In the early 1930s, a trained barber began creating a style of music that had never been heard before in the Southwestern United States, fiddle in hand.
In Texas, Bob Wills founded the Playboys and later Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, laying the foundation for many generations of Western Swing musicians to come.
Western Swing is characterized, on the one hand, by a fusion of blues, country, and jazz, and on the other by the typical country instrumentation, including fiddle, pedal steel or Hawaiian guitar, upright bass, and a twangy electric guitar.
The main differences from typical jazz swing can be found in the instrumentation, but the compositions and the way the rhythm section accompanies the music are also often approached differently.
While in swing we typically try to imitate Freddie Green’s even, steady strumming style, Western Swing is based on an approach to accompaniment that can be traced more closely to Maybelle Carter.
The bass notes and the harmonic range of the guitar are played alternately, creating a sound of its own. The harmonic language is considerably more restrained than in traditional jazz, while still being rooted more deeply in traditional country and folk music. Through a variety of clever playing techniques, however, we can add a great deal of complexity to these harmonic frameworks.
In this course, we will focus primarily on the approach to rhythm accompaniment and the chords used in Western Swing.
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