Mixed Up Blues - With Free Tab

 

In this video I want to share with you a piece of blues music I have written called 'Mixed Up Blues'. This is a fingerstyle guitar piece and uses a slapping technique throughout the music. I got the name 'Mixed Up Blues' because when I was writing it I had a jumble of mixed up sections of music that I tried to piece together into one coherent tune. I still think it sounds a bit mixed up but I like the finished version.

The music is in the key of E, it is played on a guitar in Standard Tuning, and is mostly in 4/4 time.

The music is very similar to a 12 bar blues in terms of its chord progression, the main difference is that this is 20 bars long. In a standard 12 bar blues, the root chord is played for the first 4 bars of the music. In this piece, the root chord is played for the first 12 bars of the music. After that, the chord changes are the same as a standard 12 bar. Thus, the main section is 20 bars long.

In the video I play through the intro which is 4 bars long, I then play through the main section which is 20 bars long and end that with the turnaround. Finally, what I do is I play the last 4 bars again and instead of the turnaround I put the ending in. In the tab I have given you, I play through the main section twice fully, the first time with the turnaround, the second time with the ending.

Below are some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.

Mixed Up Blues Downloadable Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT

 

• Slapping - The music uses a slapping technique extensively throughout. Now I am not an expert at the slapping technique but where I found it sounded best was when I took my picking hand and slapped it against the strings and body of the guitar near the resonator cone and partly on the wooden body too. When I am doing it my hand is almost flat, so the palm of my hand is going across the strings and deadening any notes from the strings but also part of my hand is hitting the body of the guitar and making a 'chunk' sound. Now you can play around with slapping the guitar in different parts which will give different sounds. So just find a slapping technique that works for you. Don't be too worried if all the slaps don't sound the same. It's a very rarely used technique, especially in blues guitar, so they're probably not too many people who are expert at it. So as long as you get the general sound okay, each individual slap doesn't have to sound identical. Also, be mindful that each slap will have a time duration within the music just as a normal note would. Therefore, you have to be aware of this and make sure the notes after the slap are not out of time.

• 3/4 Bar - The music has a 3/4 bar at bar 18. The reason I have put this in is because this bar just didn't sound correct as a 4/4 bar and sounded too long. I originally wanted to maintain the 4/4 structure of the music but this bar just sounded better as a 3/4 bar. The difficulty this bar presents is that you expect it to be 4/4 and thus the proceeding bar comes up too quickly and you end up missing notes. With a bit of practise this should easy enough. However, if you are struggling with it or if you think this bar does sound too short, you could try adding an extra beat at the end and making it a 4/4 bar. Just be mindful that the 3/4 bar exists and that it will be shorter than the bars of music surrounding it.

• Faster Notes - The tempo of the music is quite brisk and as such some of the faster runs of notes can be trickier to play. This is especially true when there are 1/8th note triplets. Now, if you watch the video you will see how I play each piece within the music. Sometimes I will use a picado technique with the index and middle finger, other times I'll use slurs. This is just how I like to to play it and you don't have to play these fast runs identically to me. If you don't like using the picado technique, you can play any of the faster notes as hammer-ons or pull-offs. However, you may not like the sound that they make so you may play them using picado technique. Just find what works best for you so they can play the music comfortably.

This is about all I need to say about this piece. Although it is not a greatly difficult piece to play,  the extensive use of slapping within the music can make it quite tricky if you aren't used to this technique. But, with a little practise it should be easy enough to play.

Thanks for Reading,
Neil