“John Henry” in Open-D, Part 2: Variations

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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Instruction in three styles of the blues: lead, bottleneck, and fingerstyle
19 complete blues songs to play
Notation and tablature for all lessons
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John Henry

“John Henry” in Open-D, Part 1: Melody

“John Henry” in Open-D, Part 2: Variations

Once you’ve learned the basic melody to “John Henry,” you can learn some variations, including two-string harmonies, playing the melody an octave lower, and adding strums played with the middle finger between melody notes. Orville also talks about improvising around the melody, using the underlying blues scale, and adding grace notes, giving you an exercise to practice playing grace notes in tune.

"John Henry" (Available to subscribers)

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