Week 3 Ukulele Blues

13 April 2010

Week 3 Ukulele Blues

Last weekend I watched the movie “Walk the Line” the Johnny Cash story. Having grown up in the 60’s and 70’s, I was very familiar with his songs and several were childhood favorites. The movie inspired me to attempt one of his songs. The strumming pattern seemed within my reach, in fact, they commented on this pattern in the movie (calling it a simple sound as they were not that good on the instruments). So I picked Folsom Prison Blues as the piece to work on.

Truth be told, I never realized this song had the word “Blues” in the title. When I realized that it was there, and the reason why, I became excited. This was actually a “blues” song, not something we associate with the late Mr. Cash. But it does make a lot of sense as, well according to the movie, he wrote this on his own as a beginner guitar player while in the Air Force.

A little back ground:
There is a pattern called the “12 Bar Blues” and this pattern comprises the rhythm/chord progression for thousands of songs. This pattern in it’s simplest form is 4 bars of the I chord, 2 bars of the IV chord, 2 bars of the I chord, 2 bars of the V chord, then 2 bars of the I chord. For example, in the key of “G”, G is the I chord (first note in the scale) C is the IV (4th note, G(1), A(2), B(3), C(4) ), and the V chord is D (5th note in the scale). So, in the key of G, your would strum 4 bars of G, 2 bars of C, 2 bars of G, 2 bars of D, and then 2 bars of G.

Folsom Prison Blues essentially fell into this pattern. In the written lyric/chord form it shows only one bar of “G” instead of 2 after playing the “C” and the “D”, but when Cash played the song, he played the 2 bars as in the standard 12 bar blues format.

Even the lyrics followed the standard blues pattern:

Folsom Prison Blues:
I hear the train a comin', it's rolling round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when,
I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on
But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone


I’m Movin’ On:
That big eight-wheeler rollin' down the track
Means your true lovin' daddy ain't comin' back.
I'm movin' on, I'll soon be gone
You were flyin' too high for my little old sky
So I'm movin' on.


Mary Had a Little Lamb: (JC Style)
Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow
Every where that Mary went, that lamb was sure to go
He followed her to school, which was against the rules
It made the children laugh, to see a lamb at school


My thinking was, learn this progression, and know more songs than you can possibly name. So I began working on it in the key of “G” as I could make all the chords already.

Class that night was interesting; more chords, including the Bb (B-flat), a chord that has been giving me problems for a month now. We are starting to move along pretty quick in class. The chord changes are coming quicker and the strumming patterns more complex, plus there seems to be a never-ending supply of chords. The advantage I had from my advance self-study and practice is gone, I’m starting to fall behind.

On a side note, I spoke to Danno (the teacher) after class about 12-bar blues, asking if we would be covering it. He said yes, and that we already had. He then mentioned on of the songs we started that night. He asked me to name a blues song, I named CC Rider, and he played the song we had done that night and replaced the words with those of CC Rider, they fit. I had been so worried about making the chord and keeping p with the class that I had missed the pattern of the song.

I’ve got a lot to work on this week!