Dec 27
Skip it
Next...
21 Dec 09
After 3 weeks of frustration, House of the Rising Sun isn't working for me
Of all the songs on my list, this is 1 of the ones that I really want to be able to play. I've encountered the same problem before with the alternate bass pickin on Folsom Prison Blues and that didn't work for me either...
I'll be back to them at some point in the future!
But for now, it's time to skip it and move to the next song. And this 1 seems daunting, but probably more "do-able"Living for the Weekend - Hard Fi. Two main sections to this song:
Firstly there's an involving repeated 4 bar single string progression for Intro and Chorus. Progression is built upon octaves in places. (A string 10 to G string 12 = 1 octave; bottom E fret 8 to D string 10 = 1 octave)
Secondly the Verse and pre-Chorus is a simpler score of diads.
| -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- |
| -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- |
|12---| -- -- |12 ---| -- -- | -- -- |14 ---|12---|
|12---| -- -- |13 ---| -- -- | -- -- |15 ---|12---|
| -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- |
| -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- | -- -- |for example...
Initial thoughts are that this is certainly a challenge. Should be able to get this down. Time will tell
Dec 27
Sounds Sounds Sounds
VOX Me Some Sounds
Well, due to my utter lack of talent and not picking up this House of the Rising Sun I'm a bit stalled and can't progress to new material.
So the VOX VT-30 goes with me to a lesson and we dial up a few models to emulate as close as we can get to the sounds from a few songs of my songlist.
Should I Stay or Should I Go. UK '80s gain @12o'clock and a touch of delay & reverb.
Happy Hour. AC30HH gain @10 and a little bit of chorus.
20th Century Boy. UK '80s gain @10 bit of reverb no effects
Come Together. Tweed 2x12 gain @12 reverb @9 and guitar tone dialled to zero.
Ever Fallen in Love. UK '80s gain @12 middle fully up, touch of flanger, pinch of reverb.
Dec 26
Slow Slow Slow
More advanced = slower progress
House of the Rising Sun. Agonisingly slow progress.
Can't.
Make.
Two.
Hands.
Do.
Two.
Things.
At.
Same.
Time.
Dec 26
Ho Ho Ho
Merry Christmas, blog readers
Ok folks, it's been a while since last blog entry. A couple of reasons for that. First is it's been way busy at work. Second is that now I'm getting on to intermediate (I guess) stuff my progress is a bit stacatto.
First week after my last entry I was concentrating on my last four songs to keep them fresh in my mind and hopefully keep progress ticking along. Dakota wasn't too difficult to pick up in about a week, all apart from 1 tricky move half way through the song. The 2 bar tremolo bend is also very difficult to keep from fading away too quickly. It's really difficult to place a finger so accurately to maintain the note for 2 bars while repeatedly bending up and back... I guess that a compression pedal is used for the sustain
Then, for the next lesson, sensei and I played through the last 7 or 8 songs together. Brilliant fun
House of Rising Sun.
All time classic song. And the only song I've ever Karaoke'd. As soon as I saw the score being written out I knew I was in for trouble.
The good news is that it's all familiar chords. Am, C, D, F (half barre) and E. The bad news is that it's bass note picking, followed by rake of 4th, 3rd, 2nd, then pick 1st and 2nd strings. Repeat for next chord, etc... what makes it difficult is that the bass note changes from string to string. eek! All the heartache of Folsom only worse.
Anyways, I really want to be able to play this song well, so practice I must.
Nov 17
The Pleasures and Pains
new STATE of mind
It's been 2 weeks since my last post only because not much happened in between...
Last week's lesson majored on playing through the last 3 songs and then a bit of jamming. My Sharona and White Wedding were a bit of a disappointment... I'd been focussing all my practice time on Personal Jesus because I thought I'd got the last 2 figured out, but with a lack of practice they hadn't improved. On the up side I absolutely nailed Personal Jesus. The score is very tricky to learn to play along with, so I'd been concentrating on getting the progression learned. Sensei is now leaving the arrangement for me to write out from the transcribed sections of tab. With Personal Jesus there is a lot of assymetry - for instance the first chorus is an 8 bar 5th chord progression played twice (=16 bars). The second chorus is shortened from 16 bars to 12 by keeping the same progression fully the first time round but then jumping to the second half of the same progression... so the whole score really demanded more concentration to know where in the score each individual quirk was played - this was really my first song of that kind.
So off I went for another week of practicing the same three songs.
It worked. Progress was quite audible while playing through all 3 last night
Next song then...
Dakota - Stereophonics
Nice tune and majoring on single string phrases with 5ths sequences in intro(with flanger), bridge and outro. Although the score is much less complex and more symmetrical this time, there are 3 guitar parts layered all the way through the song. So I'll have to choose which phrases are more prominent as I write the arrangement out. Oh yeah, there is a cool tremolo bend sequence on B string fret 9 that sustains for 2 full bars each time while bending up 1/2 tone and back in time with the off-beats. So from a single pluck the note is bent up 1/2 and back 8 times as it sustains. This gets played twice at the end of each chorus. Way cooool.
I'm really impatient to get started on this one and wonder whether I can nail quickly and get a new song next week...?
Nov 3
It's a nice day to...
...start agai-ain
With a new song.
