AcousticAl learning 'Blackbird' Comparison guitar lesson

d_dog
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Mon May 24, 2010 11:16 pm

You are a patient man Al. Nice work. I have yet to switch to the "thumb" side for this song.
Great job!


RicksPick
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Tue May 25, 2010 5:10 am

Thumbs up from me Al
lol sorry
thumbs much better as it sounds like 2 base notes
err alternating bass notes :S
Anyway it sounds more full to me

RicksPick


AcousticAl
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Tue May 25, 2010 5:53 am

cosmicmechanic wrote:
thereshopeyet wrote:
I suppose the enhanced bass is because the thumb uses down strokes rather than up strokes used by the first finger?
Al, I agree with the above, but just an aside comment on your post.

I watched your video maybe ten times looking at your fretting hand and wondering what on earth your thumb was doing differently in each version !

Then I finally got the drift, looked at your picking hand and realized that I play "Blackbird" with my thumb, and I did not think my thumb was agile enough to be so precise.

So I guess this is a freebie, I suddenly realize I am more proficient than I thought :)

Interesting post, this is a good example of little things that DO add up to make a big difference in the result.

Pierre

Sorry Pierre,

I actually had a writeup on what I was trying in a different thread. Should have moved it here too. As you know now, I was just testing the 2 different ways of playing 'Blackbird'-- one using my index finger on my picking hand to play the G, and one using my thumb as more of an alternating bass to play the G.


suziko
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Tue May 25, 2010 7:12 am

*laughs* I'm glad I'm in good company, Pierre! I did the same thing- I kept thinking Al was going to wrap his thumb around to fret one of the notes on the low E string. At the end I thought "I don't see anything different! His thumb was behind the neck the entire time!" It took me reading through the comments to realize that it was his PICKING hand!


Anyway, Al, it sounds good to me both ways, though the second is probably a bit "beefier" to steal a Neil phrase. I also really liked your video editing- very cool!


mbleier
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Tue May 25, 2010 4:50 pm

Al,
Nice work on amending you playing style I know how hard that can be. I had a guitar teacher that was pretty strict with learning the proper finger placement for picking, but he also always liked to say that the more different ways you can learn to do the same thing the better off you will be. If you can be comfortable both ways then I bet when certain more complex songs come along it will be helpful to feel comfortable having a little more dexterity in your playing.

Mike


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