1) Degree of swing/Intensity of experience
The placement of the upbeat, damping of notes, and the emphasis of the beat (on the 1&3 or 2&4) are the things that make a song swing -- or not. You gotta get your whole body moving with the groove, and your hands need to “breathe” like a horn player.
2) Left hand: Chord forms
There are only two, you just slide them up and down the neck -- the open E7 with thumb on the E string and 5th & 1st strings not played, and the open C7. Everything else you construct from those basic forms. The trick is to work out moving bass lines in conjunction with each form -- to re-finger the chord to allow for the digit (or often, thumb, or better, nothing when you’ve got an open string available) that’s playing the bass note.
3) Right hand: Picking and damping
The heel of my hand goes pretty much on top of the bridge pegs; that puts a nice damping on the bass side. Instead of “clawing” my fingers (which works fine for jazz styles) I just kind of “pull” them while nearly fully extended. The thumb gets a workout, too, putting down that constant (not really, it just seems that way) bass line and the occasional chord hit.
4) The capo: Don’t worry, you’re not cheating
The capo is absolutely necessary if you’re going to use open strings in keys like Bb, Eb, etc. I even use it for “normal” keys, like on the third fret when I play in C so I can use open A7 chord forms and lines.
> THE MUSIC
> DAVE'S SECRETS
