Hendrix/John Lee Hooker style Blues trill technique?
Here is an example.
He trills on the third string second fret to open a lot, but other stuff too.
What I can't work out is if he's either:
a) Hammering a specific number of times per beat. It's 4/3, so is he dividing every beat in to 9? Or just 6? Or some other specific number that's always in a super fine division of the beat?
b) Mashing as fast as humanly possible for as long as he has time to. Is it the same speed - namely maximum - independent of BPM?
It's all so fast I can't tell what's going on.
The same question goes for all those floatey fast runs, and strummy trills (obviously I'm a noob). Does that conform to some super fast tempo, or is it BPM independent? There's a strum-trill thing at 1:18 that's an example. And when he's soloing he does these runs that start and end in a very in time way, but within them they just sound like speedy floating stuff.
I'm finding this type of sound hard to get my hear around beyond liking it so much I want to do it. Is there a bunch of stuff I could look up? I don't know the names of the things I'm asking about.
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When you are playing solo, like Hooker is here, you can take great advantage of tempo rubato. It literally means "stolen time", and it's when you move faster or slower than normal in certain areas without completely abandoning a rhythm.
It's very common for solo blues musician to play with this style, partly because they can, since they don't have to keep time with a band, but mostly because it is very expressive.
He's probably not literally playing any of those figures or trills as fast as he possibly can. He is deliberately playing them fast, and inserting them in between his vocals, which creates a feeling of impatience or frustration, like the guitar is trying to interrupt him. He's not picking a specific tempo, he's just feeling the tempo.
I'm not sure if there's a name for it, besides rubato. There's a lot of it in Delta Blues, so you might check out that genre to hear more examples. Most people consider Robert Johnson the king of the Delta Blues, so check him out if you haven't already.
In terms of undertanding it and hearing what is going on, that will come more easily the more you learn, practice, and listen.
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