Neil Young's Harvest Moon - MarkM

[MarkM]

I've been working on this song for a few weeks and decided to just film it already. I took some shortcuts (who me? ). One in particular is on the 2nd fill I believe. The one with the D chord. Instead of struggling through the finger stretch on the D/A I just stayed o nthe A for an extra 3 beats. Another area of difficulty for me is the part where you go from fill 1 to the A7sus4. I get there cleanly about 50% of the time but not on this go around. Love the song and I am very greatful that Neil did a lesson on this. After all these years I never gave it a thought to play as I figured it would be too hard. So thanks to Neil to show that it really isn't that difficult of a song to learn after all. I'll be taking this one to the campfire next summer for sure!!!


MarkM

[michelew]

HI Mark it sounded good to me, nice and smooth and clean too. I don't know the song well enough to know whether the missing notes are important, but I think you've done a very nice job. Pizza, chocolate, beer points to you.

[BobR]

Mark,
Good job. Except as you said on fill two. I have been wanting to post this song for a while and I seem to have a similar issue with fill 2 also. I know Suzi posted this a while back and I told her the same thing. She said she just practiced fill 2 in isolation. She seemed to conquer it. Anyway I will post my version soon. I had sent my guitar out for a setup and it's not back yet. Hope it helps my fill :laugh: I did like the additional Norwegian Wood at the end

Bob

[Lavallee]

Hi Mark, it sounds very good, you are very relaxed playing it. You can feel the emotion.

I would just comment on your comment where you mentioned that you use a workaround instead of takling the difficulty ( Instead of struggling through the finger stretch on the D/A I just stayed o nthe A for an extra 3 beats.). I think you should reconsider because you will always find difficult areas of song that you can find an easier way but ultimately you are slowing down your progression . All the difficult parts you learn will be more tools that will be transferable to other songs eventually where they will not be a difficulty anymore.

Great video

Marc

[suziko]

Nice job, Mark! I like your very relaxed strumming, something I noticed in your Norwegian Wood video as well.

However, I would agree with what others have said: sometimes finding work-arounds to tough parts in songs is fine for the short-term (like if you're hoping to play it at a campfire soon), but not the best for your long-term progression. Fill 2 is probably the hardest part to this song, but it's also (in my opinion) an ESSENTIAL part of the song. I wouldn't say (as Bob said) that I "conquered" it by any means. But I did play it over and over again until I could play it right at least some of the time. I haven't watched the video I posted of it in a while, but I think I got it right once and not right once. Having watched your other videos and gotten a general idea of your skill level, I see no reason why you can't play Fill2 as it's supposed to be played, if you spend some time focusing on getting it right.

Suzi

[MarkM]

Thanks all. Yes I know there is improvement to be made and shortcuts to abolish. Just wanted to get the strumming down and smooth first then I'll tackle the dreaded D/A.

Suzi - Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll work on it and apply it to the updated video.

Lavalle - point taken and thank you for the kind words

Bob - as always thanks. I'll get to work on it.

Michele - I'm glad you didn't know this one too well as there were many mistakes :laugh: .



At least I got the notes right on the Norwegian Wood melody at the end :cheer:


MarkM

[jayswett]

Great performance. Nice and smooth, clean transitions. Can't say much about the fills as I haven't watched the tutorial, but I can say it certainly say it sounded authentic to my ear. Nice job.

[reiver]

Hi Mark

Great job, but to me the Em chord sounds a bit strange, and I think I can hear a hammer on a treble string during the strumming, but it may just be my ears - and the more I listened to it the less sure I got!

I would agree with those who said to stick at the tricky bits. It's getting those right that improves us as guitarists. Nice video and nice guitar.......

r

[Chasplaya]

Good job man, coming along very nicely. I agree with previous comments about work arounds, long term not such a good idea, fine for short term or if you only ever going to campfire version, but if you can nail it your campfire buddies gonna be even more impressed than they will be at the moment.

Another song to add to my must do list.

Chas

[dekotaj]

Hey Mark,Great song,sounds good.And i would be the last person to say anything about short cuts.Thanks for posting Kevin