The shuffle, voice leading, and open strings 

It seems my debt to the banjo player will never be paid. I am constantly stealing their licks and techniques. Of course this type of shuffle isn't really a banjo concept, it comes from the fiddle as does much of the traditional music that Bluegrass and country were created from. 

To be honest, several of the ideas in today's long overdue installment came from listening to Chet Atkins. I wonder who he was listening to...

Ex.1
Our first example is a basic "Beaumont Rag" style shuffle made popular by Doc Watson and Clarence White. However, when we reach the V chord we add the open B string making it a D6 chord. Since I use a thumb-pick and my first, second, third, and fourth fingers this isn't such a big deal. Albert Lee would use a pick and all his fingers, including his pinky, and you can do that too if you use a pick and have an extra fancy pinky. 

Ex. 2

Our next example takes one chord shape, a root position triad, and moves it around the neck to each of the three chords. No rocket science here. 

Ex. 3

Here is an example of how to play our beloved I, IV, and V chords without leaving the same three frets.

Ex. 4

If I had stolen this directly from Chet Atkins it would be much hipper, but as I happened to see him play it on TV before the advent of Tivo and Youtube I had to work with what my dumbstruck mind could remember. At the time I though he was being pretty fancy, now I realize what he was doing is called voice leading. It's a simple rule that will allow your chord changes to sound smooth and pretty: when you change chords, only change the notes you have to change and then only by a fret or two. Until now I haven’t used any open strings with the exception of Ex 1. This means that, while all these shuffles are in the key of Gmaj, the shapes used can be moved around to other keys as long as we know where the root of each chord is. But open strings can be fun and, as you will see, pretty expressive. Part of the fun is finding an open string that works with the chord shape(s) you are playing, even if it isn’t an immediately obvious choice.  Sometimes the open string will be an interesting extension of the chord, like a 6th, 7th, 9th, or 13th. Or, if we are feeling extra Jazzy, an augmented 9th, or flat 5. And if you are Andy Summers from The Police you might find a suspension or two.

 Let's ignore the notes I'm playing on the first string for a minute. The first three notes in the first bar imply a G6 chord, when I change to the IV chord all I have to do is change the third string note from a D (the 5th of the G chord) to a C (the root of the C chord.) Later, when I move from the I chord to the V chord I move the D to a C (the flat 7th of the D chord) and the G to a F# (the 3rd of the D chord.) 

Now let's look at the notes on the first string: for the G chord I'm playing a B (the 3rd), for the C chord I'm playing a Bb (the flat 7th) and for the D chord I'm playing a B (the 6th.) And there you have it: half step and whole step movement only. Thank you Chet and the rules of western harmony. This Shuffle ends with a little cross-string scale lick that you can use in whatever context you want. We will have a post about cross-string scales soon.

Ex. 5

In this example the I chord is our shuffle friendly root position triad. For the IV chord I use three different shapes, the last of which is one of my personal favorites: a C7 chord with no C in it. This works because we have all the other notes that make up a C7 chord. When we go back to the I chord I throw in an open first string, the 6th of the chord, for color. The following V chord also uses the open first string. Since this chord is a dominant 7 the open E functions as the 9th of the chord, and since we used the open first string in the last chord this is nice voice leading. The final chord is a voicing of a G6 using open strings; the open B is the 3rd of the chord and again we have the open E functioning as the 6th. The transition from the V to the I is also decent voice leading as each note moves by either half step or whole step.

Ex. 6

Our last example is a rhythmic shuffle that relies on double stops instead of rolls or cross-picking. Make sure to cut the upbeat of beat two short and really snap those strings. You’ll notice that the open strings are the same regardless of what chord we are playing, this works because those notes are still in the key of G. If you want to move the shapes around to different keys, you came still play the same open strings but don’t emphasize them as much or mute them a little. These “wrong” notes can often sound cool though so don’t worry about them too much.