I haven't a clue what mel flackersteid is talking about !
Virtually no punctuation to speak of.
Just can't follow what the hell he is going on about ! ?? Just me ?

Did Robert Johnson not idolise Lonnie Johnson and try to copy him ?
Many blue musicians did that !!
That is not something we have just invented.

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Originally posted by Deacon:
What ever happened to Patton's tabs?

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Same goes for Blind Willie Johnson? these are Blues Giants, more popular players then many of the artists who's styles are already analyzed in Multiple Books/Videos.

Something like you said.......

Get Charley Patton Cds

Listen to them all the time, actively and passively---WITHOUT YOUR GUITAR!

Find the 10% of his work that really gets ya and listen just to those tunes

SING ALONG WITH HIS VOCAL AND/OR GUITAR PHRASES

SOON you will hear the music in your head without the CD, and you will know how the music goes, making it a LOT easier to:

A: figure out the fingerings
B: figure out how Patton was thinking as he IMPROVISED his music!

then it will be much easier to learn it.....easier than sitting there with guitar in hand in a lonely room, trying to learn it, without knowing how it goes first.

Music is more than a laundry list of notes or tasks.

In my humble opinion only, respectfully submitted.

You're right, of course. Listen, Listen, and LISTEN.

Sometimes I'll suggest to a student that he figure out licks by, say, Charley Patton, using only his ears, and he'll say, in so many words, "But I'm...NOT A GOOD ENOUGH PLAYER!" To which I can only reply, "Dude, figuring out Patton's licks by yourself is a surefire way to GET GOOD."
_______

Bob: I wonder sometimes if you're aware of how much you inspire others.

Thanks for the kind words, because as I find my time on this planet is getting shorter, my urgency to help others play music is increasng dramatically.

Discovering the knife-edge of the piquant knowldge of how short life really is, coupled with the desire to turn that scary pain into beauty!

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Originally posted by Hambone:
[B]Yo Bob!

You're right, of course. Listen, Listen, and LISTEN.

Sometimes I'll suggest to a student that he figure out licks by, say, Charley Patton, using only his ears, and he'll say, in so many words, "But I'm...NOT A GOOD ENOUGH PLAYER!" To which I can only reply, "Dude, figuring out Patton's licks by yourself is a surefire way to GET GOOD."

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That's what tried to tell 'em at guitar camp.It's a hard concept for some people to grasp
Happy Birthday man

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Originally posted by Danny C:
just wondering, but what would you say is the best sound quality wise? i have the yazoo recording, king of the delta blues, but i would prefer something better, if there is. i think my cd may be a little dated, but i know bad quality is to be expected. any suggestions would be very helpful! thanks!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Danny C:
just wondering, but what would you say is the best sound quality wise? i have the yazoo recording, king of the delta blues, but i would prefer something better, if there is. i think my cd may be a little dated, but i know bad quality is to be expected. any suggestions would be very helpful! thanks!

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I haven't listened to this stuff since around '84 ,but I think this
disc is the same as the LP with the red cover.

Nope,I thought a "true" Patton fan has the uncanny ability to HEAR MUSIC through the scrambled eggs of time
When I was a teen,this was it,if you had this you were about 10 steps cooler than the guy with the Robt Johnson records.The only way you could be cooler was if you had the 78s
Of course now the whole thing has turned into Blues Geek Squad.How the hell did that happen?

BTW the LP version had an academic musical breakdown of each song and the words in the gatefold.Doesn't the CD have that?

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Originally posted by Lcwx2:
Sorry for the little joke. I kinda thought it was just an innocent little plug for Revenant, but I guess I could have said it differently. Anyway Alvis, I won't pretend to know what your point is, but as far as the "Blues Geek Squad" goes, I suppose you couldn't do better than posing with parts of your record collection.

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Actually ,I just dig the f*ckin phone cam,and the Pride of Sledge,MS.That right there would kinda disqualify me for BGS.Besides I'm the last one to turn music into math class
Point? Somebody asked about gettin somethin off Patton.So I laid out where I got some,that big red record.I aint Prof. Irwin f*ckin Corey,but I got a pretty good grip on some of Patton's sh*t.

I also agree that it is important to work toward figuring things out for yourself, but that it really helps to have some useful hints along the way. It is particularly useless to hear lifelong musicians cop the "you gotta be like me or you ain't shit" attitude, but that's just who they are, and you gotta love 'em, I guess?

But each must follow their own path and take ANY advice with a grain of salt, whether from a respected teacher or from someone who seems to have attained the skills and artistry that one aspires to. They're all human and they all have "issues".

