Philip Sayce on blues, bends and phrasing
Listen to Albert Collins
The first thing that comes to mind whenever I’m having a conversation about digging into the blues and taking it to the next level is ‘Listen to Albert Collins!’ He played some of the most tricky, powerful and terrifying stuff as far as blues players go. I’m always blown away by the tremendous power he had in his hands, from the pick attack with the thumb and index finger. He’d get under the low wound string and just snap it and pop it. And then with the index finger he would hammer an unwound string maybe an octave or two octaves up. So if the note was D, he’d hit the open wound string and then pop the same note on the 3rd fret of the B string. He also had the most awesome and fluid vibrato out of everyone. It would be smooth and real wide. He’d hit that note with the reverb cranked and start howling.
Use string bends to tell a story
String bending is a big part of blues playing. All of my favourites from Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jeff Healey and Stevie Ray were and are magical string-benders. I’d much rather approach the guitar using bends to make it sound more like the human voice as opposed to more linear scale-like ideas. Eric Clapton has always been so melodious, even if it’s just a tiny bend, he could make his guitar cry, sing or say something with all this emotion. It sounds easy but it’s really hard to do! Bending like that is a lifelong journey. Something like an overbend is like a release for me, coming from whatever I’m feeling right there and then.
Get out of your head and into your heart
I’m not really a technical player, I prefer to be more abstract. There are no rules when it comes to guitar. Of course, there are keys and time signatures, but in terms of improvising and finding what’s in your heart on any particular day, you just need to listen and follow your own instincts.
Use shorter phrases to sound less predictable
It’s about taking little pieces of it rather than taking a whole cascading run that goes on and on. The longer phrases don’t seem to excite me as much as Albert Collins popping a single note like one knockout punch. So my advice would be to throw in little bits of those cascading runs but don’t play them across in the neck in every position because they start sounding a little bit predictable. I like those runs of four and five just as much as the next player, but it’s all about the little bursts rather
