Music Lesson: Lightning Strikes in E

Our next tune is going to be Lightning Strikes, and this is going to be in the key of E again.

Overview of Songs in E

On this DVD, I'm going to play three songs in E:

• One slow: which we just did, called Slipping
• A medium pace: like Lightning Strikes
• A fast one: called The Sick Boogie

This will show you what you can do in the key of E. As I've mentioned before, acoustic guitar and blues guitar are predominantly in the key of E. I'll demonstrate how you can play the same notes but create a different song from them.

Playing Lightning Strikes

For Lightning Strikes, we're going to do a straight shuffle, medium-paced shuffle.

• If you read it in a book, it would look like this.
• But again, we're not doing the book today; we're going behind the scenes.

Right Hand Technique

• Right-hand slap: This will be the rhythm, hitting against the strings.
• Strings hitting against the fretboard create that sound.

I'll give a little kick with my finger on the last eighth note. It's going to sound like this:

• The technique here is driving the right hand into the strings.

Alternative Sound

If you can't do that, you can still get a pretty good sound by just muting right here. However, you don't really want to get this sound:

"Peter, Paul, and Mary Blues."

You want a little funkier thing going. The last kick is just a brush up with the first finger for me, and it goes like this:

To accomplish that:

• My left hand comes off a little bit.
• As I bring it back down to the shuffle, it mutes out that first string. Otherwise, it would keep ringing, which doesn't sound great.

So you want to go: (demonstrate sound). That's full Lightning Hopkins right here. Everything has that in there.

• Same with A: just open E and back gives it that little extra kick.
• B7: And that lick in A is a basic blues that you'll use a lot.

Differences in Chords

When I do it in E, the only difference is that I hit the D note instead of the D flat.

• Here's what I do on the A chord. We'll see that a lot: Basic turnaround.

Now we'll continue and add some fills.

Adding Fills

The fill was just playing the shuffle:

• Same thing on A.

You can do anything there within the key of E:

• I just picked that because it sounded pretty cool.

"But you could go... so it's just a little area to fill in."

Going Up the Neck

Now from there, we're going to go up the neck a little bit:

• I'm going to go up here to the 10th and 12th frets and use double stops.

I use double stops a lot in my playing, two notes at once. A very common one is right up here, this E7. We used it before in Slipping and Dripping.

• We're going to use a lot of the same things but in different ways so they sound different.

"How to play blues in E using the same notes but creating many different songs, it's my specialty."

I've been doing it for a living for a long time and fooling some people at it.

Double Stop Technique

The double stop is going to go:

• If I was playing slow blues, I'd go triplets.
• But for mid-tempo blues, there's not enough time, so I'll go:

(A demonstration of the sound).

A lot of times on these double stops, I'll put that open E in:

• I'll slide into the A.
• Now on the fifth fret, sort of this F major seventh, moved up here, and I'll go:

There's a little slide at the beginning of that, and I do that a lot in my playing:

• The slide happens with my first finger and I'll slide, missing the first string.
• As I slide into the chord, I hit the bass.

That can happen anywhere on the guitar, whether I go down lower or up higher for E.

New Chord

Now, another cool chord coming up here to the seventh and eighth frets.

• We would normally play it this way, but I'm going to make a larger chord, add that E note there, and slide into it like this, then up to this E7.

Now for the A:

• Back to some double stops again.
• Really common triplets, slow blues with the A note but at this tempo like that or maybe like this or no bass.

These can be used anywhere. If you want to use them in B, just a little trick, you know.

Keeping It Simple

I try to make it as simple as possible:

"Trust me, there's enough other stuff going on. If I'm out of tune a little bit, it's the blues, so it's totally cool."

Conclusion

In this lesson, what we want to focus on is getting a lot of rhythm in our shuffle.

• Remember, it's high speed.
• Triplets will not work unless you're really fast.
• So again, use eighth notes instead of sounding rushed.

Keep in mind to use strong monotone in your rhythm when I'm not shuffling Lightning Strikes.