Busking BUDDY HOLLY

sws626
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Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:00 am
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Sun May 08, 2011 11:05 am

willem wrote:
It'S thougher then i thought and must say that the strum triplets Stuart mensiond are great but don't really know how they flow in the up and down's,,maybe just like in the intro???
Hi Willem,

It is deceptively difficult to play well. Buddy's done a terrific job with the accompaniment. I also thought it would be a lot easier, but there's definitely a lot to learn from this song.

I've been trying a couple of ways of playing the triplets at the end of the verse (4 sets of three beats in each of the last two measures). I'd most like to have played them as a succession of

Dud Dud Dud Dud | Dud Dud Dud Dud,

which is how I play the intro and the solo following the second chorus. But I have a hard time doing this and getting a rich full stroke on each hit. So, instead I've settled on playing it like this:

Dud Udu Dud Udu | Dud Udu Dud Udu

Harder to count the beats that way, but if you play along with the record a few times, you'll get the feel and it comes pretty naturally.

If anyone is working on the solo, I've had a couple of thoughts about how it works. At first I was having trouble making a good transition between the end of the chorus and the beginning of the solo. Then I realized that the last three strokes of the chorus (on the open E chord) should be played forcefully using just the two treble strings to get a strong twang going. Beat one of the first measure of the solo is then a downstroke (eighth note) on those two strings followed by an upstroke (single G eighth note) on the first string. This sets up a series of triplets on beats 2, 3 and 4, which I play DUD. So, the first four measures of the solo get played liked this (where I'm using capital letters to mark the main beats of the 4/4 signature and lower case letters to indicate the offbeats):

D u Dud Dud Dud | D u Dud Dud Dud | D u Dud Dud Dud | Dud Dud Dud Dud
E G EDB BEB BAG | E G EDB BEB BAG | E G EDB BEB BDB | BG#B BG#B BG#B BG#D

I've just indicated the main tone, although some of these are (can or should be) slides, hammer ons, pull offs, double stops, triads, etc. The last measure of this passage should end on the open D of the forth string to set up a walk down to the E in the A5 shuffle that starts the next measure.

When you listen to the original recordng, it is easy to get thrown off, miss hearing the first eighth note downstroke and hear instead the G note as though it came in as the first in a succession of four sixteenth notes on beat one like this:

Dudu Dud Dud D | Dudu Dud Dud D | Dudu Dud Dud Dud | Dud Dud Dud
GEDB BEB BAG E | GEDB BEB BAG E | GEDB BEB BDB BG#B | BG#B BG#B BG#D

Whoops, where did the last beat go?

If you don't drive this auditory illusion out of your head, it will cause no end of grief.

Another thing I've noticed is that, in the outro, Buddy Holly is playing full open chords in a different pattern rather than power chord suffle used elsewhere, and that this leads nicely into the descending double stops on the second and third strings of the final two measures, resolving on an open E7.

-Stuart


willem
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Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:53 am
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Sun May 08, 2011 1:33 pm

Stuart ,,wow ,,some research,,on this moment i am a bit distracked with ''michelle'' but i pick this up sone,,thanks


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