Mandolin Blues 1 - Blues Timing

Blues Timing

Before we get started we should talk about blues timing, which, if you are new to playing blues, is the difference between getting it and not getting it. It is about the feel of the music. Here is an example of how a Blues rhythm may often be written down:

You can see here that you have 8 pairs of notes that are all the same length as each other in a 4/4 bar. As the notes are written like this, the correct way to play this is 'straight', which is what we mean when a piece of music uses a regimented beat. In Blues music, we generally swing the rhythm slightly, even if the music on the page is written as above, the feel of the music bounces along with what can be seen as a quick heartbeat. The best way to get this rhythm is to listen to it and try to play along, but sometimes it can be hard to hear, so if you want to get to grips with underlying idea of the rhythm, here is how it should be written down:

You can see here, each of the 4 beats in the bar is split into 3 (a triplet). The first note played in each beat is now longer than the second, so you try this out slowly by counting: 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 and playing a note on the 1 and the 3 each time. This will give you something like this:

1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

That is Blues timing. Watch the video, try it out. Here is the tab for a full 12-bar basic blues rhythm that you can try over the attached backing track.