Water Melon Man Guitar Lesson (Part 1)

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This is a sample lesson from the Secret Guitar Teacher website. It is part of a course called: 'From Blues to Jazz'. Please visit the website (link above) for more information.
Here is the abridged transcript of the lesson:
As we move from blues in the direction of Jazz, one of the things that happens quite a bit is that 12 bar blues sequences get stretched out to 16 bars. This song is a great example of that. Take a look at the vanilla chord sequence:
Notice that if we took the third line out completely, we'd have a totally standard 12-bar blues in F. The third line actually acts as a kind of teaser, delaying the climactic finish that we normally expect of the 12-bar blues.
Let's have a strum through the sequence using these 'E' shaped barre chords and I think you'll see what I mean.
Using the basic barre chords is one way you might find yourself playing the song in a blues band, but in a Jazz band you'd be expected to lighten your touch a bit and, in this case a fingerstyle 'comping' approach using these shapes would probably serve you better:
If you have never played this style of rhythm guitar before here is a quick guide to the basic idea using the F7 chord as an example The first beat is played by plucking with thumb and all three fingers simultaneously. Beat two is played percussively by tapping the hand against the strings like this and plucking the bass note with the thumb on the 'and' beat after beat two On the third beat we pluck with the three fingers ... Then on the 4th beat we have another percussive tap
Ok so that's laid the foundations for playing the rhythm. Now let's look at the melody.
The melody of Watermelon man starts on the flatted seventh note - one step down from the octave you probably want to give this a bit of a bend to emulate the horn parts that are often heard playing this tune ...and this is followed by the notes from the bottom end of the octave. This is followed, as the underlying chord changes up to Bb7, by the top octave F and then the same notes from the bottom end of the octave again.Now as we move to the C7 Bb7 changes the basis of the melody shifts away from the F minor pentatonic to what I call the F country scale, perhaps these days more commonly called the F major blues scale.
However, although all the notes in this part of the melody do come from this scale, it's probably easier to remember, and better understood, by relating the notes to the individual chords.
So over the C7 we start on the root note C hit twice then play the 5th and 6th notes of the C major scale One way to find these notes by ear is to think of the basic added 6th shuffle idea: So we have root C 5th and 6th
Then switch our thinking to the Bb7 chord that's the arpeggio - 1 3 5 b7. The melody here uses the 6th note so that's the b7th the 6th then the 5th 3rd 5th and back to the 6th
So you can see what I mean by how closely the melody follows the chords.
We then repeat the C based riff and then start the Bb7 riff the same as before, but this time, instead of using the neutral 6th note at the end of the lick it dives down to the 2nd - which is the other neutral note in the key - in that you can add it to anything without upsetting the tonality and this time the lick terminates on the 3rd
So altogether, this part of the melody again is over the C7 then over the Bb7 demo over the C7 again and over the Bb7.Then it's back to the opening Minor pentatonic riff over the final F7
So that's laid the foundations for the song. But in Jazz, learning the chords and the melody are seen as a point of departure - the bare beginnings of what often becomes a lifelong journey of discovery that involves developing an ever-deepening relationship with a song.
The core skill that takes us on this journey is our ability to improvise.
In the next lesson we'll take a look at how we can go to work on the bare bones we have formed in this lesson and begin to make both the rhythm and lead part more interesting.
I look forward to seeing you then

[@royraken7746]

man this is great for my enhancing my rhythm techniques. u r an excellent teacher. because of your method of slowly explanning the finer points of how to play this song.

[@royraken7746]

man, u have certainly opened my eyes to soloing on a tune. thanks a million. keep it coming.

[@downhill240]

Great lesson. Thanks for sharing!

[@Rayram555]

Thank you for the lesson.

[@boo15212004]

Thanks

[@voiceoftreason1760]

too bad you can't watch part 2 on the site for free.