Groovin' Booker T & the MGs

Music Lesson: Grooving

Okay, this is a little tune called Grooving. It was a big hit in the 60s, and Booker did a version of it.

Demonstration

I'll just play a couple of verses now. So that's a couple of verses, A and B section, Grooving.

As you can see, he uses two very different tones to play the same melody, and I find that very interesting. It's a very effective use of the instrument.

You really kind of utilize all the different settings and tones you can get.

Similarity in Structure

It's very similar in its chordal structure and in its key. A lot of the same changes as the last tune. So, you can use a lot of the same techniques and settings, put them together, swap things around, and do what you want with them.

• Again, on the bottom, we've got the 8 and 4 as the pad setting.
• On the top, that clunky second harmonic comes in during the second verse, just like we had in the last song.

Tone Vocabulary

But on the first verse, he uses a kind of slightly nasal tone that cuts through.

What kind of vocabulary would you use for that?

So, you can use some little slides, some little effects. That's a classic sort of Hammond thing.

• You're not pressing the keys all the way down; you're just catching the first couple of contacts there with the drawbars.
• That sounds really good on fast passages as well.

You can really drag the phrasing of that, if you want. That's quite nice to pull that back a little, roll like that on the melody, rather than switch to the other sound.

Transition Between Verses

In the second verse, if you want to, you could turn it up and really drive that. That would be quite nice.

So, we're just going to look at the transition between verses and the transitions between tones that we use on those.

At the end of the B section, there, the end of the first verse:

• We're still going to be on that tone, we're not going to be on Stop; we'll be on Fast.

So, what we need to do from there is get onto the percussion setting.

We need to switch from the B flat preset to the B. That moment might be something like this:

If I wasn't doing the pad, as Booker wouldn't have been at that moment, I'm just trying to give it the pad to provide some context.

You could do that change quicker because your left hand would be freed up. He might do it something like as quick as that in reality on the track.

Obviously, you can only do that if you've got a free hand, but that's what it looks like.