Cincinnati Flow Rag
Added 2019-11-01 22:34:23 +0000 UTCThis one has been a long time favorite of mine. I've heard a lot of people play Gary Davis and it never sounds quite right. I believe a big part of his sound is his unique use of fingerings in the left hand. Most, if not all chords with a note on the 6th string will be fretted using the thumb. He moves around a lot and uses some very unique voicings, check out the D7 in measure 47!
He often uses a light touch with the left hand to mute out notes, whether intentional or not. The 5th string "B" in the G7 chord used thought the piece is often played, and often muted because of a lack of pressure used in the second finger. The similar is true when he goes to the barred C chord first seen in measure 3, all of the 5th fret notes along the bar often come out muted.
The right hand is very easy to understand, he only used the thumb and index finger. When it seemed unclear what right-hand fingers he was using I went ahead and wrote them in. At the end of the document a sheet is included with the unconventional fingerings for all of the unique chords he uses in the piece. The sheet music is attached to this post!
Last thing worth mentioning, this was transcribed from the video performance of the song, you can find it on youtube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95r0yTp4OlA
My performance of the transcription:
https://youtu.be/SK42aAueFXo
Comments
Thanks for catching this James. I'm using the thumb for the 5th string, as is the same thing RGD is doing. I mistakenly put first finger in the chord chart at the end, should be thumb.
Andrew Lardner
2019-11-05 00:39:25 +0000 UTCHey Andrew, in bar 7, the second chord looks like an Bb6 but in your video, it looks like you are grabbing the B on the 5th string with your thumb. Maybe you just aren’t playing the Bb and instead start the stumble on the 3rd fret of the 4th string?
James Short
2019-11-05 00:33:27 +0000 UTCThanks for the question James. Squares are muted, yes, i.e. not enough pressure to make a sound in most cases. X is a mute from an indeterminate location, usually due to position change. Parentheses are when left hand fingers need to be placed, I may not have done this in every instance, but rather when I thought it was especially important to see the full chord form that is currently being held
Andrew Lardner
2019-11-04 18:22:05 +0000 UTCSo the squares around the notes are muted notes? And parentheses are ghost/overtone notes?
James Short
2019-11-04 17:55:32 +0000 UTC
