Figuring out Hard Time Killing Floor Blues on an Acoustic Six String
Apr 23 '01 (Updated Sep 12 '07)
The Bottom Line To play Hard Time Killing Floor Blues, tune your guitar to DADGAD (or DADFAD), and focus on your D-string.
Let me start my saying that the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou" is one heck of a great album, and I recommend it highly to anyone who appreciates old timey, bluegrass, or gospel music, whether or not you've seen the movie.
I'll get around to reviewing the entire soundtrack one of these days, but today I'm obsessed with learning how to play Chris Thomas King's Version of the Skip James blues tune, Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.
If you saw the movie, you remember the scene in which the Robert Johnson character and our comic heros sit quietly beneath a tree in the evening, while Johnson gently sings and plays a haunting tune on his acoustic guitar. The tune is classic Skip James, with beautiful falsetto singing, and a lilting, resigned quality that actually draws me into James's music more than that of the real Robert Johnson.
In any case, I'm sure all the guitarists in the audience watched King's fingers closely and wondered how he could turn out such beautiful notes with such little effort. What chords are these? Did he (like Robert Johnson, and the Johnson character in the movie) really sell his soul to the Devil to gain his abilities?
I think I've figured it out, though I invite alternative angles from Sparkospunky and other guitar players out there in Epinions land.
The tune is in D. Playing my Martin along with the CD revealed that. But I don't think King uses standard tuning to play the song. My hunch is that he is using DADGAD, the alternative tuning used extensively by Pierre Bensusan.
In any case, that's what I'm using, so here's what you do if you trust my hunch:
Tune your high E (first) string down a whole step to D.
Tune your B (second) string down a whole step to A.
Tune your low E (sixth) string down a whole step to D.
Voila! Your guitar is now in DADGAD tuning.
To get a feel for the tuning, fret your G string at the second fret, and strum all the strings. This should sound lush and full, with complete ambiguity as to whether it's major or minor. This ambiguity is because you are playing DADAAD: a D chord with no third!
DADGAD is used a lot in Irish music, but this major/minor ambiguity also makes it suitable for blues, and this song in particular, because the ambiguous third keeps us guessing about whether we're in a major or minor key.
Of course, you're going to have to play along with the CD to learn the tune, but here are the significant "home bases" I've discovered.
The main "minor sounding" chord (which begins the song):
ring finger on second string, third fret
index finger on third string, second fret
middle finger on fourth string, third fret.
This chord should feel (physically) like an A Major Seventh in standard tuning, except moved up the neck one half step.
The minor feel occurs because the D (fourth) string fretted at the third fret yields an F, the minor third.
If you use your middle finger to play the fourth and fifth strings alternatively open, and fretted at the third fret (try all four notes separately), you will have generated many of the notes necessary to play the bass line that recurs throughout the tune. Keep your other two fingers fixed in position while you experiment with this.
The "major sounding" chord (actually a little riff) that alternates with the minor sounding one involves a slide, on the D (fourth string) from the fifth fret to the seventh fret and quickly back to the fifth fret, then resolving to the fourth fret. This is not easy to do, but it is doable with practice. The resolution on the fourth fret yields a major third, with F# telling us we're temporarily in a major key.
The classic blues "walk down" occurs on the A (fifth) string.
If you can get these three elements working for you while playing along with the CD, you're ready to try your falsetto and give it a sing. If you can then internalize a few hundred years of collective suffering, you're ready to do Chris Thomas King doing Robert Johnson doing Skip James doing the blues.
Here are the lyrics, more or less, as heard in the movie:
Hard time here and everywhere you go
Times is harder than ever been before
And the people are driftin' from door to door
Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
And you say you had money, you better be sure
'Cause these hard times will drive you from door to door
There are actually more lyrics in the Skip James original, but I'm shooting for the version King does in the movie. You can find the complete lyrics at several Music Lyrics websites. Just enter Skip James or Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.
If you come up with a different way to chord this tune, please let me know! The original Skip James version sounds similar in the vocals, but the guitar playing is a bit different.
Note: Thanks for the comments. I think Fionna is right. The original Skip James and the "O Brother..." version are actually done in DADFAD, which is an open d-minor. It just means tuning the G string a whole step lower than I originally suggested. But many of the runs are the same in either tuning, and DADGAD does work well. Try both and see which works best for you!
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