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Guitar Lessons and Workshops New CD, "Sweet Pea" Now Available Here! New! Why I Love National Guitars
Jitterbug Swing Transcription Your Head's Too Big Transcription
Pickin' with Catfish
These
pages are for all you guitar pickers, and include
articles, tips, secrets
and songs.
I recently updated the info below to include the new National
Baritone Polychrome Tricone guitar, and there's tab
and music
for Your Head's Too Big (which
is in standard tuning,
Key of C), from my Cherry Ball
CD. Thanks to
Cliff Brown for transcribing this! Any questions, email
or call. Enjoy!
- Catfish
PS. I'm now offering individual guitar lessons and
workshops,
and New Nationals (see
the links above). Thanks!
The Voice of the Blues
~ by Catfish Keith ~
Article in Fingerstyle Guitar, Issue 19, Jan-Feb 1997
This
article is originally from Catfish Keith's Guitar
Gems
Tablature Book
A newer version also appears on the
National Reso-Phonic
Guitar website.
Nothing
knocked me out more than the first time
I heard solo country blues. I was coming up as a teenager, in
Davenport,
Iowa, and one day I heard my first Son House number, "Death
Letter". That was it! Wow! From
that moment on, I
was hooked on that crying, singing sound that still makes my hair stand
up. I couldn't believe how much music was coming from just
one
person. The combination of stomping feet, deeply felt vocals,
and
propulsive, from-the-gut, string-popping slide guitar left my jaw
dangling to
the ground. I was floored by this music. My life
was
changed
forever.
While my high school buddies in the 1970s were into disco and heavy metal, I went deeper and deeper with my mission of discovering the very roots of American music, and found a treasure trove of exciting, obscure musical gems from Mississippi delta blues masters like Charley Patton, Booker White, Mississippi Fred MacDowell, Johnny Shines, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, and Son House to ragtime blues guitarists like Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Big Bill Broonzy, to sanctified pickers Blind Willie Johnson, Rev. Gary Davis, and Rev. Robert Wilkins. Often, one guitarist made the sound of two or three guitars, playing bass, rhythm, melody, harmony, and counterpoint at the same time! There were also many other influences and styles working their way into my repertoire, including early jazz of Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, and Bix Beiderbecke, island music of the Caribbean and Hawaii, with Joseph Spence and Sol Hoopii as major heroes. Old-time fiddle tunes, zydeco, and New Orleans R&B were in there too. Needless to say, nobody at school had any idea what I was talking about! But I didn't care. I was just tickled to be soaking up this great music.
Times have changed since those days of years ago. Early recordings of the 1920's and '30s, once almost secretly passed from the hands of one zealot 78 record collector to another, are now available on Compact Disc compilations in chain stores for everyone to enjoy. Hundreds of new and old blues recordings are released every year on major and independent labels. Blues festivals and blues societies have sprung up all over the U.S. and abroad, and a handful of blues-based artists have become certified rock stars. Blues is the soundtrack for beer and soap commercials. You can learn the notes easily from mountains of books, videos, and at guitar workshops. Blues legends are working and touring more than ever. Times have never been better for the blues.
Bottleneck Slide Guitar
SLIDE GUITAR SET-UP
To play slide, you must first have your guitar set up properly for the best tone and playability. On my albums and live, until about 1998, I've played on my 1930 National steel-bodied Style O resonator guitar. These are great sounding old guitars, especially for slide and delta blues. Many blues, jazz, hillbilly, and Hawaiian guitarists played Nationals, and before the electric guitar caught on, were the loudest, shiniest, funkiest guitars available.
In
recent years I've been favoring my 1999
National Baritone
Polychrome Tricone guitar (pictured below)
from National
Reso-Phonic Guitars in San Luis Obispo, California. This has
been my main touring and recording steel-bodied National since the day
I got it. This special instrument has a longer scale length (a couple
inches longer than a standard National neck) and is tuned lower (see
below). The strings are also quite a bit heavier (.068-.017 on
mine). The neck meets the body at the 13th fret , and adds
two
more frets to the length of the neck, and enables you to go 3-5 half
steps lower than normal.
I'd
been seeking this huge, deep tone for quite some time and the cats at National
Reso-Phonic really came through with
a revolutionary,
very special guitar for me. Because of the Baritone Tricone's
popularity, this is an in-demand catalog item for them now,
and is available usually by special
order.
If you
are interested in buying a new National (of any
kind), please
email or call, I'd be happy to help. I've assisted lots of folks get
their dream guitar, and, by special arrangement with National, I can
get you prices as good or better than most dealers (always 20%
off
list
price and no sales tax unless you live in Iowa). Also, I'm
always
available for any and all advice I can lend about these great
instruments.
You can set up any steel-string acoustic guitar for slide. The nut of the guitar must be slightly higher (around the thickness of a matchbook cover), so the strings are higher over the fretboard than for regular guitar playing. You should still be able to fret the strings as well as slide comfortably without clonking the frets with the slide. A qualified guitar repair person should be able to set you up right.
