hey everybody this is Stu Fuchs coming at you with a little ukulele tip hope
you having a good day wherever you are and what I wanted to share with this and
all of these short tip videos will be something that you can put into your
plane right away what I wanted to do with this first video first of these
videos is to show how you can add a little spice to a 12 bar blues strum in
C so what we're going to do is we're going to add extra notes to the chords
which will create a boogie-woogie bass line effect in the second video we're
going to go into playing a full-fledged boogie-woogie bassline and that's going
to really train you in good left hand and good right hand technique but for
starters let's do this okay first we have to memorize the twelve bar blues
and a great way to do that is to sing a song so why don't we sing Elvis
Presley's hound dog in the key see the three chords we're going to need our C F
and then g7 I'm assuming that you know these and also that you're comfortable
counting if you're not let's get comfortable with it counting is so key
to keeping our place in the music 12 counting a 12 bar blues would work like
this 1 2 1 2 3 4 1 2 2 3 4 3 2
four two three four one two three four two two three four one two three two two
three one two three two one two three four so you can see that there are four
bars of the C chord then two barns in the F chord two bars with the C chord
and then finally two bars of g7 and then two bars of C this is the one of the
most quintessential sounds and rock and roll and rockabilly music all right
there are so many variations on the blues especially once you get into jazz
and swing but right now we're going to keep it real down-home
in a kind of Tennessee country style so what we're going to do now is strum it
and before we add any of the fancy boogie-woogie bass line notes let's
investigate what can happen with the strum to make it even cooler let's first
understand what we're doing when we're strumming is we're simulating a drum and
the drums have a backbeat to them the backbeat is accepting beats two and four
so as you're listening to music you might notice that you'll hear one two
three four one two three four so I'm pointing at this to emphasize that the
two and the four when it's accented it simulates a snare drum and when you
strum with accents on two and four you can really bring out that quality in
your play so let's try to maintain connection to two and four the whole way
through this okay one two one two three four
yeah
you ain't never caught a rap man ain't no friend so whenever I teach workshops
in rock and roll and rockabilly this is sometimes the first aha moment is when
people realize when when they're strumming is oh wait I don't have to
strum everything the same volume and what that does is it really makes the
strum come to life and it can make it so much more musical
so that's backbeat accenting two and four now let's pick up the tempo but
before we do let's add these notes to each chord okay we're going to take to
the C chord we're going to add the note here would put the first finger on the
second fret of the fourth string and then we're going to take the second
finger put it on the third fret of the fourth string then we take it off let me
go back to the open string all together it sounds like this
notice I'm stupid making the back into this hand that wrist should be very
floppy that's really where the motion comes from 1 a 2 a 3 a 4 and you sort of
wide up and whip the strings a little bit harder on 2 & 4
make everything else a little bit softer and then 2 & 4 will come out louder so
let's do this again okay you see boogie-woogie bassline in the key of C
one two three four all right now when we go to the F chord what we do is the
three notes we're going to add also on the second and third fret but what we're
gonna do is put them on bit third string
we play it it sounds like this
and then we go back to see when we go to g7 for two bars there really isn't a big
boogy boogy baseline change I just like to lift this off and then put it down so
I lift this being the third fighter off the first string to get that open string
ring one one so for a moment when the string is open it creates a g9 core nice
colorful sound so let's take it from the top the elements to keep in mind is that
the rhythm has the backbeat nice floppy wrist only make two and four louder
everything else is a little quieter then what you're going to do is add these
bogey-bogey bass lines and if you practice with a metronome you'll learn
not to slow down okay so let's take it from the top ready 1 2 1 2 3 friends
house all around all my friends are blues I
love you baby but I must be real
keep going yeah the doctor told me Stu you don't need no pills
securing friends must be go around our friends Oh must be real bad all right so
you know I'm having some fun get a little silly with my vocal and I hope
you do too not that we have to be silly but just to
have a blast and to relax with the whole process so if you have any questions
about this please feel free to leave a comment in future lessons I'm going to
show you how to play boogie woogie bassline without the chords and this is
going to really build left and right hand technique we'll also go into some
other some other types of fields you know this is the shuffle feel but we'll
keep it just that shuffle because we're almost at ten minutes and I don't want
to make you late for dinner here's a little something from you I will
Yamaguchi