Even if you're not there to learn, we'd advise all guitar players check out Tom Bukovac's (aka Uncle Larry) YouTube channel and his Home Skoolin' videos just to watch one of the greatest guitar players on the planet right now. The Nashville session supremo is also kind enough to share some of his wisdom there between his busy session life. And this episode especially is something a lot of us can relate to.
I quickly learned when I was a young session man that if you want to make a seamless jump to an F you've got to use that thumb
After a really interesting moody jam piece on a gorgeous TV Yellow Les Paul Jr for the intro of the video above, Bukovac gets to talking about cowboy chords at around 7:50 – namely the F chord and why he doesn't play it the way most of us are taught…
"When I'm playing on a really sensitive microphone that picks up every squeak of everything you're doing," says Bukovac. "Jumping from your basic cowboy [chord] shapes all of a sudden to this [Tom then plays a traditional F barre chord] is a mess."
"I quickly learned when I was a young session man that if you want to make a seamless jump to an F you've got to use that thumb [to fret the low E]," Tom adds.
The idea is that this minimises movement in chord transitions to F and therefore unwanted string noise. Then things get interesting.
Bukovac explores other ways of playing with the F chord in transitions, and how it relates to the idea he was jamming on in the first part of the video. We told you he was good.
Check out more at Tom Bukovac's YouTube channel.
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