Blues Techniques : Instruments : Rhythm : Other Styles

How do you play Piedmont blues?

Playing Style

Blues guitarists used several different techniques to play. The older styles seem more typical of banjo fingerpicking style. Maybelle Carter picked out a melody on the bass strings with her thumb, while she used the index finger of the same hand to brush up and down across the higher strings, combining both chords and rhythm. Other guitarists use all of their other fingers on the upper strings. In the 1920s Piedmont musicians introduced the slide style, most commonly played with a bottleneck. This effect was also called "reels." Guitarists played these songs in two basic open chord tunings: "Spanish" and "Vasta pol." The chord details are below:

Spanish
Open Chord G (D-G-D-G-B-D)
Open Chord A (E-A-E-A-C#-E)

Vasta Pol
Open Chord D (D-A-D-F#-A-D)
Open Chord E (E-B-E-Ab-B-E)

Some musicians, like John Henry Fortesque, otherwise known as Guitar Shorty, deviated from these chord patterns and made up their own. Instead of playing a song using one chord sequence, Fortesque would switch from one pattern to another whenever the change sounded right.

Willie Trice used a slide effect on a banjo rather than on a guitar.