It does seem odd that Patton is one of the least documented, in tab or other educational forms, of the more popular prewar blues players, and that so many people cop such an attitude when asked about it. Grossman does have several of his songs in various publications and is planning a video (perhaps by Ari) in the future, and Bob and Woody do some pared down arrangements (leaving room for the student to do it "their way" of course) in their duets video. I put all of these things into the "hints" category as I find much more satisfaction using tab after the fact to check my own transcriptions, particularly when I find obvious errors on their part which I would have been led into learning.-G-

I think that the advice offered by Bob, Hambone and Alvis is pretty much on the money, at least as far as my experience in figuring out Patton's music goes. I've been trying to do that a long time. There's a little bit of it spread around the various instructional materials out there, almost all of which I'd consider interpretations of Patton, rather than the note-for-note transcriptions that Dan seems to be asking for.

I've used a lot of that instructional material and it's certainly helped my country blues playing in general. I've also had pros like Paul Rishell, Paul Geremia and John Miller teach me (and others) Patton songs in workshops, as well as private lessons from less well known but excellent players who've shown me various Patton tunes. All of that has provided me with a good foundation for getting further into his music, some of the hints that waxwing mentions.

But, by far, the most learning I've done has been through obsessive listening, and sitting down and figuring Patton out myself. I come back to him again and again, year after year. I've learned the basic framework and a number of the riffs for some of his tunes from those teachers, but a lot of it has been their personal interpretations more than note for note stuff. I've also listened a lot to other people playing Patton, on records or in person. That's a great way of getting your head around Patton's playing as well, especially if you can pick out the differences - "Oh, so and so does it that way, and this guy does it this other way, and I think Patton did it *this* way." I remember Geremia this year when he was teaching at Port Townsend said something to the effect of "Nobody's ever really got that right," referring to the guitar part in Pony Blues. I think he also said he was pretty close and laughed . The person who has got the closest IMO is Alvin Youngblood Hart (Alvis to you folks). His versions of things like Pony Blues or Screamin and Hollerin' are really right in the zone - he's real close to what Patton was doing and still manages to sound like himself, not like some guitar tab version of a Charley Patton player-piano.

Listening to Patton bar by bar, note by note, and trying painstakingly to reproduce it on my own has been a hugely rewarding experience and has changed me as a musician (amateur that I am). There's a crazy amount of subtleties of rhythm, touch, weird notes, bends, snaps and on and on in Patton, not to mention the way the guitar parts work with and play off the vocals. I don't need to tell you that. But getting those subtleties down own guitar -- or trying to anyways -- for me has really only become clearer through repeated listening and playing. I don't think this is always the case with other country blues players. A lot of Blind Boy Fuller, for instance, works well in tab and instructional video IMO. You haul out your reso, learn the notes, listen to the records for the phrasing and what not, the rhythm chugs along steady and it's great fun. Transcribing Patton would be a lot tougher, as would learning it from tab I think.

Charley Patton. I try to imagine young guitarists trying to replicate Pony Blues with analytical precision, when Charley was probably doing the best he could after a heavy night, and with a sore hand after a brawl ! The fact that anyone would want to go that far to find out shows how seriously people take the blues as an art form.

If it was not for those we call "trainspotters" in the UK ( people who analyse a subject in fanatical detail ), we would not know so much about any given topic.

So, forensic guitarists, keep doing what you do. The purists who criticize need to differentiate between research and practise, and performance. If a painter does not know what quantities of paint he or she needs to mix a particular tone of red, he or she will not achieve the result they want when required, spontaneously.

For any guitarist, the more riffs you know, the more inspired you can sound in performance. Not because you are trying to fool the audience, but because you know your trade well and can play whatever you wish to play. We are humans, not gods. We may assign the title of "god" to a musician we admire, but the truth is we are simply acknowledging that the guy we like can play whatever riffs he or she likes at will.

Robert, Fred, and Blind Willie do stand out for one reason and another, but that is because we have decided so. There is no real reason why we shouldn't be going mad about Bo Carter or Victoria Spivey. Both are equally highly-accomplished musicians.

Thank you for reading this.

Click here to go to Part I:
http://www.paramountshome.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=index&topic_id=5&page_id=31

As far as I know, this is the only place on the Internet that this article is available.

From Grafton, WI where Charley Patton recorded,
twirlygirl

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Originally posted by eskimo:
I love this thread and I look forward to seeing it a year from now (check out DJ71's post date and then Bendy's...spooky)

Must be Charlee's Pat'uns ghost...

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