|
|
|
|
 |
EARMARK Publishing Summary | About the Author | Contents | Excerpt | Ordering Information | Earmark Publishing |
In The Beginning
Before Robert Johnson took a sudden sabbatical from the local music scene in Robinsonville, Mississippi in the early 1930’s, he was just a novice guitar player, sometimes even referred to as a pesky noisemaker. However, after his return within six to eight months, according to Eddie “Son” House, a very intense Delta blues guitar player and recording artist, Johnson’s guitar playing had changed unbelievably for the better. Johnson was known to leave audiences spellbound and peers dumbfound with disbelief and envy with his brand new bag of tricks.The question of how Johnson mastered the guitar in such a relatively short time bothered most who heard him play. Could there have been an unprecedented guitar tuning responsible for his playing technique? We may never know, but whatever the reason, he guarded his playing with such an intense paranoia that many have since concluded he had traded his soul to the devil at the crossroads for his special gift.
Many who hear Johnson’s music even today attribute his gift to be the result of some sort of supernatural intervention. In spite of the fact that stories about Robert Johnson’s making a deal with the devil at the crossroads sprang up without merit many years after his death, one still cannot overlook the fact that his guitar playing style was interesting and mysterious. Hearing Johnson’s recordings always bring us back to the undeniable fact that he was doing something unorthodox with his guitar.
The first time I heard the music of Robert Johnson was as though I was eavesdropping on a personal conversation between two lovers or had suddenly intruded on their private love-making affair. At first, I felt a slight sense of embarrassment but with Johnson’s absolute focus and intense involvement in his music, my embarrassment changed to envy. It was almost as though he was aware of my presence and simply did not care what I thought of his playing. His music affected me on a much deeper level than any other, before or since. Robert Johnson’s music was very addicting to me and his guitar playing sounded very nontraditional, unique, and difficult. Such a sound I had never heard before, but I was determined to solve its mystery and uncover its secrecy.
By adjusting only one string with devil tuning, in some cases two, all of Robert Johnson’s songs can be played using the CrossGuitar™ method. This fact in itself does not prove however, Robert Johnson knew or used such a tuning or playing method. But if he did, he would have wasted very little time in actual live performances by having only one, sometimes two, strings to tune between songs.
With devil tuning, Johnson could have sounded as if he were playing in many different tunings including not only standard tuning but also, open-A tuning, open-D tuning, open-E tuning, open-G tuning, dropped-D tuning, E-minor tuning, and even the recently discovered Aadd9 tuning. He would have had all these tunings quite literally in the palm of his hand. It would have been a very convenient tool for Johnson to possess. A single guitar tuning is what a traveling guitar player would have needed in those jook joints in the 1930’s. Some have speculated that Robert Johnson must have had several guitars already tuned in different tunings to save time in live performances, an assumption that is obviously unlikely.
CrossGuitar™ and devil tuning demonstrates how simple and easy it would have been for Johnson to impress his audiences and peers as being accomplished in many tunings. This is not meant to imply that Johnson’s playing was simple. His split-mind coordination between his singing, playing the guitar, and keeping rhythm is untouched by any other human being to date. He literally sounds like three people playing at the same time.
Johnson’s unique ability to blend music and lyrics into a unified whole is felt on a much deeper level than the ear can hear. There is an innocent quality in his voice that captures his humanness and combined with his guitar playing, lyrics, and rhythms all working independently and yet at the same time as a unified whole, one can actually feel Johnson’s personal struggles with relationships, spirituality, and life in general. With these elements, together with his natural God-given inspired musical talent, we are left with an audible picture of a natural artist at work, expressing his creativity from the deepest depths of his soul.
Listening to both takes of Robert Johnson’s “Phonograph Blues,” I could clearly hear two distinct patterns of guitar playing that sounded related but were five keys apart. The first take sounded like standard tuning was being used and the second take sounded like dropped-D tuning. After a closer examination of the two examples of Johnson’s guitar playing, I ruled out both tunings because the two takes sounded more closely related, musically. While one take was in the key of E-flat, the other take was in the key of B-flat, the dominant tone of the key of E-flat. As it turned out, this unique relationship held the key to what I believe was the best kept secret of Robert Johnson.
While there are several other songs recorded by Robert Johnson that have the same pattern as take one of “Phonograph Blues,” such as “Kindhearted Woman Blues, Dead Shrimp Blues, Little Queen of Spades, Me And The Devil Blues,” and “Honeymoon Blues” and take two which is patterned after “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” “Phonograph Blues” is the only song that Johnson recorded using two of his playing patterns on the same song. It is interesting and ironic at the same time that a phonograph (at least in Johnson’s era) must be used to hear the two unique guitar playing techniques and the name of the song, appropriately enough, is “Phonograph Blues.” Could that have been intended by Johnson? It would be a unique place to leave a clue to his secret.
Technically, all of Johnson’s songs are built on one tuning with different variations of that tuning. Taking Johnson’s songs individually and placing them in already known guitar tunings, including standard tuning, is a mistake made early on and will cause one to miss the complete Robert Johnson. After rejecting standard tuning as a possibility for his music, new avenues were opened up to me by not having any predetermined assumptions about already known guitar open tunings. All of Johnson’s recorded twenty-nine songs make a single and complete unified package, in and of itself.
Robert Johnson’s different playing patterns included at least four different variations of one guitar tuning for almost all his twenty-nine song repertoire. The different guitar playing patterns are outlined in Chapter 7.
After learning these fundamental outlines, patterns, and chord shapes of devil tuning using the CrossGuitar™ method, the guitar enthusiast will be ready to play the music of Robert Johnson the same way he played it. Rather, at least he will be in the correct position to try to duplicate Johnson’s music. It seems that only Robert Johnson can sound exactly like Robert Johnson. Finding the true “Robert Johnson sound” on the guitar is very challenging.
Many of the same notes on the guitar can be played in at least three different locations on the fretboard. This is one of the primary reasons that make the guitar a very difficult instrument to master. Each of the different locations of the same note on the guitar changes the sound quality, the timbre of the note. Finding the exact location of the actual sound of Robert Johnson’s guitar playing is the most difficult aspect of his music. To further complicate the situation, changing the tuning of the guitar also changes the locations of the notes and the quality of sound, as well.
However, searching for Robert Johnson’s guitar tuning and playing technique starts and ends here with devil tuning and CrossGuitar™. There are many books listed in the references that show the printed music of Johnson’s songs with all the right notes. Although, showing all the correct notes in a printed manuscript with the corresponding tablature is one thing but demonstrating Robert Johnson’s actual guitar playing technique is quite another. The most important aspect of Robert Johnson’s music is his guitar tuning and playing method, his best kept secret.
Search Categories | Featured Publishers | New Titles | Author Spotlight | Reading Room | Publishers | Retailers | BookMasters | Home | Contact AtlasBooks® is a Division of BookMasters®, Inc.
© Copyright 1997- 2008, All rights reserved. |
