What Is He Doing Here

JN99

Hang Fire
Yeah...I’m picking up the shuffle and basic 12 bar blues patterns pretty easily... they lose me sometimes in the solos and the ideas they so easily put together. KWS admits in several interviews that he formed his style by blending Albert Collins and SRV licks together to form his own sound...He actually said in a 2009 interview that at the time he really only knew on scale...”box 1 minor pentatonic” (I’m positive that’s not true today). I think I have to just master the licks and little chord ideas that Griff teaches and start implementing them more on my own and not just in the tracks where they fit so nicely. Make sense?

There is a TON of mileage to be had in box 1, SRV was a master at it. There's a video/lesson that Anthony Stauffer does where he shows an entire song of Stevie Ray's (don't recall the song now) and what he's playing on a fretboard graphic and it's 90% in box one - I was amazed. Of course, it was Stevie Ray but the point is there is a lot more music to be made without ever leaving box one than we may realize.
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
There is a TON of mileage to be had in box 1, SRV was a master at it. There's a video/lesson that Anthony Stauffer does where he shows an entire song of Stevie Ray's (don't recall the song now) and what he's playing on a fretboard graphic and it's 90% in box one - I was amazed. Of course, it was Stevie Ray but the point is there is a lot more music to be made without ever leaving box one than we may realize.
95% of the intro solo to Texas Flood is the 4 note solo pattern... ALL of Little Wing is boxes 1 and 2... ALL of Riviera Paradise is boxes 1 and 2 (mostly box 1 in most cases.)

This is why I tell people that if you can't make music with 1 or 2 patterns, you don't need more patterns :)
 

OG_Blues

Guitar Geezer
Some observations.
Suppose you have a guitar with 24 frets. Most of you probably don't, but 24 frets gives us a worst case analysis.
This provides an instrument with a maximum range of 4 octaves.
Take ANY position on the neck spanning 4 frets, and that spans 2 octaves + 3 semi-tones - more than half of the total range of the instrument!!
Note that from any position, if you move your hand up 4 more frets, you have only added 4 additional frequencies / notes that you didn't have in the lower 4 fret position. Big deal.
What a crazy instrument.
 

OG_Blues

Guitar Geezer
95% of the intro solo to Texas Flood is the 4 note solo pattern... ALL of Little Wing is boxes 1 and 2... ALL of Riviera Paradise is boxes 1 and 2 (mostly box 1 in most cases.)

This is why I tell people that if you can't make music with 1 or 2 patterns, you don't need more patterns :)
It struck me that this is all largely a matter of perspective. I recall many years ago when Riviera Paradise first came out, I was taking lessons from a very good player locally - he could play any style from classical to country to blues, rock, flamenco - you name it - he could play it, and play it well. I commented to him how much I loved that song and SRV's playing style. His comment back was that Riviera Paradise only served to demonstrate SRV's "limitations". At the time I didn't understand his point. Now, when I look at a transcription of it, I clearly understand his point, but at the same time, he was really missing something very important, which is:
You don't need to get all fancy to communicate emotion in music.
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
It struck me that this is all largely a matter of perspective. I recall many years ago when Riviera Paradise first came out, I was taking lessons from a very good player locally - he could play any style from classical to country to blues, rock, flamenco - you name it - he could play it, and play it well. I commented to him how much I loved that song and SRV's playing style. His comment back was that Riviera Paradise only served to demonstrate SRV's "limitations". At the time I didn't understand his point. Now, when I look at a transcription of it, I clearly understand his point, but at the same time, he was really missing something very important, which is:
You don't need to get all fancy to communicate emotion in music.
I could not agree more. As a younger, more educated but less wise, man, I would have likely agreed with him. I've very much changed my tune in that department over the years.

But here's what is funny, doing something like using an E minor pentatonic scale over an F Major 7 chord (which I believe happens in that tune) could be labelled as super fancy and avante garde if you look at it from another instrument's perspective. A horn player would almost NEVER think to do that, but to Stevie it was a logical option. Maybe because he didn't know - or maybe because he did - we'll never know.
 
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