Slide in Standard Tuning, Part 1

from: Fingerstyle Blues Guitar with Orville Johnson

This lesson is part of the course Fingerstyle Blues Guitar with Orville Johnson.

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Learn to play fingerstyle blues, with a bottleneck slide and without, through songs from blues legends Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy, Lightnin' Hopkins, Tampa Red, Blind Willie Johnson, and more.

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“Heavy Time” Fingerpicking

“Heavy time” is a style of blues fingerpicking that is more driving and forceful than the somewhat bouncy feel of alternating bass fingerpicking, as played by Mississippi John Hurt, Willie McTell, and others. In this lesson, Orville shows you a tune that illustrates the “heavy time” feel. Heavy time is all about what your thumb is doing—in this case, the thumb constantly pounds the beat, four beats per measure. Another thing that makes this style different is that the melody notes are played just with the index finger. Orville walks you through the piece phrase by phrase.

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The Fingerstyle Blues Guitar Subscription Includes:

32 extensive Fingerstyle Blues Guitar video lessons
In-depth instruction in fingerstyle and bottleneck blues
23 complete fingerstyle blues songs to play
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High-quality video with multiple camera angles so you can see closeups of both hands in action.

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Slide in Standard Tuning

Slide in Standard Tuning, Part 1

Slide in Standard Tuning, Part 2

Slide in Standard Tuning, Part 1

Bottleneck slide is often played in open tunings, but in this lesson you’ll learn to play slide in standard tuning, using an eight-bar blues in the key of A. One thing that’s nice about playing slide in standard tuning is that it allows you to easily mix notes played with the slide with fretted notes played with your fingers. There are also some chord positions in standard tuning that you can’t get in open tunings. In this video, Orville walks you through the melody, which is mostly played on the first string, giving you some tips on getting clean melody notes. He also shows you one of those cool chord voicings available in standard tuning, a D9.

Standard Tuning Slide (Available to subscribers)

Previous Lesson

← Blind Willie Johnson–Style Slide, “Nobody’s Fault but Mine”

Next Lesson

Slide in Standard Tuning, Part 2 →

Previous Lesson

← Blind Willie Johnson–Style Slide, “Nobody’s Fault but Mine”

Next Lesson

Slide in Standard Tuning, Part 2 →

Previous Lesson

← Blind Willie Johnson–Style Slide, “Nobody’s Fault but Mine”

Next Lesson

Slide in Standard Tuning, Part 2 →

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