Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven by mbleier

[rapsidy]

Hi Mike

I thought you could have picked a harder song to play and SING :blink: :blink: you obviously like a challenge

If you can play this song fairly well you would be able to nail an easier song , maybe that might help with the plateau and Robert plant isnt the easiest vocal to follow

Love the sound the classical guitar makes

Great to see you singing as Tovo said it will get easier, confidence is a big key and maybe an easier song choice B)

Brad

[BigBear]

Mike- First, big congrats on becoming a dad. The single greatest thing I've ever done. Just make sure you enjoy every second of it because it will go by very quickly.

A very admirable effort of Stairway. A couple of suggestions if I might in the spirit of we're all in this thing together.

First, try to hold your notes just a fraction of a beat longer. You are cutting them off too quickly and it makes the song sound choppy. Stairway is a very smooth, free flowing song.

While I greatly admire you adding vocals I always advocate having the song down pretty solid before you sing. Singing takes an enormous amount of mental CPU and I think you'll find you don't sing, or play, well until you've mastered this challenging song. The song has to be almost automatic or you will continue to struggle with both.

Watch your timing carefully. It felt like you were changing tempo frequently, I'm sure not deiberately. Have you tried using a metronome? Hard to use at first but worth the effort.

Thanks for sharing your video with us. That's exactly what the video uploading is all about.

All the best and keep posting these! You are doing fantastic!! :cheer:

[Yamaha48]

Hi Mike.

Congrats with the new born son.
And thanks for uploading Stairway to heaven.
Its not easy to play and sing at the same time.
But i like that you took the time to make this video.


Anton

[thereshopeyet]

Thanks

[coclimber]

Hi Mike, many congrats on your new born son, how exciting :cheer: !!

Yeah, it's true, I've been mentioning 'sustain, sustain, SUSTAIN' a few times around here :S , it's one of those aspects of guitarplaying which remains soooooooo important, I mean álways, so éveryone needs to keep paying attention to that. Whenever I play something, it's the thing I consider most. So indeed holding on to notes as long as you can, prioritizing which notes you can let go first or need to let go last, using the most handy fingerings and so on remain things to focus on.

In this song, it's not that easy, especially since a few measures/chords in the intro start out with a pinch, so getting those cleanly is a challenge. I read you already had some good advice, so one more thing I'd like to add, that whenever you play the pinch (bassnote and first string), you cut the sound off. You're still holding on to that chord in order to play the rest of it, but it sounds asif you already let go of the strings. Your fingers are still in the right place, but you stop holding them down, so the sound of especially the high notes on the first string is gone.
Also the bassruns on the fifth string, let go of the B at the exact same moment that you pick the C, it'll sound way smoother then.

Anyway, enough said. I thought it was great to see and hear you play and even sing again, so thanks for sharing it with us!

cheers

Ness (Vanessa)

[AcousticAl]

Nicely done Mike. I uploaded a version of this a while back and seeing this makes me want to revisit it.

I wasn't brave enough at the time to add vocals- so good on you for giving it a go!
Speaking of your vocals- they seemed to follow the picking pattern you were playing as opposed to the melody. That will sort itself out in time. As others have said- the playing needs to be automatic (subliminal?).. so you can focus on the melody and not worry about the picking.

Thanks for sharing.

.

[Hydroman52]

Hey Mike,

Congratulations on the new-born. Hope you're getting some sleep.

Looks like there's some good advice here. It's a tough song to sing and play all the way through. Keep at it, you're doing great so far.

Hydroman52

[mbleier]

Rhapsidy - Thanks, I picked this one because I have been playing it for a long time and I knew it was stuck at a place.

Big Bear - Thank you for all of the suggestions. I will definitely be keeping an ear out for cutting off those notes. I hear what you are saying about the vocals. I do play the intro sans vocals so there is always that practice without them. I know I can't really sing, but I add it because I enjoy it and I don't find it changes my playing too much. Did you find my playing in the intro vastly different from when I was singing? Timing is something I am always working on and will continue to keep it in mind.

Anton - Thanks for the kind words they are always greatly appreciated and why I enjoy posting these videos that always feel like they really lack any polish.

Thereshopeyet - Thanks for the comment, Hayden is an awesome sleeper these days and sleeps between 8 and 11 hours so I am pretty well rested :huh:

Nesh - Thank you for the comments, those are some awesome suggestions. I will continue to try and keep those ideas close at hand when I work on this song.

Al - Thanks for the encouragement. I don't think singing will ever be my strong point, but I enjoy it. I have seen that comment before at least on other's posts and I know it is a challenge.

Hydroman52 - Thanks for the encourangement as well. I hope I can start to put some of these great suggestions to practice and start to make this song sound a little more polished after being stuck in one place on it for so long.

[cosmicmechanic]

Hi Mike,

Every now and then it's a good idea to take time off from making babies and play some guitar instead
My congratulations to you on both counts: the sweet child and the guitar playing.

I enjoyed your video, very nice to see you posting again. You're progressing !

Pierre