Blind Blake's Black Dog Blues Taught by Woody Mann
Hi and welcome. My name is Woody Mann, and this is the video of the guitar of Blind Blake. Great blues rag time musician and it’s interesting about music of Blind Blake is not much known as great as he was. It’s not much known about him as a person, his name where he’s from or any biographical notes about him. All we have is his great music, and from that we can draw our own conclusions. And he’s a real band in a box, this guy and he’s a great guitar player. And when you listen to his music, you can hear like almost the full band when he’s playing. It’s one of the most extraordinary players. And pretty much every blues player around had a version of a Blind Blake tune and even Gary Davis himself who didn't have a lot to say about guitar players used to say about Blake in a really sporting right hand. So it’s a phenomenal player, and I'm going to do my best to try to illustrate his music for you.
So before we start then we’ll get into the music and explain all the techniques, why don't we get into tuned and then we’ll start by doing that. And then we’ll get into our first tune. So here’s the A string, the D, the G, B and two Es. As I said earlier, Blake’s music is really wide ranging placing many different keys in different tempos and lot of different techniques. In the first tune I’d like to get into is a song called ‘Black Dog Blues’ which I think is a nice kind of lays out a lot of his techniques. And it’s a nice simple blues in C, and why don't we start off with getting it to that tune and getting into the music of Blind Blake, ‘Black Dog Blues’.
[Demonstration]
‘Black Dog Blues’. I though this would be good place to start the video, because it really lays out a lot of the Blake’s ideas in terms of his picking and chords. It’s a nice, slow tune, and you can really hear and kind of what’s going on in his play. And what I mean by that musically is the left hand is basically just C, F and G. The chords are quite simple. But it’s in the right hand that gives Blake its characteristic rhythm and the swing and the syncopation. And I think by looking at Black Dog and getting a nice overview of the pick, you’ll find it helpful for the rest of the songs in the video because it all has that the same recurring theme. And basically what I mean by that in terms of the right hand is instead of thinking of the pick as a basic patter pick, kind of an alternating base idea. First thing what’s happening is the bass is a little more rhythmic.
The typical C had a pattern idea, he would play more. And by doing that it really separates the two lines. So the idea is to think of the pick as two lines rather than a pattern. Do you think it would have a bass line and a top line just as you would in a band? I mean Blake and basically is a band in a box. You know the way he plays the guitar and you got everything here. You have the bass lines, and then you have the melody lines. And many times even in the songs he’d say, here comes the trumpet line. I play the top line of the cornet line or something, and then he plays the bass line.
And you can really hear that interplay. And if you watch the right hand if I walk through Black Dog nice and slowly, you can see this idea if I go—it will bass as the rip, the melody—bass comes back in, and then a little rift, back, then let a leading to each chord. Way you separate in the two lines, and again that syncopation. You hear the bass, maybe before the beat or after the beat.
And the idea is just to get that comfortability between that separation of the thumb and the fingers. And it’s really akin to playing piano, so get that separation between the two hands and this will be your left hand and your right hand. And I think when you walk through Black Dog, and you work on the tablature, and you start to get this idea, you’ll hear it in all the other tunes, whether he’s playing an open D or A or G or any of the seven songs it’s that bounce. And especially if you listen to the early recordings of Blake, which all we have is already recorded. But if you listen to those and you just tune in to just what he’s doing with his thumb on the left hand, it’s pretty exciting. It’s almost like you’re listening to a percussion play.
And those into the top line the way he brings out the melody. And against that kind of dance between the two lines—and unfortunately not much has known about Blake, and we know nothing about him as a person, or where he’s from. But as I said earlier, that pretty much influenced most blues meant, and most people play at ragtime in this way, in this style. And I think when you listen to the music, at least for me I get the feeling that he played with a lot of bands because his time is like a rock and he’s one of the few players that I could really, you can really imagine him playing to a dance of--acoustic dance of hundred people dancing to his music. Because he just gets that loud sound in that solid base and melody.
So let’s look at the split screen of Black Dog and that will illustrate some of these points. And then as we continue on in the video, I think you’ll see the same thing, it’s kind of elaborated on. So let’s go right to the split screen and ‘Black Dog Blues’.
[Demonstration]
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services