Skip James' Style: Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
A sort of lesson in playing in the open-Dm style of Skip James.
Traditional acoustic guitar styles
I'm trying to use audio in conjunction with tabs I've done to better explain playing traditional fingerstyle guitar.
Story behind the song
Several people have asked me to do it so I did it.
Lyrics
(Copy This To Notepad Courier New Regular 10-Font)
(The directional symbols should be little triangles
pointing in the proper direction which may or
may not come through correctly.)
#-----------------------------------PLEASE NOTE-------------------------------#
# This file is the author's own work and represents his interpretation of the #
# music below. It's intent is for study or scholarship purposes only and is #
# not intended for publication, nor for any other commercial use whatsoever. #
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------#
Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
(Skip James)
If you're looking for a note-for-note tab from the movie "O Brother Where Art
Thou", this isn't it. This is in the style it was played originally by Skip
James. Quite similar to the movie, but not exactly. That's how these styles of
tunes were done back in the '20s and '30s as traditional country blues tunes.
It's difficult to really explain how to play a tune like this from tab, but
there have been so many requests that I'll try my best. Skip James' style in
open D-Minor is largely composed of several "signature licks" that when added
to the general progression of the tune make it very recognizeable as a Skip
James piece. I learned to play tunes in Skip's style many years ago from an
Virginia bluesman named Bowling Green John Cephas. John, often considered to
be probably the foremost living expert on Skip James' Bentonia Style Dm blues,
knew Skip personally and learned from Skip himself. This will be a somewhat
simplified version. The best way to really do it properly is to become familiar
with the tuning and finger-style playing in this style and add and improvise
as you go, which is how both Skip and Bowling Green played it. I guess the
best way to start is by giving the open D-minor tuning (Open E-minor can also
be used but is harder on your strings and guitar neck). Tab would be identical
for either open D-minor (DADFAD) or open E-minor (EBEGBE). Put down your pick.
This must be played with your fingers.
ABOUT USING THE TAB BELOW:
This is simplified a bit in order to make it easier to become familiar
with and start playing right away so that you can eventually get into
improv'ing and adding as you become more familiar with the licks and the
fret-board in this tuning. Everything below can be played with the thumb
and index finger only. There are a couple of basic positions to work out
of and go into. Doing that a certain way generally makes it easier and so
I'll show those couple of figures. Below some of the tabbed lines I'll
run a separate line showing how to pick that note in what's probably the
best way, like this: ....v...^..., etc. Obviously ^ means thumb-downward
and v means index finger-upward. A "pinch" will be ^v. This might seem a
bit unnecessary and obvious, and probably is, but there are a couple of
parts that might be a little unclear, and so I'd rather over-explain than
under-explain! (NOTE: as I typed this the symbols ^ and v are tiny points
showing up or down. This symbol may or may not be available to you and show
as something else when copied. I did this tab on Notepad using Courier New
10-Font. I located those symbols from Microsoft Word using the INSERT drop-
down and then SYMBOLS and copied them to Notepad for this tab.)
This tune is played in open-Dm of course but it's actually probably in the
key of D-major. The constant back and forth between major and minor is what
gives it it's "blueness." The open-minor chord is frequently hammered into
the major by the 3rd-string on the 1st-fret with the index-finger, moving
from 000000 (Dm) to 000100 (Dmaj). (That sequence is often followed by the
open 1st-string D-note.)
On the little slid "signiture riff" (Line 1) it's easiest to use the
middle finger on the 3rd-string to slide up into the 4th-fret (from about
the 3rd-fret) and back to the s
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