What’d I Say

Roadmap explanatory notes

This is a standard 12 bar blues piece. If you count the number of vertical bars in the first illustration
below you’ll see that there are 12 of em, and that’s of course where the name comes from. (Technically, a ‘bar’
in ‘12 bar blues’ is really made up of the
notes between the vertical bars or the
measure itself, but the name also applies to
the vertical line and ‘12 measure blues’ just
Figure 1
doesn’t have that ring to it),
below has the chords and
shows one of the many
variations of the ‘standard’ 12
bar blues that this song uses. There are a few things about this piece that make it unique and
interesting. Keeping these in mind while we’re playing will hopefully make it interesting for us and
whoever is listening.

The illustration above is the musical notation for the first 12 bars of the song and it shows the first
interesting thing about it. Take a look at the notes circled in red - (don’t worry if you don’t read music)
notice that they happen just before the even numbered bars. In other words the bass note ‘anticipates’
the downbeat of the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th bars. You can hear this timing technique when
you listen to the introduction. It happens a lot, but not always, throughout the song. We’ll look at the
exceptions below.

The second interesting thing

about it is that the first four
bars of almost every repetition
of the blues progression is
mostly quiet except for the
instrument playing a riff or the
vocals singing a verse. I’ll
refer to these figures in the
road map. The thing to notice is that there’s always a hit and then silence on the first beat of the first and
3rd bar and silence in the fourth. The only exception is that the drums fall in at bar 4 to take us back into
the progression. In figure 1 there’s a little run up to the hit in bar 3 and in figure 2 there’s just a hit and
then silence on all three of the first three bars.

Figures 1 and 2 are what the

bass is playing over the
different progressions. I
included this to point out
another thing I think is
interesting and that I know
you guys are all either
consciously or subconsciously aware of. That’s the descending bass notes in measure 11. The drop
from an E down to the B passing through a C natural.
Finally, after the verses, the song stops on the first beat of the 12th bar. That’s where everybody starts
telling Steve to keep going and he graciously agrees - He sings an “er” that lasts for a measure and we
respond with “er” for a measure, and so on with the call and response getting progressively shorter.