Chords for Johnny Hiland Guitar Lesson - #2 Working Man Blues Rhythm

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Ok folks now we're going to talk to you about one of my favorite rhythms in the
world and it's the rhythm for working man blues _ and that's an old Merle
Haggard tune that we love to play in Nashville and of course I'm sure you
all do around the world _ _ but it has this kind of rhythm. _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Now _ actually I love to
teach this in the working man blues _ realm but I also love this same rhythm
in my rockabilly playing and the only difference really in that is that you
learn how to set your delay _ differently when you play it in the rockabilly but
getting back into that we'll cover rockabilly here in a little bit and
getting back into the working man thing what I want to do _ _ is of course working
man blues we like to play commonly in A because that's the favorite chord of
everybody playing electric guitar _ but I want to teach this in B _ and now let me
explain _ this is a very percussive _ style _ and what I'm doing here _ is the pick is
covering the percussive aspect the fingernails are grabbing the chordal
part underneath _ so I'm going to show you in B because _ _ there's no open strings
here I'm borrowing across the whole [B] seventh fret _ _ _ _ _ so the pick is going down
up _ and _ [Bb] then my I'm actually adding _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ an E flat note _ _ _ _ _ _ _ so it's just making actually
like a B7 chord is what I'm doing here _ _ and _ _ _ then I'm gonna reach down with my
third finger [E] _ _ and [B] make that like a sus4 kind of _ I guess you would yeah that is
a sus4 because we're not playing the full four chord _ so but what I'm doing is
I'm just playing the _ _ _ chord on the bottom and the percussive part happens with the
pick on the top part so it sounds like this really slow _
[A] so [B] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ you can hear there's
a percussive part and there's a chordal part so as long as we get the percussive
part right then the chord should fall right into place _ so I'm double hitting
so _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ there's a little ghost note pop on that B in between _ the actual seventh
chord and the [B] sus4 _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[B] and then we double hit again _ _ all [E] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ right I know that sounds a
little weird guys and it is percussive so just follow me again we're going to
double pick _ _ kind _ _ of the hammer on to get the chord right _ _ single _ pick [E] _
_ _ _ double pick _ _
[B] _ _ _ single [B] pick again _ so _ _ _ _ we're kind of single picking the on the bass part to
kind of finish out that lick _ and I call it a lick because essentially it's one
of the hardest rhythms to teach in country guitar _ I'm teaching it with the
bar because there's no open strings to get confused with and I'm going to show
you why here in a second so _ the fun thing that I tell people to do when
learning this working man blue style rhythm _ is to sometimes play it as fast
as you can even if it sounds crappy just play it anyway _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ now let's take the
chords out of that and let's hear the percussive part _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ here it almost sounds
like a drum beat _ _ _ _ _ _ _ so _ you're creating _ this actual rhythm _ _ that is real percussive
_ and so you're creating actually a percussive line versus a rhythm I guess _ _ _
it's actually really fun and I definitely want you guys to pick this up
because _ it's it's hilariously fun and a lot of guys can't pull it off so you're
learning it right here first at true fire that's right _ so again I'm going to
play this really slow _ and I'll try to get it as slow as I possibly can so the
good folks here at true fire can use their camera magic and pick up
everything that I'm doing to pull this off _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
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_ _ now as I play this slow you can hear
the percussiveness of what we're trying to achieve _ _ _ now I'm going to move it back
into the position of the key of a now _ and you're [Abm] going to see that there's a
little bit of confusion that can go on when you're teaching this out of a
because we have that open a string and then the bass note _ that I'm telling you
guys I always tell you to walk the base when you play rhythm and I think it's
important but in this case _ I actually tend to _ _
[N] kind of sweep those top two
strings and it sounds confusing to the learner to the student and that they
think I'm playing some kind of an extra ghost note when I'm really not so an a
it [Am] sounds _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ now what I'm doing to cheat a little bit if you will as I'm putting my
thumb _ wrapped over the top on the a note _ so I have two a's _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ so now that I'm _
barring in the a position I have the a open because we need that string open
right _ but it's the same rhythmic content and everything I'm just not playing on
the low e to get the bass notes or the percussive notes I'm actually using the
open a to do that _ but I'm using the e the low e string is kind of a roll _ _ _ _ into
the [Am] a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ now can you get crazy and have a little more fun where you're moving I _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
guess when I move to this _ _ there is a little bit of a ghost note if you want
to create one _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ now I'm going to actually add to [D] this and have a little more fun
with you one of the things that I love to do when I play the working man style
is I like to add a bar on the seven which is our D position _ _ with the D G and
B string right _ but then I love adding this court [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ now what I'm doing here is
I'm playing kind of an a7 triad _ kind _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [Db] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Am] of like what you would play in blues but
we're playing in the country context and it's you know so if we play all that
together we have _ now _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
when I actually finish that actual pull [D] _
_ _ it's almost like
I'm on a G here _ _ _ _ _ _ and it kind of does give that overtone of a G _ and it kind of
lingers a little bit that's okay that kind of gives it a _ _ little bit of
attitude I guess is the proper word or gives a little _ sassafras _ _ so _ so that's
actually a fun thing to do and you can add once you grow on this working man
blue style you'll find that you can move all across the fretboard and have fun
with it of course I've played this rhythm style for a number of years so
now I can take [Am] it _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ _
now _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ [Bb] _ _ [D] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
I know that you guys that love [Db] steel guitar bends all
I'm doing is playing a G double stop on the bottom [A] _ [G] and _ _ _ [A] what I'm doing here
that's with my second finger on the fifth fret _ D string and my first finger
on the fourth fret G string and what I'm doing is bending that G string down a
whole tone _ so _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] does that give you some cool rhythm ideas yeah because then you
can move that around even further so you can _ [Em] _ _ if you move it back to the a
position [A] the same bend or double stop bend just remember the a _ _ _ on the third
note of the a scale 1 2 3 right which is a C sharp note remember on this position
only half a half bend _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and then when you get down to the G it's a whole whole
tone bend _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ right _ _ [E] so that's actually something you can add to the working
man blue style as well _ _ _ adding licks to this kind of rhythm _ yes you can do that _
but you have to get real good at the percussive side of that rhythm style _ if
you don't you can get yourself really messed up now have I done that in the
past yes folks I have yes I'm proud to admit that I have made _ _ just tons of
mistakes playing this style the working man blue style is a lot of fun _ _ and it's
invigorating and it's a happy sound it's bubbly it keeps you excited _ I know when
I play it it's it's very moving for me and emotional _ when you see people get
really just _ crazy happy when they hear that rhythm style come out and in a
chicken pickers life it's really important to have this style of rhythm
_ _ you can move it around any which way you want to you know you can play it and be
like [B] I showed you [E] _ _ _ [C] you can play it and see _
_ _ [D] _ [G] _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ now you can move the working man
rhythm around _ using _ the _ _ _ _ _ _ same _ approach if you will so _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ [A] _ _ [D] _ yes you can play that if you
want but actually what I tend to like to do is play either a seven chord _ or _ _ [Am] like
a like a nine chord _ _ _ _ _ _ right and it makes it a lot easier now one of the fun
things that I love to do when I play the working man style rhythm and I'm
sorry I kind of jumped away from the licks thing but we'll get back to that
_ _ one thing I love to do when I play a four chord and a five chord over working
man _ is that I can have fun rolling the bass line _ so I'll play
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_ _ [E] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ _ _ _ _ _
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