As guitar players, it’s often that we want to add new techniques to our playing and repertoire. Fingerpicking, slide guitar, open tunings are all common techniques to dive into. But what about styles that incorporate all three of these?
Having grown up in Memphis and Northern Mississippi, Luther Dickinson got a taste of the roots styles of Junior Kimbrough, Fred McDowell, RL Burnside, and fife and drum music. So, bringing some of these influences together, he compiled a style that he likes to call “Modern Mississippi.”
In his course, Modern Mississippi Slide, Luther Dickinson shows you the techniques and influential playing styles that led him to his huge success as an American roots musician.
Here are 14 video slide guitar lessons from the course. But, for the full course, check out Luther Dickinson’s Modern Mississippi Slide on TrueFire!
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Double Stops Harmony: Overview
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There are inherent chord shapes and inversion patterns in open tunings that help harmonize melodies and connect the fretboard.
I grew up playing in a trio without a second guitar player, so I had to learn to harmonize with myself. I learned all the Allman Brother harmonies as double stops! This led to a world of harmonious fun.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Double Stops Harmony: Performance
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The horizontal melody of “Up Over Yonder” is harmonized using double stops in different positions.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Double Stops Harmony: Overview
Download the tab & notation for this slide guitar lesson
Harmonizing a horizontal melody is nice on the 1st and 2nd strings as well as the 1st and 3rd string double stops.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Slide Vibrato: Demonstration
The variations of speed and depth are infinite. The vibrato can be shallow or so deep you are articulating half or whole steps! We’ll discuss Ry Cooder’s advice on bottleneck “windshield wiper” vibrato, as well as Jimi Hendrix, BB King, Blind Willie Johnson and Fred McDowell vibrato styles.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Octave Jumping: Overview
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This is a concept I learned from Thom Yorke and his band Atoms For Peace. You take a riff using open strings and fretted notes and shift the position up 12 frets. This makes the octaves in the riff jump up and down and sound cool!
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Octave Jumping: Performance
Download the tab & notation for this slide guitar lesson
I’m using a concept I learned from Thom Yorke and his band Atoms For Peace. You take a riff using open strings and fretted notes and shift the position up 12 frets. This makes the octaves in the riff jump up and down and sound cool, almost like a keyboard.
I give a quick example of starting the riff after the downbeat to get on that upbeat!
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Octave Jumping: Breakdown
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I explain how moving your open string riffs up an octave sounds cool!
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Mean Old Wind Finger Picking: Overview
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Let’s use the melody for “Mean Old Wind Died Down” as a vehicle to show you some examples of horizontal melody – it being one that works its way up and down on two strings. This will also help with your finger picking, and hopefully make it easy! Even if you know how to fingerpick, I’ll take you through my way of playing light and loose. Let’s listen to the performance, and then we’ll talk about it some.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Mean Old Wind Finger Picking: Performance
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This performance study is a great example of thumb alternating and playing straight 8th notes. I play the melody without the slide as an example of horizontal melody without the slide.
This is also a great example of a horizontal approach to melody. This is a good lesson for beginning fingerpicking getting into more syncopated feels.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Mean Old Wind Finger Picking: Breakdown
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Here I’ll tell the story of learning to play straight 8th notes on the low strings from Mance Lipscomb and Big Bill Broonzy. I break down fingerpicking into two motions, pinching downbeats and alternating/ waving back and forth, playing downbeats and upbeats. I also talk about the advantages of playing light and loose and using different positions of fingerpicking for different tensions. Fun and easy, light and loose!
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – The Modern Mississippi Sound: Overview
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Modern Mississippi fingerstyle guitar is a culmination of a lot of different influences, players and techniques. It all started when I got my first electric guitar when I was 5 or 6. My dad told me that if I learned three chords he’d get me an amp, but my mom told him to tune it open for me. So, he did! It was tuned to an open E chord and he showed me Bo Diddley so I could strum away. The same thing with fingerpicking – it was passed down to me from my mom and dad, so these things have just always been a part of the guitar for me.
I had grown up listening to the blues artists in my dad’s record collection, and had thought it was a thing of the past. Modern blues music didn’t really interest me, until I discovered Hill Country countrified electric blues and realized that it was all around me and in my backyard. These multi-generational blues families were tearing it up and having so much fun…they were having picnics, house parties and there was a nightclub. Each one of these families was filled with amazing guitar players, of all different styles. Guys like RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Otha Turner, Fred MacDowell, etc. were all huge influences on me. I incorporated all of their styles into my playing and personal vocabulary, and now I want to take you through some of their approaches so you can bring it into yours as well!
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Junior Kimbrough Approach: Performance
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We use the melody and riffs of “Snakes in My Bushes” to illustrate Junior Kimbrough’s style of Hill Country guitar. Junior would ride the open A, D and E strings with his thumb to hit the blues changes while he picked out his melodies.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Let It Roll: Song Story & Overview
“Let It Roll” was written for my dad on the day our family and community recorded a tribute record for him called Luther Dickinson and the Sons of Mudboy Onward and Upward. I tell the story of writing the song as I rolled the 2 track analog tape machine into the studio.
Modern Mississippi Slide Guitar Lesson – Let It Roll: Bonus Full Performance
Many of the modern Mississippi techniques I love are used in the interpretation of my song “Let It Roll”. Each verse is accompanied using a different approach to the melody and rhythm. Of course, there’s a long improv section where you can see the modern Mississippi techniques in action!
Digging these free video slide guitar lessons? Check out Luther Dickinson’s Modern Mississippi Slide.