My lesson last night began with a play through of My Sharona and White Wedding. I'd been giving them both some dedicated practice. Particularly White Wedding. And I think it paid off. Sensei was well happy with progress and the way they both sounded as we played through them together, even though I knew they weren't as "accurate" as I knew I could play them. The big thing is that nothing was obviously a mistake - nothing really stood out as a "wrong" note or chord or timing. So progress has been achieved - woohoo.
The next song on the list is Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. Although I'm not a Depeche Mode fan this is a really catchy song and probably their only song that I actually like. It's a fun song to learn to play with a cool repeated 2 bar riff:
Capo 2nd fret
| --- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |--- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |
| --- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |--- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |
| --- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |--- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |
| --- --- --- --- --2 -- -- --- |--- --- --- --- -2- --- -- --- |
| --- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |--- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- |
| -0 --- -3- - 0 -- -- -3- - 0| --- 0-3- - 0 -- -- -3- - 0|
|. 1 . . 2 .+ . 3 . 4 +|. . .+ . 2 . +. 3 . 4 + |
Then the last 2 bars of each time through the chorus are complimentary to this riff... the first bar being the same as the first bar of the riff but moved up 1 string, followed by G5, F#5 in timing (G5) 1 2+ (F#5) 3 4+ (using capo as nut reference). Then straight back into the main riff.
There's also a cool 2 chord combo strummed once per bar just before the "reach out and touch faith" lyric is sung. The chords are played reference to the capo like the following..
F#7add11 (?)
0
0
3
4
4
2
Fmaj7b5 (?) (5th and flat fifth both present!)
0
0
2
3
3
1
(..though I guess the chords that sound are actually "G#7add11" and "Gmaj7b5" due to the capo)
Is using a capo cheating???
I guess that the riff and the rest of the song could easily be re-arranged without a capo, but I'm not sure the funky chords would be easy (or even possible) to play without the capo in place...
...Discuss...
Nov 3
Vox Rocks
Wicked modelling amp sounds
I'd agonised over whether to buy a new amp or not for a while. It was even more difficult to choose which to buy... so when I saw the Vox VT30 bundled with the Vox footswitch at dolphin music for a good price - with only 1 left in stock - it was time to persuade my other half that that's what I wanted for my christmas prezzie.
"Can I buy it now???" LOL
It's been getting some play time over the past couple of days. The more I learn about how to use all the functions the more I like it. I've already stored a couple of "programs" into it's memory banks - and using the footswitch to change between each. The stored programs are for Seven Nation Army, so prog1 is with Octave effect while prog2 is with a driven amp model. Next up is setting 2 more progs for Song 2, the first being clean and the second high gain...
A slight drawback about the amp is that you can spend an awful lot of time setting up and tweaking the the amp model to sound "just right", rather than just playing guitar. With a normal amp you'd not bother about it - just play along with the song, but since the Vox VT can be used to get a similar sound to what's being used in the song, it's just too tempting to ignore (and maybe even a waste of time/money not to go to some effort to set up the models and effects. And gain. And reverb!)
Overall the Vox sounds really good
Happy (early) Christmas to me, eh?
Oct 27
White Wedding Progress...
...but not nailed yet
26 Oct
"So how's White Wedding going?" asked sensei.
"Slowly, but going forwards" said I.
"OK, I'll play it through for you", says sensei
I joined in and played pretty well...
"Happy with that!" says sensei
After that I was given a choice -
1. Just play some improv,
2. Do some theory, or
3. Onto a new song?
???
Didn't want to load myself up with too much home practice and get nothing out of it, so we did some theory and improv. Johnny went to make some tea while I did some fret mapping, and now I have 2 positions or patterns of pentatonic to work with - E shape, which we've been using already and the A shape. Now have to figure out which notes on the new pattern to bend.
Hoping to move to a new song next week
Oct 20
This is Wicked
LOL
Another fun session last night. Played a few songs. Played a bit of minor pentatonic improv. Finished transcribing the White Wedding 'lead fills'. Learned what "A.H." means.
A.H. = Artificial Harmonic
LOL, happy days. I managed to find a couple of Artificial (or "pinched") Harmonics on the D string. My picking has nowhere near enough sensitivity to employ that during a song, yet, but it was wicked to actually hit a harmonic into a driven Fender Blues amp and give it a wee wiggly bend. Mental, metal, release of pent-up emotion!
I also finally realised that the foundation of blues improv is soloing minor pentatonic over a chord progression in the major key. Gets me thinking that hitting a couple of notes from the major pentatonic might provide a bit of musical tension - then resolve back to minor pentatonic scale to reinforce the bluesy theme. Cool.
Oct 19
This is getting more difficult...
...need more practice
In tonight's lesson we're going to finish transcribing White Wedding. The trouble is that I haven't got up to speed with last weeks parts. Sure enough, it's partly down to not getting a massive amount of practice time, but it also feels like I'm not going to be able to master much of this for a very long time!
Going from the arpeggio'd Bm chord to a basic Emajor chord strum I find really difficult. Then going from the Bm arpeggio to this:
5
3
2
0
x
x
Is another quantum level of difficulty higher. Sheesh. I feel the same as I did at my first lesson when I couldn't contort my fingers into a clean chord shape no matter how much time I had, never mind keeping time with music. Does this stuff get any easier?
Sensei won't be very impressed tonight
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