My first full practice track

spinland
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Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:22 pm

If I'm going to learn a song, I want to learn it: the detailed arrangement including all the parts. I've been messing with Song Surgeon as well as with Guitar Pro 6 as I dissect the song I'm learning right now: "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens. Neil's lesson was an invaluable insight into how the song is put together.

I've finally gotten all the parts down "on paper," as well as have written bass and percussion lines, and I created a full practice track using MIDI. I ended up in Logic Pro for the final arranging and mixing because that's really the best tool for that job once I have the basic tab laid out (which is where GP shines because Logic's tabbing tools stink). Here's the mixdown of the full arrangement:



I'll be practicing both playing and singing over this until I feel I have it down well enough to record a live take, which I'll (with much trepidation) share in the busking forum here when it's a wrap. I won't try playing the nylon string solo, rather the strumming solo part, at least for the first take. Eventually I want to go back and record that track live as well, but baby steps. Get the strumming and singing in tempo down, along with a few basic fingerstyle licks, and try the fancier stuff down the road.

More to come. :side:


TGNesh
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Tue Jan 17, 2017 5:40 am

Well in dutch we would say: 'Goed bezig Mark!!' ;)

Your track sounds good, good luck with the project!

Ness


spinland
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Tue Jan 17, 2017 7:07 am

TGVanessa wrote:
Well in dutch we would say: 'Goed bezig Mark!!' ;)

Your track sounds good, good luck with the project!

Ness
Ah, noch mal ein Unterschied zwischen Niederländisch und Deutsch. Auf Deutsch wär's "Gut getan!"

Just enough cognates to lull me into thinking I can work it out without Google, then a word like "bezig" pops up. :laugh:

I know "Well done" in German, Russian and Korean; sounds like a little Dutch study is in order (in my copious spare time).

Thanks for the kind words! Looking forward to actually playing this thing, :side:


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neverfoundthetime
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Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:47 pm

Good work Mark.... is it nt better without the digital guitar sounds.... so that you can use real acoustic guitar?


spinland
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Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:13 pm

neverfoundthetime wrote:
Good work Mark.... is it nt better without the digital guitar sounds.... so that you can use real acoustic guitar?
Oh, absolutely. These tracks are just for reference, and practice getting the tab and timing down. I'll play the real guitar while listening to this as a backing track for practice drills until I get the playing (and singing) timing down before I'm ready to record an actual performance. All this is just the homework I do in order to learn (as in understand, not yet to play) a song to my satisfaction. This is basically nothing more than what you'd do to make a practice track in Guitar Pro, just a little more involved.

I'd rather practice to my own arrangement than to the original artist recordings, that way I filter out their style and replace it with mine. B)


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