Jack here, jbf music and guitar lessons, back with some more musical goodness for you, specifically
this quick guitar tricks looking at how to play a Texas Shuffle!
In this quick guitar tricks we’re looking at how to play a Texas Shuffle; using that
demo as a basis. I’m the first to admit there are a tonne of player that do this way
better than I do; more swagger and groove while still keeping it clean; but my hope
here is that I can help you guys avoid some of the pitfalls that stopped me from being
able to play this with any degree of consistency for years.
As usual tabs and that sort of thing are up at Patreon.com/Jbfmusic- if you find this
one a bit too tricky and just want a ‘how to bluff it’ type option check out the little
I up there. If you liked, please consider letting my know with the old like and comment-
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done, let hope to it!
Ok, my plan is to break this down into the different component that make it up. Firstly
the basis of it; you’re doing a down strum, then an up. Low strings, then high, with that
rhythmic shuffle, sort of bounce feel. Whether you want to just play the low E, or this power
chord is up to you. You can also get away with hitting the g, b and e strings, or simply
the e and b. Now, some guys like to do fancy stuff here, either moving the pick in a circular
motion or more of a figure of 8 I’m just keeping it simple, but you probably do tend
to get more behind beat laid back vibe with the figure of 8.
The next component is where it starts to get tricky; you mute with the left hand. I’m
gonna take wee minute on this cause this held me back for ages. The best method I’ve found
is to- keep you wrist straight; tips on how to do that with the little I up there; I used
to try and play it like this and let me tell you, that isn’t any fun at all, hahah! To
do this I like to keep my thumb poking out the top here, not essential, this just really
helps me with this type of playing. See what works for you.
The other thing I like to do is take my hand totally off the fretboard, just as I hit these
open strings, then bring my fingers back down to mute them out. You’ll also notice my
fingers are pointing towards my face, rather than straight up.
So to recap so far: Wrist straight, fingers pointed towards myself, Down, hand off completely,
up stroke, mute. Right? I’d take a wee minute and just try that out, I’ll give you a few
seconds if you want to pause the video.
If that’s feeling ok, we’ll add in the next component. Here we hit that 3rd fret
on the low E; I’m using my 3rd finer, for reason that will become apparently shortly;
your fingers will still be flush against the top strings, so we need to lift them slightly,
for me I’m just sort of bending my 3rd knuckles in my 2nd and 3rd fingers. Or maybe pushing
my arm forward a tiny bit.
Then slide up a semi tone to the 4th fret, while simultaneously hitting the open E and
B strings. Then bring you fingers back down to mute those high strings.
Strum down, finger lift, Slide-&-play. Once more- Strum down, finger lift, Slide-&-play.
As a side note, you can opt to hammer on here, rather than slide I just find the slide easier
and gives me slightly more note definition. If you do want to hammer you might need to
let your arm move towards the body
If I don’t do that my fingers go everywhere and my wrist goes to an awkward angle. I do
apologise if his minutia or detail is too much for you- but if someone had pointed all
this little stuff out to me years ago I’d have gotten this down way sooner and with
much less frustration! If you can do it totally intuitively, more power to you! If on the
other hand all this muting stuff is completely new, check out my top ten muting tricks with
the little I up there.
So far we’ve got: Down, lift fingers + upstrum, down- with fingers muting the top strings,
arch fingers, slide and up strum, un-arch fingers Again: down, up + hand off, down +
mute, slide + up. Down, up + hand off, down + mute, slide + up. Alright? On the plus side
this is the hardest part, so if you can get it, the rest will be pretty straight forward.
I also find that not holding the notes down too hard really helps out here, some more
tips on getting just the right amount of pressure dialled in with that little I up in the corner.
Hit this note with a down, lift your hand off the fret board + hit the open strings,
just like we did before. Bring your hand back down to the fretboard and as you fingers mute
the top string hit the 4th fret with a down, again lift you hand off the fretboard and
hit the open strings with an up strum.
So that half of the bar: down, fingers off + up strum, down with fingers muting out the
high strings, hand off and up stroke on the top strings.
So one final time through all the little motions: Down, hand off + up strum, down + mute the
top strings, arch fingers, slide + up strum. Down + mute the top strings, hand off + up,
down + mute the top strings, hand off + up,
And the entirely of bar 1
Good news! The next bar is pretty much the same: Down + muting those top strings, hand
off + up strum, down + mute the top strings, arch fingers, slide + up strum. Down + mute
the top strings, hand off + up. Then we have a slight change hit the open strings with
a down, then pull off.
And that bar
Alright now both bars
And time for the even better good news! When we play over the A chord it’s the same idea,
just moving all the lower notes up by a string. So hopefully you can see, just the same as
before but we’ve move these notes up by a 4th.
Alright the next two bars are just the same as bars 1 & 2, so we can breeze past them.
At this point in the chord progression we’re playing over a B chord, and while you could
find a way to keep this groove going over that, it’s probably more common to do some
sort of fill. Here I’m doing this slide on the G string,
pick the B thing twice. Sliding in again this time playing the open B string, so we’ve
got that nice doubling of the note effect going on. Sliding down and pulling off. So
that bar
I’ve kept the next 2 bars pretty simple to help compensate for the monstrous new technique
we’ve had to use for the eight bars. Just picking these 3 notes twice each, wee hammer
on and up to that 2nd fret. Similar idea a string lower; picking these 3 notes twice
each, then a ¼ tone bend and the open string. Not dissimilar to some of the classic blues
clichés I’ve covered before, more on that with the little I; which long term viewers
may have already noticed; shout out to the lick squad elite- you guys rock!
The next bar another ¼ tone bend and hammering on
this little chromatic run. Hitting a B7 chord and then in the next bar you’d repeat the
whole progression, I’ve just end it on an E major.
Ok, just before I run through that whole thing slowly we’ll take a moment to look at the
chord progression, which is a pretty standard one for a Texas Shuffle, you could think of
these chords and dominant 7 chords, or just major, but its:
E for 4 bars. A for 2 Bars, E for 2 Bars. That’s the shuffley part. Then we’ve got
a B for one bar. A for one Bar. Back to E for a bar and a half. Switching back to B
for a little turn around on the 2nd half of that bar.
As I say rather than playing that E chord, you’d just repeat the progression. Ok, so
now the full thing, slow and with tabs.
If you enjoyed this, you’ll probably also like those 7 licks and how to bluff slide
guitar. This has been quick guitar tricks, that’s the playlist there. But yeah, hit
subscribe to keep up to date with the channel, leave me a comment, check out the tabs on
my Patreon and enable notifications by ringing that little bell on the side, if you feel
so inclined, cheers guys!