So on my Journey as a modern day, lone guitar bluesman…like I shared in the last post…I found a Blues guitar Sensei…which again, what most people don’t know, or realize…so did Robert Johnson. Now, I walk around with my slide, because I never know when I will be in the presence of an acoustics, and I can get a little playing in. So Sensei hands me a guitar and say’s “so me what ya got!” I pulls out my slide and gets busy….or at least what I think is getting busy. And when I’m done, his response was…wow, this is in you…you just need some technique…which is what we discussed the other day. After we went through some techniques, he pulls out the Tabs…which is the visual representation of the sound…(that’s how I describe it at the least) so he lays out the music sheet, point’s to a tab, and says “play that” we went through this exercise for about 20 minutes….and to both of our surprise, I understood everything, and was able to read it and play it back without hesitation. Now why is this such and accomplishment? First, according to sensei, majority of  his students don’t get the tabs….for what ever reason, second, for me, someone who taught themselves the basics of just picking it up and playing…I was a little taken back that I was able to grasp that Theory side of Blues guitar…especially since this is also a career goal…..being able to write what I play can raise the ante for publishing. 

I’ve come to realize TABS, as well as everything else, probably only scares people who never really attacked them before. In the early days, when Bluesman where more of the traveling nomad type…just me and my guitar riding trains and things, I can’t really say if they took the time to write the music, or if they even read TABS. I kinda believe they more less just did what I did in the beginning which is just pick the damn thing up and start playing, and when you run into someone with more skill, learn a lick or two by watching….Now I could be wrong, but I think Robert Johnson’s playing stands out because, though he initially taught himself, he actually found a teacher, sensei so to speak, who taught his the ends and outs of that guitar…TABS included..

until the next time…Keep Blues’n babay’s