chuck berry riff

  1. ald
    ald
    Not quite blues (well, the Stones did copy him in the early days), but as it is all quiet on the blues mando front, may I ask a question about a Chuck Berry riff?
    I am trying to convert a riff for RO Beethoven to the mandolin. The guitar piece I've seen is in eb, which I have taken down to G. The guitarist does this neat little slide on three strings and a pull off on three strings. On mandolin this works out as (string one) slide from 6th fret to 5 to 3 (string two), slide- 8, 7,5 (string three) slide 8,7, 5. That is not too: bad on string one I hold down the 3rd fret and slide down, on strings two and three I bar fret five with my second finger and slide down with my pinky.

    The next bit is more tricky, rather than sliding the guitarist pulls off using 6,5, 3 (that's OK, I use fingers 3,2,1) but on strings two and three , pulling off with pinky, fourth finger and second fingers (so as to make the quick transition is most uncomfortable to me. Should I perserve or are there any other suggestions please. What mode is this by the way? A mixture of major and minor penatonic?
  2. ald
    ald
    correction of typos:

    Not quite blues (well, the Stones did copy him in the early days), but as it is all quiet on the blues mando front, may I ask a question about a Chuck Berry riff?
    I am trying to convert a riff for RO Beethoven to the mandolin. The guitar piece I've seen is in eb, which I have taken down to G. The guitarist does this neat little slide on three strings and a pull off on three strings. On mandolin this works out as (string one) slide from 6th fret to 5 to 3 (string two), slide- 8, 7,5 (string three) slide 8,7, 5. That is not too bad: on string one I hold down the 3rd fret and slide down, on strings two and three I bar fret five with my second finger and slide down with my pinky.

    The next bit is more tricky, rather than sliding the guitarist pulls off using 6,5, 3 (that's OK, I use fingers 3,2,1) but on strings two and three , pulling off with pinky, fourth finger and second fingers (so as to make the quick transition) is most uncomfortable to me. Should I perservere or are there any other suggestions please? What mode is this by the way? A mixture of major and minor penatonic?
  3. JimRichter
    JimRichter
    Chuck Berry is a valid point of discussion for the Blues Group for several reasons:

    1) He recorded on Chess Records, along w/ Muddy, Willie Dixon, etc.
    2) He wanted to be on Chess because he idolized Muddy
    3) His guitar playing was greatly influenced by T-Bone Walker. Every riff that Berry plays can be connected to T-Bone. All that differs is the tempo and shuffle.
    4) Berry was also greatly influenced by country acts, most notably, Bill Monroe. Chuck Berry's, T-Bones, and Elmore James riffs can easily work their way into mandolin vocabulary because the only thing that differentiates them from Bill Monroe is rhythm. On my forthcoming album, Compton and me do a duet on a tune I wrote called Elmore Meets Bill. It's great to hear Compton play on a certified uptempo blues shuffle.

    Here's a demo of it in D (original key--or at least the key for the Beatles--my Chuck is on LP and haven't got it over to MP3 yet) and then in G



    In another thread I talked about the swing approaches to blues scales (Kansas City, Memphis, West Coast, Texas). The Chuck Berry Vocabulary is a great example. It uses the I-ii-biii-iii-IV-bV-V-vi-bvii. When it gets particularly jazz, you'll hear the major 7th as well (as opposed to the dominant "flatted" 7th). It's a mix of the major and minor pentatonic scales. BB King floats in and out of both, as he's aspiring to play horn lines. All the West Coast guys--Hollywood Fats, Junior Watson, Alex Schultz, do this. Freddie King and Gatemouth Brown are other great examples.

    To my ears, it seems that those guys heavily influenced by horns or playing with horn bands, tend to have this broadened swing approach. Those guys with more rural or straight blues (Albert King, Buddy Guy, Magic Sam) tend to stay in one pentatonic or the other.

    Many may differ with my assessment, and they would be right as well. Blues is such a big open bag that you can't limit yourself to minor pentatonic, major pentatonic, 3 chords, 12 bars, etc. etc. You play what you hear and feel. Shoot--ever listen to Lightin' Hopkins or John Lee Hooker? Those guys made the most sense when playing by themselves. They'd play 13 bars, 1/2 bars, changes in weird places. They played what came through them without concern of convention.
  4. ald
    ald
    Jim, that is absolutely fabulous playing, wonderfully informative comments. Lovely. I hope you are going to add similarly instructive notes to your recording. When can we hope to see it appear? I can't wait to see it.
  5. ald
    ald
    I say Jim, is that run down (on the second and 3rd strings) fed / cba two pull offs using fingers, 321 and 432 respectively ?
  6. JimRichter
    JimRichter
    I don't use my pinky anywhere in there. The run down is always Ring, Middle, Index.

    In D, the rundown is F, E, D (8, 7, 5) and then C, B, A (3, 2, 0)--all down on the same string (2nd).

    In G, it was Bb, A, G (6, 5, 3) on the 1st string and then F, E, D (8, 7, 5) on the second.

    The important thing with doing those pull-offs--and make it sound like Chuck Berry--is to make sure that each set of three is on the same string. For G, this meant moving from 1st string to 2nd string to get that pull off.
  7. ald
    ald
    Thanks, Jim. I somehow thought it would be faster to move over and use my pinky but now I use your method I see it is quite feasible. Your fingers were moving like lightening so I couldn't see what you were doing. In the guitar piece I was struggling to emulate the performer just held down a bar and pulled off on three strings down to the bar (excuse my inelegant way of expressing that) but it obviously doesn't work that way on the mandolin.
  8. JimRichter
    JimRichter
    Let me clarify about the "scale" I posted up there--it's really hard to call it a scale. In some older jazz and swing, outside of the blues scale, you're playing through chord tones and shapes. So over a D9, you'd might use D-F#-A-C-D-E as the focus of your tones. Playing with chord shapes is one of the cornerstones to Chuck Berry or Bill Monroe. It's really hard to think of any of that as pentatonic or even scalar playing.
  9. ald
    ald
    I'm not sure if this is the right column to post this question but I don't want to start another topic and clog the blues section up with unnecessary titles.
    Once again, not strictly a blues tune but I've been playing Bring it on home to me for a long time. I used to bang it out on the piano in the key of G. Just the chords, nothing fancy.
    I've been tinkering with the tune on mandolin. I've had to bring it down to D (age has caught up with me) for my voice. I've kind of worked out a solo with double stops. I start on the low end kind of doing a bit of a downward progression, then set myself up for a second verse a bit higher with a double stop on the 5th fret first string and eighth fret 2nd string..... And then I run out of steam (or rather inspiration). I've listened to various tunes on you tube but they always tend to be with electric guitars which makes me hard to see how I could pinch a few tricks for the mandolin. Any ideas welcome (not sure that it is strictly a blues tune, Sam Cooke and all that but I first heard it by the Animals, who were a blues group for me when I was a kid - when my voice broke for the first time).
  10. Amandalyn
    Amandalyn
    >..."Bring it on home to me....first heard it by the Animals">
    this is where I first heard it too and always thought it was very bluesy- would love to hear your version, any tab or video would be great.
  11. zombywoof
    zombywoof
    Lordy Have Mercy Jim. That video is flippin' great! Talk about inspiration for a beginner like me.

    I have been putzing around with Chuck's "The Promised Land" and think I will now have to get back to it.
  12. Bob Buckingham
    Bob Buckingham
    Listen to Chucks intro and break on Brown-eyed Handsome Man and tell me that is not a mando break played on a guitar. Chuck Berry was the greatest rock and roll mandolin player to ever pick up a guitar!
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