Good Times, Bad Times

Joined the Beatles night on TV. For the first time the whole story appeared to me; about how the early drummer of the group, Pete Best, was fired. By reasons more than slightly out of justice; because of some snobbishness by the record company. This happened over forty years ago and still seems remarkable. The group really had played together in Hamburg as a club band, in duty almost every night. When they came back to England it was a piece of cake to play for an hour on stage, they had been used to play up to 6-7 hours. Anyway, it was not easy to get a recording contract with a big company, when it happened, they formed the playground.

Yesterday…, during the evening I also saw the movie; “A Hard Day´s Night” again. It´s really not the most fantastic movie made, light British mad humour in black&white, but gives push to the culture of the happy 1960ties. As a kid and new member of this country, I saw the film for the first time in the Palladium movie theatre here in Halmstad. All the girls screamed, all the time, in the front of the screen…, from the first opening seconds. It was strange. John Lennon did not even talk the accent we learned in school.

Many years later, when I got more oversight of the situation, I found that a lot of the Beatles music really had afroamerican elements or influences, more than earlier really observed. I would say that, many tunes were for example “adjustable for funk”, which even many coverbands probably found out during the years. Tunes like “She´s a woman”, “I feel fine”, “You can´t do that”…..you find more. It´s not only about the three chord boogie and blues roots and screamin, it´s also about rhythm,…. polyrhythmic structures.

That, the afroamerican connections were strong; was likely confirmed by the programme; “John Lennon´s jukebox”. It contained mostly black American music. He told about his early favourites for example in the radiointerview presented in the programme. Like all others, even the Beatles picked up ideas and inspiration from other artists. That happens all the time.

Now,.....
I´m very proud to present a report directly from Africa,
nicely Michele from Kenya by mail gave me a little list,
of her favourite African artistes;

Abakethwa

Yvonne Chaka Chaka

Mary Atieno

.....

JANUARY´s SHORT-CUT TICKET

Ho-ho, He-he. Hi-li-li-li-loo. Hoy Lari-lari-la. Jopp-hey-dejey….
Excuse me.
Comic books can be disturbing. I also dropped my reading glasses under the bed and had to search for them on my hands and knees. Under the bed I also found socks in three different colors, unknown under panties of the g-string model and a playable italian made twelve string guitar. Lucky me. Today´s question is; is it possible to play the blues after all this; reading, laughing, gymnastics, cleaning under the bed? Yes, yes, the blues is almost eveywhere. But I know, to tell about the bluesscale, it´s like to tell that there are kids on the streets. Everybody knows. But not every guitarplayer know the possibilities with this type of scale.

Every major key has it´s relative in minor, for example C-major and A-minor. We have the common bluesscale in C ; c eb f gb g bb (c) . Learn it over two octaves on the fretboard., over all six strings in the eight´position. Bending the strings without damaging the skin of your fingers, handsome vibratos, naughty sliding, energical hammer-ons, heroic pull-offs and sudden shudups are useful technical tools. Touchdowns, homeruns, sit-ups are other useful words (I´ve just figured out) toward acitivities, but not on a normal sized fretboard. Practise the scale, it´s the common base for solo improvisation on chords like C(7), F(7) and G(7), in a twelve bar combination. Any boogie pianist knows the story. You don’t have to find visit twelve Bars to find one..
If problems: Ask for information in the music store, afterwards you can buy twelve Candy-Bars, then it´s easy to remember that classical boogie&blues twelve bar structure. If the packages are in three different colors, lay them on the kitchen table in boogie structure, before eating the inhaltung. I suggest that a blue package is G7, red for C , and F in a milder color, light yellow for example.

BUT, if we have a tune in different character, still in the key of C major; not the twelve bar boogie or blues, instead with chords like this in order: C G Am Em F C D7 G (7).
Let your eminent combo play the chord combination in the background while you have other plans. The C-blues scale may now not be the best answer, for you the improvising duck-walking soloist in black leather, howlin for something beautiful in the front of your mirror
Take the blues scale in A instead. Same fingering, but now in the fifth position.

Remember; C major and A minor are relatives. You can find this relationship in any key. For example; you can find the relative key by counting steps on the major scale, c d e f g a b c (you find the that a is the sixth on the C-major scale). In G-major; g a b c d e f# g, ....so it´s E minor. Which in this case means that the E-blues scale can be useful on improvising on "normal and common" tunes i G-major. Of course it´s fantastic. Even already fully learned punks sometimes agree with that.

Using the bluesscale can be more intresting in other chord surroundings than the usual.

By the way, the new tune above is not “Sheets of London” by The Tony Blair Witch Project