Jump to content
HAPPY NEW YEAR, TO ALL OUR HARMONY CENTRAL FORUMITES AND GUESTS!! ×

Blues Turnarounds video lessons


rotren

Recommended Posts

  • Members
Posted

I have put up 3 fairly simple blues turnarounds on my website www.dolphinstreet.com and also on youtube. More sophisticated ones to come later. At the least the should look good, due to my new HD video camera.

 

Have a listen, and let me know your feedback!

 

[YOUTUBE]0qvfDkI8TZo[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]CwcgVYiCtno[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]gtJG6u944q4[/YOUTUBE]

  • Members
Posted

Cool licks.

 

In my opinion, a type of lesson that might be more helpful than just a turnaround demonstrated would be one that explains how to build your own turnarounds.

 

Something like:

 

Blues turnarounds are designed to move from the I to the V chord during the last two bars of a 12 bar blues progression.

 

The timing of a typical turnaround starts with the I chord on beat 1 of bar 11, then the next four beats are the 'turnaround lick', then the V chord on beat 2 of bar 12. It is essential to understand the timing of turnarounds before moving on.

 

One way to build typical turnaround licks is to walk chromatically up or down from one chord tone to another of the I chord. Just make sure there are 4 beats worth of notes in there.

 

3,4,#4,5

 

5,b5,4,3

 

5,#5,6,b7

 

b7,6,b6,5

 

1,2,#2,3

 

3,b3,2,1

 

(Note on the last two lines I skipped one note, the b2, because time-wise there would be too many notes. Also, you don't hear turnarounds walking from the b7 to the root very often, as there are not enough notes for the typical timing of a blues turnaround.)

 

Once you have these basic turnarounds under your fingers and can play them with the proper timing, you can spice them up the following ways:

 

Play them as quarter notes.

 

Eighth notes (two times each note).

 

Triplets (three times each note).

 

Play them against a root note pedal tone.

 

Play two at the same time in the same direction.

 

Play two at the same time in different directions.

 

Play two at the same time against a pedal tone root.

 

When playing two or more at the same time, you can play them as double stops, or alternate between them as eighth notes or triplets. Same applies when using root note pedal tones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just the simple formula above should give someone several hundred options for turnarounds in any given key. A couple minutes of audio or video examples could clarify the above examples also.

 

You could then go into other turnaround building concepts like, how to aproach the V chord after the 'turnaround lick'. Or harmony-based turnaround construction. And so forth.

 

 

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

  • Members
Posted

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

 

I liked rotren's lessons; they seemed very slow, but it's always nice to cop a lick without working too hard at it. But Jasco, that was really great to get an understanding of how turnarounds are designed. I'm looking forward to spending a little time this weekend working out some of those examples and learning what is going on.:thu: Hopefully rotren will make a future DolphinStreet video as you suggested to illustrate.

  • Members
Posted

Jasco great suggestion! this just went from being a really good thread to being a great one. I love stuff that gets behind the licks so you have the building blocks to express a concept in your own way.

 

Robert your video lessons are awesome keep up the good work!

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...