Spinny's Strumming Practice Redux

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daryl
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Fri Mar 24, 2017 6:53 pm

Thanks Mark! I'm not really a gear geek. I'm more of a "how can I do things with software/technology that's free on the internet" sort of guy. I guess you can call me a technology geek. OK?

I notice that the name of your project is no where on your screen capture. I'm guessing that was intentional. Maybe I'll have to strum your chords and look at the "form" of the song to try and figure out what song you are working on. But then again, it's probably some celtic thing that I've never heard of. But the song does start with a trumpet. Maybe I can play the trumpet lick for a clue?


spinland
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Sat Mar 25, 2017 5:40 am

daryl wrote:
I guess you can call me a technology geek. OK?
Perfect! Any manner of geekdom is great with me. B)
I notice that the name of your project is no where on your screen capture. I'm guessing that was intentional.
Heh. Yeah, I was holding the song details close to my chest but in that case: not intentional. I organize my work files using named folders so generally the files within them don't have titles more than locally-descriptive ones such as "simplified version in G v002."

Being so coy about the song's identity strikes me now as rather silly. Here goes:

The group is called The Rave-Ups. Here's their Wikipedia article:

The Rave-Ups

The particular album is called "Chance" and it's still available on CD (and maybe vinyl):

Chance on Amazon

Here's a bounce of that practice MIDI version shown in the screen shot. As with all hand-coded MIDI it's very mechanical-sounding—but so is a metronome and these practice tracks I create are just that: nothing more than fancy metronomes.

The Tallest Tree — Practice Track

So, there: I've 'fessed up so you needn't try to guess the song. :side:

Now to get back to making my live version measure up. :dry:

Mark


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daryl
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Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:07 am

Hey Mark, Sounds like "The Tallest Tree" has some tricky rhythms in spots. And it has two chords that I shy away from (whenever possible). The dread F and the equally dreaded Bb. So if I were going to play this song I would attempt the following to see if it sounds reasonably true to the song....

I would tune my guitar down a full step such that when I play a G chord I'm actually playing and F chord and when I play a C chord I'm actually playing a Bb. Get it? Then I would transpose the chords of the song (G C Bb F Em and Am) to the "matching" chords with the guitar tuned down the full step (A D G F#m and Bm). Granted the "new" chord progression has two barred chords in it but I don't have a problem with either one of them AND with the string tension reduced the barring is a bit easier.

Hopefully, I've gotten the matching chords correct. What do you thin? More importantly, I wonder what Neil and Vanessa think about this? Yes, one must still learn to play the F and Bb chords at some point.

The other option is to leave the guitar in standard tuning and use a capo somewhere on the neck with a different set of transposed chords. I'll leave that as an exercise for you. ;-)


spinland
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Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:40 am

Cool idea, Daryl, and I do plan to explore some creative tunings.

For this song I want to bite the bullet and play them as is. I am already cheating a little as I've been working on focused picking and playing the F as an inner-four chord which gets around the barre nicely.

For the Bb I'm not doing too badly thus far. It gets clunky now and then but I'm getting cleaner almost daily. Neil and Ness will probably visibly twitch when they read this but when I know I'm not going to play any variants of open A I often fret it as a ring finger mini-barre already, so moving that shape around the fretboard is comparatively easy for me and I can focus on getting the barre pressure where it needs to be.

For the F I have to work with an unfamiliar E shape (wrong fingers) so there are two things to think about and that one is still difficult for me.

But I'm getting there! :woohoo:

I'm interested in getting into a lot of "harder edged" electric style music and getting these moveable chord shapes under my belt is going to be very important so I'm motivated to tame that barre.

Mark


spinland
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Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:10 am

Okay, guys, I'm done screwing around for a while. Back by popular demand: the Grand Dame! :woohoo:

Noodling around with semi-random open chords and a few variations. Can't really call it a "solo" as I didn't follow any particular key, just jumped from chord to chord as the notion struck me.

Idea was some finger exercising, trying to hold a good and peppy strumming rhythm while keeping up with smooth changes. I rode this "bareback," not even a metronome, much less any audio processing. The headphones were so I could hear the feedback from the recording stream.

[video type=youtube]JWw-SAfzZMY[/video]

As you can tell, the new fingering for A still gives me some trouble at this tempo but that's why I have to keep banging away at it at speed until my fingers know the shape cold. Few other glitches here and there but this was practice, warts and all, so there it is.

Enjoy. :silly:

Mark


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daryl
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Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:45 am

I'm sure Vanessa and/or Neil will put in their 2 cents later on but in the meantime, I think you would be better off "bouncing" between 2 chords until you've got them down cold (and clean) before moving on to another 2 chords. For example, just go between a C and G (ad nauseum) until the transitions are smooth and clean and them move on to say D and A, and then G and D, and then A and E, and then F and C, and E and B7. Then work on pairs of minor chords. When you've got the pairs working smoothly move on to the various I IV V combinations. And start slowly say 60 BPM or 80 BPM and work your way up to 120 BPM. Just my 2 cents.


spinland
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Sun Apr 09, 2017 9:07 am

Good advice; can do. :side:


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