MarkM - Neil Young's Powderfinger

MarkM
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Mon Apr 12, 2010 12:22 pm

Beaker - Thanks. Yes that down stroke and fill is what is on the electric version. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Brad - Thanks. Yes I think there will be more vocal lessons. I know I could use a few more.

Chris - Thanks. Yes it's tough to figure out where and how to sing NY songs. Can't wait to hear your version of Elton though.

Pete - This version is a bit rare. I'm fortunate that I got Neil Young's entire catalog and then some last year as a gift. There are so many gems in there that not many people have heard.

Kevin - Thanks!! Yeah it is sounding pretty good at the moment. I had just put on a new set of strings the day before I played this.

Dennis - Thank you. I'm sure you'll recognize the electric version with all that distortion. :) :)

Scott - Thank you very much.



Here is the version I was sort of going after.



willem
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Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:22 pm

Mark thanks for introduce me to this NY song,,after listen to it and some links after NY vid i know you on your way to nail it and blast it away..


Chasplaya
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Tue Apr 13, 2010 4:37 am

Mark bravo nice version of the NY's acoustic version of the song. Not one i've listened to much. But you did it well. Need to work on the fancy fills and runs now. All1song on YT has a good acoustic version which you can work out the fills from,plus he's tuned down for the song and attacks more with that NY punchy percusive style.

Good on ya mate... always need more NY on the site never get enough

Chas


izzyhara
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Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:46 am

Sorry I am late getting to this. As usual, great recording. Great ventriloquism (sp?). I haven't heard this song in a long time, so it was a nice walk down memory lane. I can't wait to have time to play with all the cool mics and such that I bought. Good to know from others that Audacity can be "fiddly". You are just such a gem because you don't have a lot of time so you find a relatively simple song and get it down and then put it out there. I need to be more like you. Izzy


sws626
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Tue Apr 13, 2010 3:02 pm

Hi Mark,

I've come back a bunch of time to listen to this again. It's one of my favorite of NY's ballads, but I'd never heard an acoustic version. Thanks for that.

-Stuart


d_dog
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Tue Apr 13, 2010 11:31 pm

Great job Mark! Nice hammer-ons. I don't know the fills that you speak of, I'd never heard this song before. Glad you posted the YT video along with it, I can see what you were going for now, nice work! That really is a great song.


sws626
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Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:22 am

Hi Mark,

Inspired by your post, I've just started working on this song and wanted to thank you again for sharing it.

-Stuart


lueders
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Mon Dec 13, 2010 7:40 pm

I really love this tune!... probably my favorite (it is a toss up between this one & Pocahontas)
When & where have you heard lyrics that good? Anyways, I thought your playing was pretty good. Your timing wasn't bad & your accents seemed like they were happening where they needed to be.

If you have a decent tab or a even an accurate chord chart I would be interested. (looks like the key of G...C, Cmaj7, Bmin, G.Right?) Thanks Mark, Really enjoyed it!


sws626
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Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:18 pm

Hi Lueders,

Mark is playing this in G, as Neil plays it on Rust Never Sleeps. It's in E in the acoustic version on "Chrome Dreams," but Neil often plays it in G in his acoustic concerts. The chords in this key are:

G C
G G C C
G G C C (or Cmaj7)
Bm C
Bm C
Bm C
Bm C
D D
G C C
G (repeat)

Lots of room to play around here. In the simplest versions, Neil just plays a basic D DU DU DU strumming pattern. It sounds like Mark is playing D DU -U DU, which sounds a lot like the Cowboy Junkies' cover of this song and is also how I been playing it, but makes it a challenge to sing until you've really got the timing down. In the second measure of G in the first two lines above, you'll want to hold the G with your 3rd and 4th fingers, but place the 1st and 2nd fingers in their C position (for a C/G) to get the little hook there. And for the turnaround with its distinctive riff at the end of each verse (beginning with the second measure of D), I think it sounds nice to slide up and down the 2nd and 3rd strings with the 1st string open.

You'll find tabs and sheet music on the web and a lot of (mostly pretty bad) covers on YouTube.

-Stuart


MarkM
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Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:29 am

Wow 8 months flew by. I didn't realize this was done that long ago. I've watched this again and had to grimace at all the mistakes that I made. As Stuart said, there are various different ways to play this. I just used a strum pattern that came somewhat naturally. It's a bit different than the one Neil used. I think Stuart got most of the chords corret. Thinking back I did use the Cmaj7 with the Bm in those sections of the song.

MarkM


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