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Today's release for Target and Pay Per Lesson members is now live

Undun, by the Guess Who, is a song that Neil considers one of the best ever written. It has multiple elements that contribute to this- a shocking opening chord that grabs your attention immediately, a syncopated opening vocal line that seems slightly out of sync, a creative and unusual chord progression with a memorable melody and catchy lyrics, a spectacular vocal performance by Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman's percussive guitar accompaniment with some clever fills, and the icing on the cake- a jazzy flute solo.

It is a Level 8 song

When Neil started working on this lesson he wasn't confident enough with his vocal abilities to feel comfortable singing the Play Through segment so he recruited his friend Jim Ford to drop in and run through it with him. As a bonus sideline to this lesson we are including a couple of 'Behind the Scenes' videos- an alternate Play Through segment where Jim sings, as well as their entire session with a few run throughs of the song and some general music discussions. They ended up playing Undun 3 times, and not surprisingly, the first take was the best. We hope you enjoy the informal clip.

You can see this on the latest issue of On The Beat

Hope you enjoy this action double

Cheers

Matt

http://www.totallyguitars.com/target-so ... -guess-who

Level 8?! Really??

Guess I know what I'm doing this winter.

:blink:

It's probably a 6 but since folks seem a bit sensitive to levels that I may have underestimated/overestimated I figured I'd better cover my bases. From now on everything is a 6 or less..., and 5 or better..., I mean, all we have is Level 2 songs... but wait... I want to finish Sleight Of Hand... no, can't... OK, it's a 3 (for Tommy)... aargh... if I could only strum Brown Eyed Girl!

Anon

TGNeil wrote:

It's probably a 6 but since folks seem a bit sensitive to levels that I may have underestimated/overestimated I figured I'd better cover my bases. From now on everything is a 6 or less..., and 5 or better..., I mean, all we have is Level 2 songs... but wait... I want to finish Sleight Of Hand... no, can't... OK, it's a 3 (for Tommy)... aargh... if I could only strum Brown Eyed Girl!

Anon

Hi Neil,

I know you're joking, but it's a good point. I've found some songs easier to pick up than others. Level 7's that I thought should have been lower, and 3's that have made me want to smash my guitar!

Guess the moral is-- what?

Don't be scared?

Try it, you'll like it?

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?

for me it means picking higher than i think i can do to stretch and make myself feel good about myself (e.g. windy & warm, from the beginning, etc.) followed by...

getting humbled by a level 2 song (freight train)...

it's all about the process. i figure i try songs i like. if they're too simple to pick up i don't play them enough, and it doesn't give me that sense of accomplishment...

anywho...undun is badA$$!! thanks neil and tg!

Glad you like the song as it in a small league as far as I'm concerned. Levels is as levels does.

Anon

Great song, I will start working on it today. Love the south american sound of the guitar.

Marc

Shamely I have to admit that I don't know the song and I don't think I even know the band...

But since this is one of Neil's all time favorites, I múst give it a shot!

This is a bit different from a lot of the material in the library.

Very nice.

Thanks

I don't like Guess Who very much in general, but I've always loved this song.

I searched iTunes, mainly looking for a solo-acoustic version of it. I came up empty, but found some covers I thought were interesting (the unusual spelling of the title helped, of course). Not surprisingly, there are lots of jazz covers --Sophie Millman, Alexander Zenjic, others. Best is probably Renee Lee's. Randy Bachman has a live version that's pretty good. But perhaps the most interesting is one by a surf band called Wave Invasion.