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Just what everyone wanted right??? Another version of Blackbird. Sorry about that. Well I had never learned it before and had some time over the Holidays. Funny now that I learned it, all the mystery went with it.............. At least I have this great song under my belt and will enjoy playing it for years to come. I'll just need someone else to sing it. As always thanks for your suggestions and comments in advance.



MarkM







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Hi Mark,

Hey, where were you for the collaboration :laugh: Just kidding, nice song to have under your belt as you say and you've done it very well.

Bob

PS
Glad to see your hat.

Hi Mark, quite a nice version, well paced, and I think you did the right thing to volunteer on vocals.
Don't put your singing down, it's a surprisingly hard song to sing.
I've squinted at a whole lot of covers of this song and couldn't register how to coordinate the chorus lyrics "Blaaackbiiird fllllyyyy" with the chords correctly, as also the lyrics "Into the daaark of ...".
I played and sang along with you here and something fell into place, thanks. But now both of us need to tune our singing to be more like the original melody in certain spots. You're really almost there

Now to throw you the vase after having thrown you the flowers ...
I mentioned in a post awhile back my tribulations with "Blackbird":
I had learned it a very wrong way before TG, and then relearned it looking at Neil's tab on TG. I did not look very closely at the TG video lesson, so I plucked the notes thinking that efficiency was always the point, that is: the finger closest to the string gets to pluck that string.
But then I realized that Neil was using this as a real fine exercise in thumb coordination ... he has the thumb hitting what I thought would be the index finger string ...., so (grrrr) back to the drawing board !
So I've been relearning it all over again (for the 3rd time) during the past months ... still some work to do, but I think it was worth the effort.

[Edit] I just now remembered that you may be playing the McCartney version (also explained by Neil), though I didn't notice any down sweeps ...
If so, then I meant well, but sorry (!) this rant is then for naught :blink:
Well, maybe not for naught ... someone else may avoid making the same mistakes. [Edit]

Glad that you posted this Mark, a long-winded answer here, but you sound really good !

That darned Blackbird ! But gotta love that lesson anyway :woohoo: .

Pierre

Thanks

Nice one, Mark! I don't believe I have ever attempted this song but looks like it must be a tricky beast!
Picking sounds crisp & clear & fluid. Very nice Job!

Cori

Well done Mark, great job! Where were you when we needed you? Just kidding.

This is a great song to play. I re-learned it with Neils fingering when I first joined TG.
Paul McCartney had his own brush finger style that he used way back when. It was I believe
his own style of playing it.

I actually didn't want to hear it again after editing the collaboration a while ago, but I must
be over that now as I enjoyed your playing.

Well done!

Tom N.

Mark,

Great job, you have this down very smooth and sounding good -- loved it! I don't ever get sick of hearing this song personally, although I can see why Tom probably did for a time because of total song overload. It's just a great song to just sit down and play - a lot! I am sure you are glad to have tackled it. Vocally it might be beneficial for you to learn to play the melody notes on the guitar and then play them along with your recording. Once you do that you can then sing along with the notes while you play them (Ness did this at one time for someone for some song, can't remember what now). You have proven you can sing the song very well while you play it in terms of timing, you just need to work on getting the correct melody notes out which learning to play them may help.

Scott

Mark, I think you really nailed the guitar on this tune and your playing sounded really great. I think you have a lot of potential in your voice so don't give up on that. I have noticed that as you have gained confidence in your singing its riches really starts to shine.

Bud

That Taylor sounds so sweet playing 'Blackbird'! And I love the slide you do up to the 12th.

I asked the question and uploaded a video way back comparing the way you play this song (index on g) vs. the way Neil teaches it (thumb on g).

Might be worth reading Neil's answer. I'll see if I can dig it up..

But well done my friend!

Here's the link that explains why to use your thumb.
http://www.totallyguitars.com/forum?fun ... id=74#1991

Just excellent Mark! Steady and exact as Swiss clock all the way through. Great to hear you sing it too, I thought your phrasing was really good... I know its not an easy one to do. Great stuff!