HOMESPUN
Taught By Happy Traum.
Level 2
Two DVDs, includes music and tab booklets
These two DVDs are the perfect choice for you if you're an early-intermediate
guitarist who wants to begin playing blues on your acoustic guitar. All you need
to get started are the basic chords and Happy Traum will get you into the world
of traditional blues guitar in no time. Before long, you'll be playing songs
complete with intros, endings, turnarounds, licks and even improvised solos!
DVD One: Starting From Scratch
So you want to play the blues? Well, veteran guitarist, instructor and Homespun
Tapes founder Happy Traum offers the very best way for you to get started!
This basic course in fingerstyle blues guitar breaks it all down into easily digested topics for novice players. You’ll start by learning the basic blues forms and getting them securely under your belt. Then, Happy provides a number of “easy steps” that will build up your guitar technique, increase your understanding of the style, and help you develop the ability to start playing great blues songs.
Some of these steps include learning basic blues chords, syncopated strumming patterns, 12-bar and 8-bar blues progressions, bass runs, and more than a dozen variations for the all-important blues turnarounds, intros and endings. As you work your way through this lesson, Happy imparts numerous tips, suggestions and invaluable information about music theory and musicianship that will affect all of your guitar work.
As you conquer each of these basic steps, your playing will get stronger and
more confident, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming an accomplished blues
guitarist.
DVD Two: Essentials of Fingerstyle Blues
Now that you’ve completed DVD 1 and have made it past the basics, it’s time
to tackle the next level – traditional blues fingerpicking.
The key to all country blues playing, and the heart of this style, is in your ability to play a rhythmic bass pulse with your thumb while your fingers pick out syncopated notes on the high strings. Happy Traum’s “easy steps” learning concept divides this all-important style into modules that you can digest one element at a time. Through the use of carefully thought-out exercises, he methodically takes this style apart so that any aspiring player can pick it up.
You’ll learn how to "break up the chords" (the way Happy learned personally from Brownie McGhee), as well as the funky “Lightnin’ Hopkins lick,” shuffle and boogie-woogie bass lines, blues scales, playing solos up the neck, variations on blues chord progressions and arrangements of Rock Me, Baby, Baby Please Don’t Go, Trouble In Mind and other blues classics.
This is an almost foolproof method for building solid guitar technique while
learning to play licks, accompaniments, songs and solos in the blues style.
During the past forty years, Happy Traum's avid interest in traditional and contemporary
music has brought him recognition as a performer, writer, editor, folklorist,
teacher and recording artist. He has performed extensively throughout the U.S.,
Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has appeared on recordings as a featured
artist, as a member of various ensembles, and as an accompanist. He has played
and recorded with Bob Dylan, Chris Smither, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rory
Block, Jerry Jeff Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel
and innumerable others. Happy is the author of more than a dozen best-selling guitar instruction books, has written numerous magazine columns and articles, and for three years was editor of Sing Out! The Folksong Magazine. He and his brother, Artie Traum, have been playing as a duo since 1968. Their first two Capitol albums, "Happy And Artie Traum" and "Double Back," are widely considered to be classics. Long-time residents of Woodstock, NY, Happy and Artie co-produced several important records for Rounder, featuring some of the area's finest folk and rock musicians. These included "Mud Acres, Music Among Friends" and "Woodstock Mountains." Happy and Artie's album "Hard Times In The Country" featured liner notes by Allen Ginsberg. In 1993, Happy and Artie released their latest duet album, "The Test Of Time," featuring traditional and contemporary songs backed up by some of Woodstock's finest musicians.
Happy's solo albums include "Relax Your Mind," "American Stranger," "Bright Morning Stars" and "Friends And Neighbors." A compilation CD, "Buckets Of Songs," has been released by Shanachie Records. In 2001, “Bright Morning Stars” was reissued in CD format in the U.S. (Lark’s Nest Music) and in Japan (Slice of Life Records).
Perhaps Happy Traum's most important and lasting musical contribution has been Homespun Tapes, which he and his wife Jane founded in 1967. This dynamic and growing mail order company has a catalog of approximately 400 different music instruction lessons on audio cassette, CD and video tape, taught by top professional performing musicians. Happy produces all of the lessons, and brings to Homespun his many years of experience as a popular and productive member of the music community.