How to play the Devil's Blues:
1. Take any twelve bar blues chord progression that you like to play and repeat the twelfth bar for a thirteenth bar. This is the Devil's Blues. Repeat the twelfth bar one more time.
2. It doesn't really matter what you sing. Just play the regular blues for one extra measure. If you like: howling, barking and Grunting like a Pig are appropriate vocalizations; but using real words is always nice touch.
3. Repeat the jam with gusto and have an enthusiastic time, especially on the thirteenth bar. Spread chaos and uncertainty. Savor the moment.
4. Don't try jam this with musicians that are amateurs or easily manipulated. Seasoned Jazz or Blues musicians are the best candidates. Don't play this type of jam too frequently, or too many times in a single evening. Wait till late at night when everyone else is tired and run out of songs. 3:00 AM is when our hearing is most acute if we are still awake.
copyright(c)2015
William Schaeffer
I used to go home for lunch to eat and play the piano when I lived in Venice. For a while I saw this guy on the street corner playing acoustic guitar and wearing a dark workman's jumpsuit. He wore work boots and headgear that looked like some kind of a King Tut Bandana. I imagined he played and sang the blues all day long. One day I stopped and asked him if he wanted to jam for half an hour and invited him up to my apartment. He asked if I had anything to drink and I told him I had some wine he could drink.
ReplyDeleteI lived across the street and he came over. I gave him the bottle of wine while I got something to eat. By the time I was finished eating the wine was all gone. I sat down at the piano and asked if he wanted to tune his guitar and he said, "Sure." But every note I played, he twisted the gear head and played strings that had no relation to what he was doing, or what I was playing. It was very unsettling. So I told him that maybe I would just play a blues and he could play along. We played a lot of blues and he hammered and rasped on the dead strings of his acoustic guitar. He mumbled a lot of half sung words until at one point, he started howling like an animal. It was loud and unnerving, but perversely beautiful in an odd way. So I nodded and kept playing piano and he kept howling for a while until I realized that we had to go because it was time to go back to work.
We didn't talk much, but he thanked me for the wine. I saw him a few time again on the street for a while, but we never jammed again with the piano.
True story.
Ask yourself:
ReplyDeleteDo you enjoy watching Horror Movies?
Why?
Do like to sing and dance and make noise?
Why?
That's all...