Solo Fingerstyle: Update

[Grinning Boy]

[QUOTE=Hatter;5250107]

Originally Posted by Grinning Boy

This is a marvelous advice. I kept trying to learn some arrangements and its just not clicking with me. Just the other day I took Autumn Leaves from guitarnick.com,its a very simple arrangement,but I couldnt play it the way he plays it,it was just so slow. So I started fiddling with it,adding my own notes and breaks. Its not done yet,but I like where its going. After Im done with it,Ill take your advice and try to arrange a pop song that I like. Thank you Grinning!

Thank you Hatter! And I love Autumn Leaves as well! Such a great tune. I found a French arrangement that had the original extended intro...I never had heard it before but it's very cool as a lead in to the familiar melody.

I've personally discovered a lot of wonderful tunes I never knew existed exploring and looking for songs with great melodies. Sometimes I'll google something like "best melodies" and scan the lists that pop up for songs I don't recognize and then track them down to see if I'd like to try and arrange them. I've discovered some totally unknown songs (to me) that have turned into some of my favorites to play.

[Grinning Boy]

[QUOTE=Turp;5250384]

Originally Posted by Grinning Boy

Great guidance and so correct on learning, arranging, composing, and loving your music.

As far as pushback, I had a well intentioned busy local performer friend tell me if I made changes, mostly adding vocals to gigs, I'd get more gigs. Maybe he's right, but I always held to the point that I might be doing more, but something I didn't enjoy as much. I enjoy playing what I play, instrumental, and I've enjoyed the gigs I play.

An artist creates art not by painting in the lines of a color by numbers page but by making unique works.

Thank you Turp! And thank you for sharing those thoughts. I love guitar in every form, but hearing a solo instrumentalist such as yourself is what will always make me stop, sit and listen when I encounter a player doing a gig. I really love hearing how other players phrase and harmonize songs, especially songs I've arranged myself. And I'm not ashamed to say I've stolen a few ideas for my own arrangement!

[Grinning Boy]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

Thanks for all your encouragement, and additional suggestions. Yes, I agree....play songs! I probably should have clarified when I said I want to learn to play guitar, not just songs. What I REALLY meant was that I didn't want to learn someone else's arrangements without understanding the underlying foundation of those arrangements, at the very least, and at best, playing the melody with my own arrangements. Someday! For now, I'm thrilled just to have this major AHA moment.

To celebrate, I ordered a fake book. No tab, just the notation of the melody, with suggested chords right above. This will force me to create my own fills/accompaniment. Ideally, someday, I hope to find the melody without any kind of music on a sheet in front of me. I don't know if I'll ever get there, but it's a goal.

So, Grinning Boy, I totally agree with you!

Hey, this is FUN!

This is so great to hear EllaMom (and not just that you agree with me

When I read your first post in your other thread, I thought "here is a person who feels just like me about the guitar". I hope you have a lot of enjoyment as you go down the road with it.

And getting a fake book with only melody and chords....perfect!! That's the ideal tool to start playing arrangements of your own songs. Since the guitar is such a beautiful instrument, even just playing the melody with your own phrasing will turn heads! And as you add to the melody with your own accompaniment ideas it will only get better and better. And if you learn not to refer to the book after you start to have the song down, it will be internalized and all yours!

[EllaMom]

I continue to learn from y'all. What a great bunch we have over here in PLAY.
I hope you don't get tired of me occasionally starting new threads with what for many of you are probably very basic questions. What a resource this forum is.

[Kerbie]

"Very basic questions" are the very best kind!

[s0cks]

This makes sense. I really should start arranging some of my own songs. I've done a couple but that was a long time ago and I never finished them. I always tend to get caught playing the same few songs I know and trying to perfect them, but I'm probably going to progress much more quickly if I start doing new stuff. I do want to finish learning Classical Gas though, come too far to quit now!

[Broadus]

Carol, thank you for a couple of very helpful threads ("Fingerstyle as a solo instrument" and now this one). Several of us have similar desires, and your questions and others' informed responses have been very helpful.

I picked up the guitar almost ten years ago at age 52 (oh, to be 52 again! ), and worked a lot on strumming accompaniment for small groups, and yet I always really wanted to get into fingerstyle. I pooh-poohed the idea of getting a teacher until about a year and a half ago, but I relented and was able to find an outstanding classical guitarist/teacher who loves all things guitar and who encouraged me to stay with the steel string for what I want to play. We've worked a lot with accompaniment fingerstyle patterns, but in January we started working on learning the entire fretboard and triads all over in order to get into chord melodies.

Congratulations on finding a helpful teacher, and I look forward to updates on your progress and insights.

Bill

[Wyllys]

Well, now that my taxes are done I'll have some xtra time, so anyone wishing a "treasure map" chart of chord melody fingerings for "Over the Rainbow" can e-mail me at:

[email protected]

Responses assured, but due to Spam filters and such it is possible that it will take a day or two to set things up.

W

[EllaMom]

Originally Posted by Broadus

Carol, thank you for a couple of very helpful threads ("Fingerstyle as a solo instrument" and now this one). Several of us have similar desires, and your questions and others' informed responses have been very helpful.

I picked up the guitar almost ten years ago at age 52 (oh, to be 52 again! ), and worked a lot on strumming accompaniment for small groups, and yet I always really wanted to get into fingerstyle. I pooh-poohed the idea of getting a teacher until about a year and a half ago, but I relented and was able to find an outstanding classical guitarist/teacher who loves all things guitar and who encouraged me to stay with the steel string for what I want to play. We've worked a lot with accompaniment fingerstyle patterns, but in January we started working on learning the entire fretboard and triads all over in order to get into chord melodies.

Congratulations on finding a helpful teacher, and I look forward to updates on your progress and insights.

Bill

Thanks, Bill. I'm glad the threads have been useful. I've sure gotten a lot of great info and tips as a result of posting.

[EllaMom]

Originally Posted by Wyllys

Well, now that my taxes are done I'll have some xtra time, so anyone wishing a "treasure map" chart of chord melody fingerings for "Over the Rainbow" can e-mail me at:

[email protected]

Responses assured, but due to Spam filters and such it is possible that it will take a day or two to set things up.

W

Sending you a PM! Thanks for the offer....I LOVE LOVE LOVE "Rainbow"! I just hope your version isn't too hard.

[Wyllys]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

Sending you a PM! Thanks for the offer....I LOVE LOVE LOVE "Rainbow"! I just hope your version isn't too hard.

Sorry, I can't send the material via a PM. We have to use Email...but I think I have yours from a while back.

I'll just add that chord melody stuff is perhaps for intermediate to advanced intermediate players, but a gnarly, tenacious neophyte can probably benefit as long as the subject tune is VERY familiar.

[EllaMom]

Originally Posted by Wyllys

Sorry, I can't send the material via a PM. We have to use Email...but I think I have yours from a while back.

I'll just add that chord melody stuff is perhaps for intermediate to advanced intermediate players, but a gnarly, tenacious neophyte can probably benefit as long as the subject tune is VERY familiar.

Yup, email sent, not PM. And trust me, I know Rainbow probably better than any other song! I know almost the entire movie dialogue by heart too! That is what happens when a little girl watched it every year since the first tv broadcast. lol I am still that little girl inside.