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How the heck do you play to country swing??

Gilliangirl

By Gilliangirl
in Gibson Acoustic

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Kai

Kai

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Posted

I guess the easy way is to play downstroke on one bass-string, then down stroke on treble strings followed by a light upstroke and then start all over again.

Or fingerpicking : Thumb, 1st finger 2nd finger in a horseriding rythm-pattern

Did this make any sense? Hard to explain in words lol

Good luck

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Gilliangirl

Gilliangirl

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Thanks for the response Kai. I'm trying to do the bass-string - downstroke thing without it sounding too monotonous. That first bit, the A chord, goes for a long time so it is hard to make it come to life.

 

Yes, I knew Heidi was from Norway. She's got a great voice!

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Gilliangirl

Gilliangirl

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you can vary the speed and how may down and upstrokes you play

Kai, I've doubled the speed up of the strokes on the chorus, so at least i feel like I'm making some headway here. Maybe once I get the basics down I can fancy it up a bit.

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Gilliangirl

Gilliangirl

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Well Karen....do you actually OWN a swing???? Do you live in the country? I don't see a problem........

ROFL! I wish I owned a swing. I love nothing more than getting on a swing and going as high in the air as I can. Seriously! At my age that should be illegal haha

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Rambler

Rambler

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Hey, GG. I'm hearing a fast eight note shuffle feel (1 'n 2 'n 3 'n 4 ' and '5 'n 6 'n 7' n' 8 'n). If you play straight eights (da da da da) its a gonna sound awful. Sir Kai's got the right idea = a boom chick-a boom chick-a boom-chick-a kind of feel. Triplets against the 8ths. To give it some color, try bouncing a 6th on the down-up. So in A, fret your root chord with one finger, hit the open A on the 5th for your bass, and on the downstroke, hammer on an F# (4th string/4th fret), upstroke. Same deal on the D, (bass=open 4th, hammer on the B at 4th string/4th frt) and E (open 6th, hammer 5th string/5th frt). Rinse and repeat. Rockabilly time!

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Gilliangirl

Gilliangirl

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Hey Karen! Just braid your hair like Willie Nelson' date=' roll a big fat doobie and feel it in your bones!! Voila! Country swing!!![/quote']

Be careful what you suggest... I might just do that and post a video of myself! Then you'd be sorry [biggrin]

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Gilliangirl

Gilliangirl

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Hey' date=' GG. I'm hearing a fast eight note shuffle feel (1 'n 2 'n 3 'n 4 ' and '5 'n 6 'n 7' n' 8 'n). If you play straight eights (da da da da) its a gonna sound awful. Sir Kai's got the right idea = a boom chick-a boom chick-a boom-chick-a kind of feel. Triplets against the 8ths. To give it some color, try bouncing a 6th on the down-up. So in A, fret your root chord with one finger, hit the open A on the 5th for your bass, and on the downstroke, hammer on an F# (4th string/4th fret), upstroke. Same deal on the D, (bass=open 4th, hammer on the B at 4th string/4th frt) and E (open 6th, hammer 5th string/5th frt). Rinse and repeat. Rockabilly time![/quote']

Okey dokey! I'm going to give that a shot. Thanks Jon. I've already figured I can do it in G#, so that makes it real easy at capo one.

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McDuff

McDuff

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I can't give you any advice how to play that you wouldn't think is blatantly obvious but let me caution you this about swings. Most aren't made for adults, I hear swings begin to groan pretty bad when I ride them now and it makes me nervous. To bad it is a shame.

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Gilliangirl

Gilliangirl

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Here's how I would strum to this' date=' GG. This is coming into the chorus (sort of, I'm not sure I caught all the chords, I only listened once, but it'll give you the idea).

 

http://www.divshare.com/download/10905772-d84

 

In 4/4, basically just a quarter note, then 6 eighths. Her vocal pattern on the chorus mirrors the strum pattern very closely.[/quote']

BK, I'm just getting this now because I was working so hard on that song that I had to have an afternoon nap [lol]

 

But I got this file and have saved it to my desktop so will learn the pattern. THANK YOU!

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milod

milod

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Karen...

 

A lot of the old time western swing rhythm players would play up the neck - partially to get full chords and partly so they could partly unfret to keep the strings from ringing. First pick downstroke rings, second gets the "mute" sorta thing.

 

So... like in "A," you'd play the e-shape - usually with the thumb-around rather than a full barre - then a c7-shape where the bass notes are at the 5th fret for the "D," and up at the 7th for the "E."

 

Dunno how fancy you wanna get. Note that the "A" could be done as a barre at the 5th fret as an A6; then do the "D" actually as a D9 at the 5th fret, E9 at the 7th.

 

Add a fiddle and... <grin> suddenly it's 1956 at a country dance. Rhythm guitar would start adding "bump-dip-adididy every now and then and...

 

m

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Gilliangirl

Gilliangirl

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I feel like an idiot that I can't do this because the song sounds so easy to do.... just full out strokes. But I just can't get the hang of it. It's easier doing more complicated stuff, if you know what I mean.

 

Milod, I'm doing the song in G, but I can certainly do barre chords instead and mute with the left hand. The chorus isn't too bad because the chords change fairly quickly, which creates its own percussive sound.

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bkharmony

bkharmony

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Karen...

 

A lot of the old time western swing rhythm players would play up the neck - partially to get full chords and partly so they could partly unfret to keep the strings from ringing. First pick downstroke rings' date=' second gets the "mute" sorta thing.

 

So... like in "A," you'd play the e-shape - usually with the thumb-around rather than a full barre - then a c7-shape where the bass notes are at the 5th fret for the "D," and up at the 7th for the "E."

 

Dunno how fancy you wanna get. Note that the "A" could be done as a barre at the 5th fret as an A6; then do the "D" actually as a D9 at the 5th fret, E9 at the 7th.

 

Add a fiddle and... <grin> suddenly it's 1956 at a country dance. Rhythm guitar would start adding "bump-dip-adididy every now and then and...

 

m

[/quote']

 

Yeah, that's "Bob Wills" style country swing, which is basically early jazz chords in a country song. This song is just a modern country strummer. There's no reason to do barre or closed chords on something like this.

 

 

I feel like an idiot that I can't do this because the song sounds so easy to do.... just full out strokes. But I just can't get the hang of it. It's easier doing more complicated stuff' date=' if you know what I mean.[/quote']

 

It takes a while to get used to certain strumming patterns. Lord knows I've struggled over plenty of them. In person, I could show you how to do this in 30 seconds.

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Rambler

Rambler

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Keep your wrist loose (pick hand). Maybe practice the faster strums in iso (not playing the song) til you feel comfy with it. If you need help getting a feel for a shuffle beat, might try working with hand pats/foot taps. Do the boom chick-a. Or beat fours on one hand, 8ths on the other. Then try triplets vs the 4s.

 

By the BKH, nice groove you picked put there. Like how you mixed the patterns.

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