM »
I am in the minimalist damping camp. Lots of sounds you can get with a slide short of taking the innocent life of
naturally occurring reverberations.
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
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Offline Rivers

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #20 on: March 18, 2009, 07:02:42 PM »
Slack, I doubt we'd get a better description of inside strings and notes than that.

Great point O'Muck re to damp or not to damp. It's yet another false dichotomy, both have their place.

Ry Cooder is my own particular king of damping touch, left and right hand, particularly the right hand over the saddle, totally instinctive, in control, out of control when called for, effortless and generally on some other planet, 36 years ago.

Not only the slide technique though, the timing and phrasing in this is impossible, for me anyway, and believe me I have tried. Not to mention independence of the thumb, control of the bass, no reflexive dropping into an alternating bass pattern. While we're at it check the fiendishly subtle open-D chord work. Did I mention tone? I never get tired of watching this vid:

« Last Edit: March 18, 2009, 08:03:58 PM by Rivers »

Offline Mr.OMuck

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #21 on: March 18, 2009, 08:58:34 PM »
Ry is certainly a killer diller and also a much under rated singer imo. Sometimes however he plays a bit too clean for my taste, As Tina so aptly put it I like it rough (or was that we?). Ry is a REAL musician and thinks methodically in terms of arrangements and the particulars of execution. This is both a strength and a weakness. Perfection never sounds exactly appropriate for this music to me. Like me he is a child of the left and you can hear how deeply he connects with this great Woody Guthrie song (Vigilante man). Someone recently gave me a copy of 2007s "My Name is Buddy" Ry's anthropomorphic re-imagining of the old left meeting alley cat skid row drifters (like Woody). I gather that it was critically panned, but whoever panned it missed the boat. This is one of the hippest, bravest and coolest ventures into political songwriting since 1962. It is also a hell of a lot of fun, with plenty o' funk a chunk playing and surprisingly adept and interesting vocals..
His song "Three Chords and the Truth" with its tribute verse to Pete Seeger is fierce and moving and driving in a way that other songwriters operating in similar subject areas (Springstein or U2, for example)  never manage to pull off. You know he's been on this road since before he was born. Its really sort of a funky opera in a way, all the songs contributing chapters to the larger narrative. Its definitely a case of preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned, and maybe you have to be a red diaper baby to catch all the references, but check it out anyway.
A film director heard me playing at Carmine St. Guitars one day and after complimenting me spoke about wanting Ry Cooder to score his film and not being able to afford him: Sez I: "Anything Ry Cooder can play, I can play, cheaper and worse!" ...never did hear from 'im.
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)

http://www.youtube.com/user/MuckOVision

Offline uncle bud

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #22 on: March 18, 2009, 09:13:58 PM »
"Anything Ry Cooder can play, I can play, cheaper and worse!"

LOL! There's one for the quote generator...

Offline Rivers

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #23 on: March 18, 2009, 09:24:11 PM »
Agreed UB!

Cooder makes perfection look easy, has to be a prodigy in that respect. He was in his early 20's in that clip. It's not like it's contrived, there's too much feel for that.

I love My Name Is Buddy, kept me going through the darkest days of the last, unlamented and generally totally frickin' pathetic, too stupid to be evil, administration. Finally someone famous in music had the balls to get out and say it.

I also like Ry's latest one, I Flathead. Some great moments, not overtly political but it's in there in a vernacular, shag pile and formica setting. Both are "uneven", as music critics are wont to say. That's a good thing IMO. Plus there's some great swingy fingerpicking on it, unusual on a Cooder record.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2009, 09:29:18 PM by Rivers »

Offline Parlor Picker

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #24 on: March 19, 2009, 02:06:13 AM »
Cooder's inate sense of rhythm is something else. Very few people have it and I don't think it is something that can be learned.
"I ain't good looking, teeth don't shine like pearls,
So glad good looks don't take you through this world."
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Offline Mr.OMuck

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #25 on: March 19, 2009, 08:26:47 AM »
"Anything Ry Cooder can play, I can play, cheaper and worse!"

LOL! There's one for the quote generator...

I just want to make clear that by "worse" I meant a rough hewn alternative to Mr. Cooder's immaculate playing.
And maybe some of the other...though I ain't afraid to take the stage after anybody (if I still got on the stage that is.)!
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)

http://www.youtube.com/user/MuckOVision

Offline Coyote Slim

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Re: You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #26 on: March 19, 2009, 10:35:59 AM »
Well, Rivers... I play with a metal slide on my ring finger, and I've definitely learned a few things from listening to Fred McDowell:

Puttin' on my Carrhartts, I gotta work out in the field.

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Offline monts

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Re: Fred McDowell's You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #27 on: December 15, 2021, 06:53:47 AM »
Hey everyone,

Sorry for dredging up this old thread, I am trying to get down the rhythmic damping techniques that Fred uses is Shake em' on down, also he does the same thing in several other songs like Baby Please Don't Go.  I've done some of Tom Feldman's ideas in the instructional videos on the Stefan Grossman site.  I kind of have my own thing going with it, but then I listen to Fred and really want to figure out what he is doing to get that sound. Tom describes it as dropping the first finger of the left hand and then letting the slide hit the strings right after it, but I just don't hear that in Fred's playing, however it does look like that is what he is doing in the video.  If anyone knows what I am talking about, please chime in!

Offline banjochris

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Re: Fred McDowell's You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #28 on: December 15, 2021, 12:01:50 PM »
Monts – watch the video of McDowell playing Shake 'Em On Down – he does all that left-hand damping with the slide itself, just barely touching the strings. Watch the close-ups and I'm sure you'll pick it up.
Chris

Offline monts

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Re: Fred McDowell's You've Got To Move - Slide guitar tips and techniques
« Reply #29 on: December 15, 2021, 04:46:03 PM »
Thanks, I'll try that.  I listened to some other recordings and it really does sound like he does it with the slide only. 
« Last Edit: December 15, 2021, 06:34:08 PM by monts »

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