The double-stop shuffle
Two notes at once out of box 1, the way a single guitar covers both the comp and the fill.
- Style
- blues
- Written in
- A
- Feel
- shuffle
- Tempo
- ♩=96
- Length
- 1 bar
Numbers are the order you play them, so notes sharing a number sound together. Drop the tempo until it is clean, then bring it back up.
Written in A, and the writing below describes it there. Move it to another key and the shape does not change, only where its root sits — which is the difference between knowing a lick and knowing a fret number.
- 1E · string 2, fret 5 + A · string 1, fret 5
- 2E · string 2, fret 5 + A · string 1, fret 5
- 3G · string 2, fret 8 + C · string 1, fret 8
- 4D · string 3, fret 7 + A · string 4, fret 7
Notes stacked on the same beat sound together. Taking pairs out of the top of box 1 gives you the two-voice sound that makes one guitar sound like two, and it is the standard way of filling the gap at the end of a vocal line.
Keep the pick attack even across both strings — the pair should arrive as one event, not as a fast roll. Palm the strings slightly if the pair rings too long into the next beat.
Where this fits
This comes out of week 6 of the blues path — two notes at once, and mechanical motion. The week is where you learn the device; this page is where you come back to it once the week has rolled over.