Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

`
T RI M
express a need or an
This usage has been around since
the 1920s. It showed up in the 1982 film 48 hours
Robert Johnson
Song:
- Robert Johnson
V EST APO L
Vestapol is an open D Major tuning for the guitar. If a guitar tuned in Vestapol is
strummed without fretting any notes, it will sound a D Major chord (D A D F# A D).
V
Vestapol tuning was used quite often in the parlor guitar music that was popular from the
mid-1800s to the turn of the century. It got its name from the publication in 1854 of an
-month siege of a
Russian naval base at Sevastopol in the Ukraine during the Crimean War.
parlors, blues guitarists were also performing it.
Acoustic blues historian Stefan Grossman reports first hearing Elizabeth Cotton play it in
in recordings by Mississippi John Hurt, Furry Lewis, and other blues guitarists. Slide
he guitar] in Spanish [open G Major]
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