Chords for Blackberry Blossom– Speed & Rhythm Guitar Exercise!

_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [G] _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
[G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [D] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _
[C] _ _ [D] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
Howdy, _ _ welcome to BanjoVinClark.com.
I am Banjo Vin, your host here on the website that teaches you how to play banjo and mandolin.
This week is Guitar Week and I've got a really fun one for you today.
We're going to do Blackberry Blossom.
I would call this an [E] intermediate version because there's not tons of tricks, we don't
go up the neck, but I've built it to also double as a great exercise for both your fretting
hand and your pick hand.
And I'll show you how that works once we get into it, but I end up using this a lot for
like a warm up piece [Bm] or to help build my speed.
We're also going to spend about 10 minutes talking about how to play rhythm for this
song, going over the regular chords but then also [N] talking about chord substitutions, bass
note substitutions, those types of things.
It's a lot of fun.
If you're watching on Facebook or YouTube here in a moment, I'll ask you to come over
to BanjoVinClark.com.
You can join as a Go Pick member, you can have access to this 30 minute lesson.
I've got the tabs exactly as I wrote it, I've got three different speeds of jam tracks that
you can download.
Plus, as a Go Pick member, you have access to all of my lessons, which there's hundreds
of them, so come check that out.
Let's jump right into Blackberry Blossom.
Let's learn a fun version for Blackberry [B] Blossom.
This is a great [G] old fiddle tune, it's in the key of G.
You know, it's got that typical fiddle tune structure [D] where we have an A part that lasts
eight measures, then it repeats it, and then [F#] we'll change chord progressions and melody
for the B part, which [A] lasts eight measures, then we'll repeat it.
So it's a total [G#m] of 32 measures.
[N] Let's go ahead and throw up the first line of tab there.
You'll notice that we have our pick stroke directions beneath each one of the notes,
so those are very, very important.
I want you to pay attention on these because I wrote this version not only to be fun to
play and to be able to tackle for you intermediate [B] players, but also because it's a [Em] wonderful,
wonderful exercise for both our pick hand and our fretting hand.
We'll get more into that.
You'll also notice there are [G#m] lots of chord changes in this one.
Look above the [A] tab there, you see all those chords.
The chords change pretty much twice per measure, so every two beats, which sounds really cool
with [G] the melody that we have.
Now we're in the key of G, so we have our typical [C] chords that we're going to see [D] in
the key of G, but the [A] A part's also going to have an A7 chord, [Em] and when we get to the
B part, we'll have an E minor [B] and a B7 chord, but we'll talk more about those coming up.
Okay, [G] so here's how we're going to work this as [N] far as an exercise.
This melody, if we were to really, really, really strip it down, [B] it would consist [Em] of
half notes that would sound like this.
Bum, [E] bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, [C] bum, bum, [A] bum, bum, [E] bum, bum, bum.
[N] Of course, there's a lot of filler notes in that, and there's a couple different ways
that we can fill those, and the ways that they're typically filled are what's called
a circular scale.
What do I mean by circular scale?
A circular scale is when you follow a scale, and you go up a few notes, and then you circle
back around to a lower note, and climb again, climb again, climb again.
You can also do it descending.
An example of that, if I was to do it with a G scale starting down here, it would sound like this.
[Em] _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ So you [N] get the feeling of that, how that sounds.
[G] Well, this melody is kind of built out of that type of movement, and so there's a couple
different ways we can do it.
As we [G#] start down that melody note in measure three, it's labeled measure three, even though
it's the second measure [G] on the line, we're going to [Em] begin to climb up the scale, _ _ _ [G] and
then come back to our origination note.
_ Then our [F#] melody goes down to the fourth fret, and we climb again.
[F#m] _ Then it goes [E] down again, and we climb.
_ [D] And then we're going to rest there with a quarter note on the third beat of measure four.
_ [C] And then we're going to begin another climb, so as we come to measure [B] five, we begin this
climb over a C [A] chord, [C] _ then over a G chord.
[Bm] _ Then we're going to start a climb back up the scale, but we're going to [B] follow an A
scale here in measure [F#] six, [E] and then a D [A] scale.
_ [F#] Okay, now later on we're going to change that up.
But this is really cool, because the melody, if you think about [G] it, the melody is going
bum [F#m]-ba-da-dum-ba-da-dum-ba-da-dum [C]-ba-da-dum-ba-da [A]-dum-ba-da-dum-ba-da-dum.
So the melody is going down, but the [G] inside movements of the song are climbing.
_ [E] _ _ _ [D] _ _
[C] _ _ _ [E] _ So what I would really recommend, almost demand, is that you pay attention to these pick stroke
directions, okay, if you're not experienced with those, because we're skipping a lot of
strings, we're going back and forth, so we're [D#] going to have to be catching up strokes on
lower strings, and down strokes on higher strings, all kinds of combinations, [F#] and this
is where it's really going to serve well to work as an exercise.
Let's play through this first line [G] somewhat slow together, [E] and then I'll play it much,
much slower for you later on.
One, [Em] two, three, [E] four. _
[G] _ _ _ [F#m] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ [Bm] _ _ [C#m] _ _
_ _ [A] Measure seven, we're going to repeat that same [Em] movement coming down.
_ _ We've seen all this before.
[A] _ _
_ [B] And then we're going to wrap up here in measure ten with just the end of that phrase.
[G] _ _ _ Now as we go into the second A part, _ the melody essentially stays the same, we're just going
to tackle it a different way.
So the melody is still going to go_
Bum ba [E] da dum, ba da dum, ba [C] da dum, ba da bum [A] bum bum, ba da bum bum bum.
[E] This time instead [G] of doing that climbing circular scale, [E] _ _ [C] we're going to do a descending circular
scale, so we're just going to reverse the movement.
So [G] instead of going open two four, open, we're going to go open four [A] two, open.
So we're flipping [G] all of those movements around.
[D] _ _ [F#m] That's what measure eleven sounds like, and we get [G] to measure twelve.
_ _ [C] _ [G] _ _ _ [A] _ [D] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _
[Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _