Old Bull Band

Back in the 1960s there were not too many really good acoustic blues finger pickers around. American students of the old acoustic guitar styles had rounded up all the living blues men and copied their techniques, writing it down on paper as they went. Students such as Stefan Grossman and others did a great service to future generations by putting together a simple tablature system for other students to follow. It definitely cut corners - in place of listening to the old blues and attempting to work out where to put your fingers, it was written out, and accelerated the learning activity.

Very shortly, many guitarists were taking on the most complex ragtime arrangements, and finger picking became more and more complex, with players using a thumb, two, three and sometimes all fingers to finger pick! How did this situation originate? Maybe in an attempt to copy the techniques of the old guitarists such as Blind Arthur Blake and Gary Davis, more fingers were brought into use. It was a shortcut, and meant that 1 finger needn't move so fast, which was how the old guys played, its not quite that easy. Even when the picking is correct technically speaking, there is frequently a certain thing lacking in modern performances - a delicate change in the tempo and that elusive feeling that talks to the listener. One finger passing quickly over the strings gives a particular emphasis to the beat, which cannot be imitated with more fingers. Also, the bass strike changes it's attack and force when several fingers are used.

The hunt for technical complexity can become the Holy Grail for guitarists, but it's wrong to look at it this way. Not many guitarists can equal the strength of the old blues men,simply because the basic techniques don't make a good enough foundation. There are no short cuts to the strength of the blues. Listen to the bass lines of blues men like Big Bill Broonzy and Lightnin Hopkins. Hopkins could strike just 1 note and make your spine tingle. It isn't the complex technique that makes the blues, but the spirit and power behind it.

Learning how to play blues guitar is a two pronged battle. First off, we need to train our motor skills to competently perform the music. When we know where our fingers should go, its basically a case of playing over and over again for many hours a week. It is that an expert player has approximately 10 000 hours of practice time to his credit. Tommy Emmanuel once estimated that he had played around 100 000 hours in his life, which adds up to about 5 hours a day, every day! Guitar players often say that improvement arrives in levels - you stick at one level of competence for a lengthy period, and then it seems as though you jump to the next. Naturally, the progress is because of regular practice.

We have all watched very competent guitarists perform and been totally bored after 5 mins, just because there is no feeling - it just doesn't mean anything. Every now and again, technical skill and feeling will gel in one person, and then we see some magic. Of course, everything is relative, and guitar picking is no exception. Even though Clapton is considered a legend, his acoustic finger picking technique appears quite basic when compared to Tommy Emmanuel, who can literally play anything. It happens now and again we feel completely blocked and need something to push us through the 'wall'. Often, the blockage is purely psychological. An old playing partner of mine left town for a year or so, and we spoke on the telephone now and again. One time he told me he could now play 'Police Dog Blues' by Arthur Blake, which is a formidable song to play properly. Up until that point, I could never play it. My old partner was always a slightly guitarist, and I was very competitive, and so I learned it inside one week. When he returned, I let him know that I could play Police Dog Blues as well. He let out a laugh and exclaimed, "I can't play it at all - too difficult. I was just having fun with you." There's a lesson there.