Note: BE CAREFUL choosing a repair person. Try to get a couple of (or lots of) recommendations from respected players before taking your dear guitar into the shop.
SLIDING STRINGS
For the best slide tone for your guitar, heavier gauged strings, especially on the top two treble strings, are generally better. I use these gauges on my 1930 Style O and 1998 Delphi Nationals, in Phosphor Bronze:
Low
to High:
.056 .045
.035
.026
.019(plain) .017(plain)
On my
Baritone National, I use these gauges, also in Phosphor
Bronze:
Low
to High: .068 .056
.042
.030 .019(plain) .017(plain)
CAUTION: Many acoustic guitars are not made for heavy string tension. Be careful not to put strings on your guitar that are heavier than the recommended gauges.
IMPORTANT:
Don't tune your guitar too high! It could pull some
(especially
wooden acoustic guitars) apart!
Tune no higher than a D or G-tuning, and if you notice the bridge area
raising on your acoustic guitar raising,
use lighter gauge strings. The new Nationals are pretty tough, with
double truss rods, but they say if you tune to an E or A Tuning, take
the tension off the strings before putting the guitar away.
OPEN TUNINGS FOR SLIDE PLAYING
Although
there are dozens of
variations, I use these two traditional open chord tunings for slide,
often flatted a half step:
· Open-D, Vasserpoo or Vestibule Tuning. Low to High: DADF#AD
· Open G,
Spanish or
Hawaiian
Tuning. Low to High: DGDGBD
On
the Baritone National, I use the same tunings,
only pitched lower, starting at B or B-flat.
FINGERPICKS OR NAKED FINGERS?
I use a large plastic thumbpick on the right hand thumb, and two metal fingerpicks for the index and middle fingers, but for me, especially on the steel guitar, picks help make a sharper, louder tone and help save your fingers.
GET A GOOD SLIDE
There are many kinds of slides to choose from; everybody has a different preference. Some use a metal tube or pipe (Son House used a piece of copper tubing), or a spark-plug socket. These have a brasher, more metallic tone, but have the advantage of being shatterproof (and multi-purpose).
Some of the old-time slide guitarists used a knife. Cedell Davis used a butter knife. Legend has it that Blind Willie Johnson used a straight razor for a slide. Makes for a sharper tone, but sounds mighty dangerous!
My
preference is a glass slide,
made from a wine bottle. Glass has a weepier, richer sound
than
metal.
You can make your own or buy commercially made slides in the music
stores, and
remember the thicker the glass, the thicker your tone will
be.
The glass
in many wine bottles (the kind with corks, not screw-on tops) is nice,
thick,
and smooth, and makes for the best sound.
You can
also buy
slides
here online, just like mine (pictured below), through this
website,
individually handmade from wine bottles by Roger Gohl of Sly Devil Slides in
Los Angeles. Email
me if you want more info on
custom lengths, double cut slides, etc.
PUT IT ON YOUR PINKIE!
Putting your slide on your left hand pinkie finger leaves your other left hand fingers free to fret notes and make chords without the slide, and also to damp the strings behind the slide. Some guitarists like Son House and Bonnie Raitt use the slide on the ring or middle finger, but generally, having the slide on your pinkie is the best bet.
SLIDE PLAYGROUND
Unlike fretting the strings, playing with the bottleneck involves setting the slide directly above a fret, with light pressure on the string with the slide when plucked. Try it on the high D (first) string in Open-D tuning, with the slide angled slightly away from the neck, so you are only resting the slide on the high string. Then, pluck the string with your right hand index finger, and slide up the neck slowly from the third fret to the fourth fret. Ahhh!! Vibrate the slide slightly (left & right) along the string at the end of the phrase to give it that vibrato like a gospel singer. That's it!
The difference between playing slide and regular guitar is like the difference between a violin and a ukulele. Think of the slide as a woman's voice. Some of the notes will be bent or "blue" notes that are 1/4 to 2/3rds above the fret. The ability to bend and vibrate these vocal-sounding notes is what makes slide guitar so haunting.
Jitterbug Swing
This piece comes from the
powerful singing and playing of Mississippi slide guitarist Booker
White.
His driving rhythms and improvisational approach have always knocked me
out! He called his approach to music "Sky Songs" because as
he
said, "I just pull them out of the sky!"
A
crucial technique in "Jitterbug
Swing", as in all of my solo blues playing, is right hand
thumb
damping. This involves using the pad, or "meat" of your thumb
to dampen the bass strings while they are being played. The
pad
of the
thumb must be placed near the bridge, over the bass strings to dampen
the bass
note being struck by the thumb. So, in an Open-D alternating
bass
pattern:
Instead of a "boom-ding boom-ding boom-ding" sound, with damping, you get a "Boop-DANK Boop-DANK Boop-DANK" sound, with that funky accent on the second beat. So put that slide on your pinkie and have at it!
Jitterbug Swing Transcription Your Head's Too Big Transcription
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