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Ray Benson nails down the essential techniques of this exciting hybrid of country, jazz and blues. To solidify your rhythm playing, Ray dissects Eldon Shamblin's traveling bass lines and Freddie Green's comping and damping methods. Then he shows how to create hot lead lines and apply them to well-known western swing tunes, such as "Faded Love," "Take Me Back Back To Tulsa," "Roly Poly," "Redwing," "Fat Boy Rag" and "Milk Cow Blues." Hearing Ray trade licks with the legendary Johnny Gimble is an added treat.
Note: This lesson is for acoustic as well as electric players.
(about 80 minutes)
This video was added to our catalog on April 29, 2005 in Musical Instruction::Guitar.
Product availability: available now, ships immediately!
This is a spectacular video. Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel has a teaching style that is friendly, down-to-earth, and unaffected. One can not help but absorb the genuine and intense passion that this great and humble instructor imparts without ever being intimidated or overhwelmed. The sign of a superior teacher is one whom does "task analysis", i.e. - breaks the process into each individual step, bit-by-bit. with great patience. and recalls explicitly what it was like to once be a beginner.
Ray doesn't skip over anything, the tablature booklet is absolutely accurate; although, one must learn how to "swing". Therefore, straight 8th notes are notated as "triplet 8ths". Instead of even, even, even; the "feel" is either long-short or short-long. In Morse Code, this is analagous to dah dit and dit dah. Do a lot of historical research and listening of your own and pretty soon, you , too, will be one swingin' cat!
My background is in the intense study of classical guitar on a nylon-string instrument but I started at age 15 with the electric: blues, rock, and some 'easier' jazz-blues pieces such as Mr. P.C. by John Coltrane. 8 bar minor blues.
Western Swing, as a genre, and through the expertise of Ray Benson - will help you develop tremendously as a musician. You'll have full mastery over symmetrical and hybrid scales by default. Ray is not a huge fan of practicing sclaes and neither am I! They're good for warm-up, cool down, and are a tool box - so to speak. But scales aren't music. Pretty soon, you will be constructing your own lines by osmosis and building from familar blues ideas.
The great thing about this style of music is that it ties in blues, jazz, fingerstyle/classical right-hand technique with moving bass lines (polyphony) ala Ed Shamblin, hybrid picking (holding the plectrum with the thumb and indext finger but using m, a, and c without a pick. m = medio, a = anular (ring finger), c = cejilla (pinky, little finger). You'll hear traces of Appalachian, bluegrass, big band (Count Basie, Duke), and 18th and 19th century Celtic music! What an awesome amalgam.
If you're interested in Django Reinhardt - Western Swing will improve your "gypsy jazz" playing for certain! You're gonna know your minor 6th chords inside out, diminished arpeggios, pentatonic, heptatonic scales, rakes, and all kinds of cool stuff.
Even if you're NOT a musician, rent this video for the sheer enjoyment of the music being performed. You can enjoy (most) of the DVD for its own sake, if you're not a formal student of music. Just enjoy it as a listener.
I hope that my review hasn't been too lengthy or scared anyone off. Ray is super laid-back and I've added some of my own commentary relating to his instruction. Rent it!!
This is a very good video, but you better know how to read music, understand and know your chords. I really did enjoy it, I'm just not to that level, I mean not even close. Danny
