In this video, we're basically just going to talk about a 1-4 vamp that I always like to do. I feel it's a Bruce Hornsby sort of sound. What I'm going to do is play it for you for a second, and then I'm going to pick apart some of the things that I was doing, so here we go.
Okay, that's fun to do, I could go on forever doing that. Really, there's only a few concepts in there that I'm doing. Once you learn them, you can do them yourself, and expand on it. Let's dive in to the things I was doing. One thing I learned as Kramerisms, by Floyd Kramer, they were these, they sound like this ... If you're in C, the best way to think of those, is its almost like a triad, except you're going to take out the root, and you're going to hammer off the second to get to the third and fifth.
Sometimes, you just walk it right back down. When you're in C, you can try doing that off of the root, or off the 5. That's what I was doing when I was going ...You can think of it almost as a C triad, G, C, G. I'm taking out that root each time in my thumb, and just doing that hammering. I'll slow that down. In my left hand, I'm really keeping it simple. I'm just staying on the roots, the 1 and the 4. Sometimes, I like to widen it up by going for a 10th here, if you can reach it, so I'll go to a root, a fifth and a third, and then an F. The nice thing about this 1/4 thing is that you can actually play a C triad over F, it makes it an F major 7 with a 9, technically that's what it would be called, but it's a really nice sound, so you could even just stay on this triad here, and watch if I just go back and forth, slowly with the right hand.
You can see I'm just doing the same thing over and over again, but it's got a really nice sound. That's a really nice sound in court. What's the other thing I was doing? This is always another thing I liked doing. Think of C major triads, and D minor triads, but in different inversions up and down. What I mean is ... If you remember hearing that in the example, I'm pouring back and forth quickly between C and D minors, while holding the C root in the base.
First, we'll start with the first trial inversions which is this. Instead of going back and forth. If you only do that in that single inversion you don't get as cool a sound. If you invert the C cord to the next inversion, so just bring the C to the top, and the just do the same thing with the D minor, bring the D to the top, now you've got these 2 to mess with. Now you can come down. D minor, C. You can do that all the way down with each inversion. D minor, C. Good practice is to try and do that with all keys.
Start with the inversion. D minor, C. That's all I'm doing. Just think D minors and C. That's a good idea to try and practice that with all keys, so you don't just try to do this with C and F. The last thing I was doing, which I do a lot, is these runs which were just the 5th, the 9th, the root and the 5th. You can keep rolling them, with the C, the F, and the base. Try arpeggiating it.
Again, just doing those same notes, with different arpeggios. Again, just staying simple with the left hand, with C to F. Again, I hope that helps, the Floyd Kramerisms, the C, D minor to Cs, and then the suspended thing. Anyway, I hope that's helpful.