
In the tag, go back and forth between G and D-two bars each-as in bars 23–34, before wrapping up with one final repeat of “I’ve got those worried blues. In bars 32–34, play an extended bass run, alternating your thumb and index finger for picking speed. In bars 25–26, play a ragtime-y double-stop riff, and then switch to a monotonic bass (bars 27–28) while you play a quick melodic line on the treble strings. Traum’s first solo break is similar to the intro, but in the second solo, transcribed here, he departs more from the melody and the alternating bass. At the end of the intro, bars 20–22, strum the treble strings lightly with your fingers over half notes in the bass before resuming the alternating bass picking pattern with the vocal. On G, fret the sixth string, fifth fret, with your third finger so your first can fret the D notes on the second string.


On D, shift between fifth position (as in the first two measures) and open position. In the intro, play the melody on the upper strings while you keep the bass steady on the sixth, fifth, and fourth strings. Acoustic blues guitar teacher Jim Bruce was voted Number 2 top guitar instructor on Truefire in 2013 (Number 1 for acoustic blues lessons). The thumb drives the arrangement throughout, with an alternating bass that varies in only a few spots. Fingerstyle Acoustic Blues Guitar Lessons In The Old Style. This transcription is based on Traum’s recent video (above) and shows the song’s instrumental intro and one of the solos. “It’s one of those lonesome blues things, but it’s not a standard 12-bar blues,” he says. Traum recorded “Worried Blues” for his 1976 solo album, Relax Your Mind (the track also appears on the compilation Bucket of Songs). Bob Dylan picked up “Worried Blues” from the same source his 1962 recording, also fingerpicked but played with C shapes (capo 3), can be heard on The Bootleg Series, Vol. She played frailing banjo on “Worried Blues,” and Traum loosely adapted her rendition to fingerpicking guitar in dropped-D tuning (capoed at the second fret to sound in E). Wood was a song collector as well as performer who worked with John and Alan Lomax on transcribing field recordings, and sang with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and others in the New York folk scene of the 1940s. Traum learned “Worried Blues” some 60 years ago from a record called Hally Wood Sings Texas Folk Songs. Last summer, when Happy Traum first received his brand-new Santa Cruz HT/13 signature model, he posted a video introducing the instrument and picking an old favorite song: “Worried Blues,” a variant of traditional songs like “Chilly Winds” and “Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad.” Get to new heights with your guitar playing.From the November/December 2021 issue of Acoustic Guitar | By Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers There are plenty of great guitar players out there. You’ve been playing guitar for some time now or you jam regularly or you play live gigs or you’re a session musician. If you want to learn the skills to play the bass guitar and deliver its mesmerising effects with real skill, then we can get you underway. It’s the natural partner to a drummer’s beat and gives a great song its “pulse”. At Learn What You Want, you can take your playing to the next level.īass gives any great song its rhythmic and harmonic foundations.

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