Post by slidingwolf on Mar 2, 2013 12:54:23 GMT
"The Weirdest Music I Have Ever Heard."
It has been suggested that some would find it useful if I posted a few bits and pieces about playing slide on here. I make no claims to be an expert, but here's my perspective.
Getting on for 100 year ago a famous band leader of the time, WC Handy, was at the train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in the dead of night. He was woken by the sound of a guitarist pressing a knife on the strings to accompany his singing, "Goin' Where the Southern Cross the Dog." He described it as, "the weirdest music I had ever heard."
This, I believe, is the first written reference to what is now known as slide or bottleneck blues. But the practice goes way back before that, with records of Indian music using a slide technique on various stringed instruments many centuries before Mr. Handy found himself waiting for a train in a Mississippi backwater. (There are many many great examples of contemporary Indian slide players you can easily find on You Tube with breathtaking technique and you can certainly hear their influence with western players as varied as Harry Manx and Derek Trucks). I think I am right in saying that classical Indian music is the only classical music genre to encompass slide guitar.
There are some theories that slide playing comes from a one stringed African instrument similar in idea to a diddley bow. Again you can find examples of this in the usual places, including from Seasick Steve. Some (most notably the Hawaiian tourist board) claim it was invented by Joseph Kekuku, an 11 year old who decided to slide a discarded bolt along the strings of his guitar while walking along a railroad track one day. Who knows where it really came from? And does it really matter?
But , what we can say for sure is that playing slide allows you to get those notes associated with the blue (and other musical genres) which you don't get from traditional western scales - microtones: blues piano players call it "playing in the cracks." These can be described as notes between semi-tones.
But slide isn't just associated with blues and Hawaiian music. There are very few musical genres today which don't include slide to a greater or lesser extent. I'll pull together some examples as this thread progresses.
I'll get Martin R's video of the workshop I ran at the Halifax meet put on here which , hopefully, does more to inform than confuse. I also did a (very) brief cd of examples and exercises based on the workshop. Contact me if you want a copy - it's free but as I do all my music stuff for Naomi House Children's Hospice I would be good if we could cover the postage and make a small contribution?
So, questions? Ideas? Let me have them.
It has been suggested that some would find it useful if I posted a few bits and pieces about playing slide on here. I make no claims to be an expert, but here's my perspective.
Getting on for 100 year ago a famous band leader of the time, WC Handy, was at the train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in the dead of night. He was woken by the sound of a guitarist pressing a knife on the strings to accompany his singing, "Goin' Where the Southern Cross the Dog." He described it as, "the weirdest music I had ever heard."
This, I believe, is the first written reference to what is now known as slide or bottleneck blues. But the practice goes way back before that, with records of Indian music using a slide technique on various stringed instruments many centuries before Mr. Handy found himself waiting for a train in a Mississippi backwater. (There are many many great examples of contemporary Indian slide players you can easily find on You Tube with breathtaking technique and you can certainly hear their influence with western players as varied as Harry Manx and Derek Trucks). I think I am right in saying that classical Indian music is the only classical music genre to encompass slide guitar.
There are some theories that slide playing comes from a one stringed African instrument similar in idea to a diddley bow. Again you can find examples of this in the usual places, including from Seasick Steve. Some (most notably the Hawaiian tourist board) claim it was invented by Joseph Kekuku, an 11 year old who decided to slide a discarded bolt along the strings of his guitar while walking along a railroad track one day. Who knows where it really came from? And does it really matter?
But , what we can say for sure is that playing slide allows you to get those notes associated with the blue (and other musical genres) which you don't get from traditional western scales - microtones: blues piano players call it "playing in the cracks." These can be described as notes between semi-tones.
But slide isn't just associated with blues and Hawaiian music. There are very few musical genres today which don't include slide to a greater or lesser extent. I'll pull together some examples as this thread progresses.
I'll get Martin R's video of the workshop I ran at the Halifax meet put on here which , hopefully, does more to inform than confuse. I also did a (very) brief cd of examples and exercises based on the workshop. Contact me if you want a copy - it's free but as I do all my music stuff for Naomi House Children's Hospice I would be good if we could cover the postage and make a small contribution?
So, questions? Ideas? Let me have them.