Dry Creek Blues

About this piece

In the early country blues the thumb is the drummer: it plays a steady beat on the open bass string of the chord (E, A or the B on the 5th string) and never stops, while the fingers play short answering phrases on the top strings. Practice the thumb alone until it runs by itself, then add the fingers one bar at a time. The quick hammer-ons from G to G-sharp, and from G to A in the A bars, give the music its blues sound; the last bar is a turnaround that walks down the 4th string back to B7.

What it practices

• a steady thumb bass (monotonic bass)
• hammer-ons
• blue notes
• a turnaround

Chords in this song

E · E7 · A7 · B7

Each link opens the chord finder with more ways to play that chord.

Where the notes come from

Original composition by Teddy Rook Book for this course (no source needed); the twelve-bar form, the steady-thumb style and the turnaround idea are traditional, the licks are our own.

How to practice with it

1. Listen first. Press Play and follow along. The note being played lights up in the tab, in the notation and on the fretboard, and the chord being played lights up in the row of chord diagrams.
2. Learn the chords. Press each diagram to hear it, then practice changing between them slowly.
3. Slow it down. Use − and + to set the tempo. 60% is a good place to start; the notes keep their pitch.
4. Loop the hard part. Under More…, turn on Loop, pick the bars, and play them a few times in a row. Count-in gives you a bar of clicks before it starts.

Click a bar in the music to start from there. Space plays and pauses. Left-handed? Turn on the left-handed view: the chord diagrams and the fretboard are mirrored to match your instrument. Tab reads the same either way: the top line is always the first (highest) string.