Week 68: Carolina Breakdown



Etta Baker

The Song

Carolina Breakdown is an instrumental masterpiece of Piedmont Blues. It was recorded at Etta’s house in 1956 and is played in standard tuning in the key of E. It uses familiar chord shapes of E, A and B7 in open position and parts of E played as a D shape on the 4th fret. It has a basic progression with variants added each repetition and a nice little breakdown to spice things up.

Left hand wise, the song is built around holding the chord shapes with slight movements to pick out melodies, but with Piedmont blues it is all about the right hand. This song is very fast with an alternating bass on the beat and melody notes on the off beats. You have to be fast, clean and have great timing – leaving melody notes ringing for a fraction of a second longer than then note value will really make it come alive.

Etta plays with a boom-chick thumb – usually hitting one string on the 1 and 3 beats, and strumming two strings on the 2 and 4 beats, all the while playing quick melodies in between. She plays with only 1 finger and the thumb and it can be hard to get the exact attack if you use more fingers. This tune will really make you organise your right hand.

It’s very fast, so practice at a slower speed and really pay attention to the timing of the notes, then gradually build up speed.

The Intro



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The Progression



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An extended A to A7 section forms the main part of the progression, alternating with the intro E section, before a funky B7 section to lead into the turnaround.Verse 2 is exactly the same, but cut off the last two bars and go straight into the breakdown.

The Breakdown



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The Variations



Verse 3 (note the double open high E in the turn around):

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