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I'll use this section for showing my own use of Taplature in practice. Take a look, and if you fancy joining me here feel free to start your own thread to examine the problems standing in your way on guitar. I'll be on hand to offer advice ... on the house!
Noodling with this Van Morrison classic the other day I zoomed in on the atmospheric horn riff that crops up to take the song to another level. The video below is lined up at that point if you're not familiar with it:
The original's in Eb but dropping it a semitone down to D allows for a decent version on guitar in dropped D tuning (just tune your low E string down to D).
Here's a rough and ready rendition of what I came up with though that's not really the purpose of this post.
What is the purpose of this post, is a tricky combination I ran into when trying out a few different fingerings. So tricky that after 40+ years of playing guitar I can't do it! Here's a vague tab for what I play in the video above. The problem we'll be zooming deep in on is the two…
A personal favourite, I spent some time arranging this one for guitar, learning to play and recording it back in 2009. Here's the result of that played in "dropped D" tuning (DADGBE).
Recently I've been side-tracked by this one again and have written the arrangement out (with a few revisions for 2019) in glorious Taplature. You can download a copy by clicking on the PDF link below.
A re-recording of this wonderful tune may well now be on my agenda although I don't have a nylon string any more. Trying it out on my trusty Blueshawk has already offered an extra challenge or two due to the relative narrowness of the neck but let's see what happens!
Fancy some free help with any of the trickier bits? Start your own practice journal here in the Taplature forum and I'll be on hand with 100% free tuition using Taplature to ge…
Reflecting the changes in fingering included in the recent transcription above here's a run-through on the Blueshawk. Definitely a challenge to get things ringing correctly on the narrower neck. I miss my old nylon string for stuff like this!
What a great lick! Click to play (from 0:07)!
May be of interest ... here's another rapid-fire flurry fitting a ton of notes into a bar of swing timing that eluded me for many years. Gary Moore at his best! *That* Gary Moore Lick! (How to Play the Parisienne Walkways Fast Run)
A fresh challenge for me!
This one came up in a lesson yesterday afternoon for the first time and I've been dragged off on a new journey which I'll document here. Knowing the song quite well but without ever having thought about how to play it, my instinct was that this was a straight 4 beat. Upon listening in with my student it soon became clear I was very wrong! There's a triplet feel which I first settled on as being a 6/8 count. The problem is that it underlies a vocal rhythm which doesn't appear to have any hard structure, at least in the verse sections!
I offered my student a reasonable way of viewing things and surprisingly quickly she had a functional version running, singing and strumming. I knew I wasn't done with this one though and spent half my evening digging through for a better understanding. Th…
The power of "latent learning" (click for definition) is well advertised by the following video. After forgetting about this one for 48 hours I sat down tonight and without any warm-up practice, recorded the following sequence. This time things felt so much easier that I was able to push the speed substantially higher than on my last attempt where record speed (80bpm) felt about my limit.
"Stress-testing" any piece of music like this is a useful way to highlight any weak spots. As you can see in the video I don't really have any major problems with "Don't Give Up" until over 50% faster than the original, leaving the actual performance speed now well inside my comfort zone.
I've made similar Youtube videos in the past for a couple of guitar solos ...
1) Albert Lee's Country Boy back in 2010. (See a recent lesson on this one here in the Taplature Blog:
https://www.taplature.com/single-post/2018/06/01/Pick-it-Son-Country-Boy-Slow-and-Close-up-Lesson
2) A Django inspired solo over "Melancholy Baby" which I needed to get in shape to play live.
While "Don't Give Up" would be unlikely to benefit from being performed live at higher speeds this approach of "stress-testing" by pushing the speed is a great way to find out where work needs to go in. Try it with anything you're working on! I guarantee you'll learn a lot!
The current state of play leaves the fingering I'd like off-limits as I haven't worked out yet how to do it!