Music Lesson: Booker T. Jones Tunes

Okay, guys, we're going to do a few Booker tunes. Sure, you've all heard of him, very famous for "Green Onions," obviously, but he did lots of other stuff, usually on a BLC3.

First Tune: "La La"

This first one's called "La La." It means "I love you." Strange title, but nice.

Tonal Characteristics

• The tones in this song are very interesting.
• He kind of uses a lot of different things all in the same space.
• Very good at switching between sounds.

Main Lead Sound

The main lead sound there is created with:

• A set of drawbars
• Second harmonic percussion

He plays it quite low down. There is a lot of top on this organ. On some organs, you might need to take some bass out, but on this one, you don't really play it down there. It can sound quite clunky and low.

Pad Settings

For the pad, we're using these two settings:

• If you've got numbers 8 and 4ft, it doesn't really matter about the drawbar settings.

Main Tone Creation

We'd play like this:

• C
• A
• B
• 11

That's how the main tone is created.

Dynamics and Swell

It's very interesting how he uses the swell in between chords. You can use it to really play with dynamics, making it engaging by coming in and out.

B Section

In the B section, it switches to a more toppy, full sound, depending on how you want to play it. You can kind of use glissando and that kind of technique. Personally, I find that I prefer that to other methods, it just doesn't work for me otherwise.

Switching Sounds

Those are the main tones used in the track.

• In terms of switching between sounds on this tune:
  • From the lead line
  • From the percussion
  • To the mid-8 section

The switching requires careful attention:

• You've got to change the Leslie and the preset from one setting to another.

Key Switching Techniques

• From that set to that set in the gap, sort of thing.
• Leslie: different set of drawbars
• Coming out of that section requires the same approach: Leslie on slow again and then back to your original setting.

Summary

And so on! Enjoy the exploration of these tones and techniques in your playing!