On Practicing Guitar

“My blues is not screaming blues or howling blues but kind of sweet blues,” said T-Bone Walker. You could add the term ‘riffing blues,’ as well and you can see the evidence in the turnaround lick that is transcribed below. T-Bone Walker was one of the first guitarists to go electric and by 1950 he sounded smoother and better than plenty of young turks in the early to mid-sixties.

BB King was a devotee, and he shares some of his thoughts on this video. Both Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix were deeply influenced by his licks as well as his stage moves which included the duck walk as well as playing behind his head and with his teeth. Walker’s The Complete Imperial Sessions is a must have and of course you will want to cop some of T-Bone’s licks and figure out what he’s doing.

The section of “Evil Hearted Woman” that I’ve transcribed above is a long, smooth phrase that unwinds over the turnaround of the first verse. It’s a simple turnaround, with just a I – V – I motion underneath, outlined by the bass. The tempo is slow which provides a perfect opportunity to toss out a burst of quick notes in a kind of compressed free time. T-Bone’s rhythm is quite sophisticated with numerous triple and duple permutations, but what impresses me most is how the melodic contour matches the harmony.

Each line represents one measure. The first five note lick outlines the I7 chord (Ab7) and then there is a sequential descent that bottoms out on the fifth of the scale, Eb, at the end of the first line. An upward pass through the tonic ends with the note Eb at the very end of the phrase. Note how there’s a rest at the beginning and the end of the phrase. The first rest sets the stage for this brief solo, and the one at the end, which is really almost two beats, provides plenty of room for the entrance of the vocal on the fourth beat.

There are several of T-Bone’s trademark licks at play here. The first three notes with the quarter step bend will juice up any novice blues player’s solo. The first bend and release on the sixth degree of the scale, in this case an F, is something that most blues-rock players don’t do much, but T-Bone does it all the time so why not give it a try? Finally, the six notes that proceed the repeat of the first three note lick at the end form a dominant chord arpeggio, a jazzy touch that T-Bone always has on hand. Interesting how he starts and finishes on the same lick, huh?

One thing you may also notice is that he smoothly cranks out these thirty or so notes in rapid succession without the use of pull-offs or hammer-ons. Although your right hand picking may be challenged, this material is useful at any speed. But getting the speed up is an excellent goal – a perfect opportunity to add some chops to your playing that go beyond repetition or scale-based runs.

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