{"id":125784,"date":"2023-05-26T10:05:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T17:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=125784"},"modified":"2023-05-31T20:01:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T03:01:00","slug":"learn-happy-traums-dropped-d-fingerpicking-worried-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/learn-happy-traums-dropped-d-fingerpicking-worried-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Play Happy Traum\u2019s Fingerstyle Arrangement of \u201cWorried Blues\u201d on Acoustic Guitar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last summer, when Happy Traum first received his brand-new Santa Cruz HT\/13 signature model<\/a>, he posted a video introducing the instrument and picking an old favorite song: \u201cWorried Blues,\u201d a variant of traditional songs like \u201cChilly Winds\u201d and \u201cGoin\u2019 Down the Road Feeling Bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traum learned \u201cWorried Blues\u201d some 60 years ago from a record called Hally Wood Sings Texas Folk Songs<\/em>. Wood was a song collector as well as performer who worked with John and Alan Lomax<\/a> on transcribing field recordings, and sang with Pete Seeger<\/a>, Woody Guthrie<\/a>, and others in the New York folk scene of the 1940s. She played frailing banjo on \u201cWorried Blues,\u201d and Traum loosely adapted her rendition to fingerpicking guitar in dropped-D tuning (capoed at the second fret to sound in E). Bob Dylan picked up \u201cWorried Blues\u201d from the same source; his 1962 recording, also fingerpicked but played with C shapes (capo 3), can be heard on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1\u20133<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traum recorded \u201cWorried Blues\u201d for his 1976 solo album, Relax Your Mind<\/a><\/em> (the track also appears on the compilation Bucket of Songs<\/a><\/em>). \u201cIt\u2019s one of those lonesome blues things, but it\u2019s not a standard 12-bar blues,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s more like a folk song.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This transcription is based on Traum\u2019s recent video (above) and shows the song\u2019s instrumental intro and one of the solos. The thumb drives the arrangement throughout, with an alternating bass that varies in only a few spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the intro, play the melody on the upper strings while you keep the bass steady on the sixth, fifth, and fourth strings. On D, shift between fifth position (as in the first two measures) and open position. On G, fret the sixth string, fifth fret, with your third finger so your first can fret the D notes on the second string. At the end of the intro, bars 20\u201322, strum the treble strings lightly with your fingers over half notes in the bass before resuming the alternating bass picking pattern with the vocal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traum\u2019s first solo break is similar to the intro, but in the second solo, transcribed here, he departs more from the melody and the alternating bass. In bars 25\u201326, play a ragtime-y double-stop riff, and then switch to a monotonic bass (bars 27\u201328) while you play a quick melodic line on the treble strings. In bars 32\u201334, play an extended bass run, alternating your thumb and index finger for picking speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the tag, go back and forth between G and D\u2014two bars each\u2014as in bars 23\u201334, before wrapping up with one final repeat of \u201cI\u2019ve got those worried blues.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you\u2019ve got the basics of this arrangement under your fingers, try making up your own licks and embellishments. \u201cBecause of the dropped D and because it\u2019s so basically simple,\u201d says Traum, \u201cyou can just add stuff to it that\u2019s fun to do.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Happy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Happy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Happy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\n

This article originally appeared in the November\/December 2021<\/a> issue of Acoustic Guitar<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"acoustic-guitar-blues-lessons\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those lonesome blues things, but it\u2019s not a standard 12-bar blues… It\u2019s more like a folk song,\u201d says Traum\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":125622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"\u201cIt\u2019s one of those lonesome blues things, but it\u2019s not a standard 12-bar blues... It\u2019s more like a folk song,\u201d says Traum\u00a0","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1654,1653],"tags":[1356],"ppma_author":[1559],"class_list":["post-125784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fingerstyle","category-sing-and-play","tag-november-december-2021","post_format-post-format-video"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Happy-Traum-Woodstock-NY-by-Jeffrey-Pepper-Rodgers.jpg?fit=750%2C500&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1559,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"jeffrey-pepper-rodgers","display_name":"Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/About-Us-8.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/About-Us-8.jpg"},"user_url":"https:\/\/www.jeffreypepperrodgers.com\/","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":"Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, founding editor of Acoustic Guitar<\/em>, is a grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and author of The Complete Singer-Songwriter<\/em><\/a>, Beyond Strumming<\/em><\/a>, and other books and videos for musicians. In addition to his ongoing work with AG<\/em>, he offers live workshops for guitarists and songwriters, plus video lessons, song charts, and tab, on Patreon<\/a>.\r\n"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125784"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139550,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125784\/revisions\/139550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125784"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=125784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}