“Heavy Time” Fingerpicking

This lesson is part of the course Blues Guitar with Orville Johnson.

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Become a complete blues player through these lessons in country blues fingerpicking, blues lead guitar, and bottleneck slide, with great technique lessons and blues songs from Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, and more.

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Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor

In this lesson you’ll learn a fingerstyle arrangement of the folk-blues classic “Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor” inspired by the playing of Mississippi John Hurt. Orville plays the song through and then explains the guitar part phrase by phrase. He also explains how you can alter the lengths of some of the chords, depending on how you hear the song, something that John Hurt and other great blues singers and guitarists did all the time.

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19 complete blues songs to play
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“Heavy Time” Fingerpicking

“Heavy time” is a style of blues fingerpicking that is more driving and forceful than the somewhat bouncy feel of alternating bass fingerpicking, as played by Mississippi John Hurt, Willie McTell, and others. In this lesson, Orville shows you a tune that illustrates the “heavy time” feel. Heavy time is all about what your thumb is doing—in this case, the thumb constantly pounds the beat, four beats per measure. Another thing that makes this style different is that the melody notes are played just with the index finger. Orville walks you through the piece phrase by phrase.

"Heavy Time" Fingerpicking (Available to subscribers)

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← Remington Ride, Part 2: Soloing Ideas

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Fingerstyle Blues in C: “When He Calls Me,” Part 1 →

Previous Lesson

← Remington Ride, Part 2: Soloing Ideas

Next Lesson

Fingerstyle Blues in C: “When He Calls Me,” Part 1 →

Previous Lesson

← Remington Ride, Part 2: Soloing Ideas

Next Lesson

Fingerstyle Blues in C: “When He Calls Me,” Part 1 →

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