How to tease out PP&M fingerpicking

[jstegeman]

Hello everyone,

Refer to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6x3mRbZo3k (The first time ever I saw your face, as performed by PP&M on the BBC).

I think this is one of the coolest sounding bits of fingerpicking from PP&M. As is common for them, Peter is playing with a capo (2) and Noel is playing open position - I think that gives a nice depth to the music. They both are adding flavor notes (2, 4) to the base chord as they pick out notes, which also gives a cool sound.

Now for the question. If this were just a single guitar playing, I could use something like Riffstation to slow things down and figure out note-by-note what was going on, but with two guitars going, I don't know how I could tease out the two different parts. I've searched online and can't find any tabs (the chords are pretty straightforward).

Any pointers on how to go about this? I know there are some PP&M books out there, but I don't know if this song is in any of them.

THanks

John

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by jstegeman

Hello everyone,

Refer to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6x3mRbZo3k (The first time ever I saw your face, as performed by PP&M on the BBC).

I think this is one of the coolest sounding bits of fingerpicking from PP&M. As is common for them, Peter is playing with a capo (2) and Noel is playing open position - I think that gives a nice depth to the music. They both are adding flavor notes (2, 4) to the base chord as they pick out notes, which also gives a cool sound.

Now for the question. If this were just a single guitar playing, I could use something like Riffstation to slow things down and figure out note-by-note what was going on, but with two guitars going, I don't know how I could tease out the two different parts. I've searched online and can't find any tabs (the chords are pretty straightforward).

Any pointers on how to go about this? I know there are some PP&M books out there, but I don't know if this song is in any of them.

THanks

John

After several attempts to better approximate PP&M for my performances, I realized that any audience who wanted to hear my play these tunes can't hear that well anyway. Basic travis picking would suffice.

(Tongue planted firmly in cheek)

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[jstegeman]

Originally Posted by martingitdave

After several attempts to better approximate PP&M for my performances, I realized that any audience who wanted to hear my play these tunes can't hear that well anyway. Basic travis picking would suffice.

(Tongue planted firmly in cheek)

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Haha Dave I'd agree with some songs - say Blowin' in the Wind and Puff the Magic Dragon - but not for this one. There is a nice lilting melody that is coming out of the fingerpicking on this song.

Point taken about the age, though

[rick-slo]

Arpeggios on the chords basically. For example try:

 
 -----------------------0------------------
 ------------2---------------------2-------
 -------------------------------------------
 ------2-----------2---------2---------2---
 -0-----------------------------------------
 -------------------------------------------

Incorporate into the pattern a few melody notes on the upper string as you desire.

[martingitdave]

In all seriousness, I believe Rick is correct above. To my ears, it is a travis picking pattern where the b and e strings are picked to add some melody. Usually you are playing the individual notes e, f, g, b, c, d. Basically, the 1st and 3rd frets of the treble strings. I play this way for some songs from PP&M, Townes, Steve Goodman, and Tom Paxton. I apologize if I'm stating the obvious.

[jstegeman]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Arpeggios on the chords basically. For example try:

 
 -----------------------0------------------
 ------------2---------------------2-------
 -------------------------------------------
 ------2-----------2---------2---------2---
 -0-----------------------------------------
 -------------------------------------------

Incorporate into the pattern a few melody notes on the upper string as you desire.

Thanks for that Rick. This would be on Noel's part (Peter is playing with a capo on 2). Do you think one guitar or the other is picking out the melody notes, or is it a combination of the two?

Originally Posted by martingitdave

In all seriousness, I believe Rick is correct above. To my ears, it is a travis picking pattern where the b and e strings are picked to add some melody. Usually you are playing the individual notes e, f, g, b, c, d. Basically, the 1st and 3rd frets of the treble strings. I play this way for some songs from PP&M, Townes, Steve Goodman, and Tom Paxton. I apologize if I'm stating the obvious.

Thanks, Dave - I usually think of Travis picking as having the "pinch" on the first beat, where the bass and high treble are plucked at the same time. I'm pretty new to the term Travis picking though, so I may be reading too much into this

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by jstegeman

Thanks for that Rick. This would be on Noel's part (Peter is playing with a capo on 2). Do you think one guitar or the other is picking out the melody notes, or is it a combination of the two?



Thanks, Dave - I usually think of Travis picking as having the "pinch" on the first beat, where the bass and high treble are plucked at the same time. I'm pretty new to the term Travis picking though, so I may be reading too much into this

You may be right. I'm mostly self taught. I have an old Mel Bay Travis picking book I consulted. But, I am by no means an expert. I also suspect a lot of the old folkies were probably not great technical players.

[jstegeman]

Originally Posted by martingitdave

You may be right. I'm mostly self taught. I have an old Mel Bay Travis picking book I consulted. But, I am by no mean an expert. I also think a lot of the old folkies were probably not great technical players.

Dave - I'm self-taught too for the most part. I took lessons probably 40 years ago as a kid, but everything since then is self-taught.

[Troll]

This is a lovely rendition of a truly great song. One of the things I found out about learning their tunes is that if you go to the studio recordings of their music, you can pan left/right to isolate Peter or Noel.The studio recording is virtually identical to the live version that you reference. Give it a shot....you may be able to pick out what each of them is doing. I agree that a pure Travis approach kind of misses the essence of the arrangement.

[jstegeman]

Originally Posted by Troll

This is a lovely rendition of a truly great song. One of the things I found out about learning their tunes is that if you go to the studio recordings of their music, you can pan left/right to isolate Peter or Noel.The studio recording is virtually identical to the live version that you reference. Give it a shot....you may be able to pick out what each of them is doing. I agree that a pure Travis approach kind of misses the essence of the arrangement.

Thanks for that, Troll. I've been deaf my whole life in one ear and noticed this very much on Lemon Tree - if I was wearing a stereo headset, I couldn't hear Noel signing because he was singing in my deaf ear. I'll have a look around to see if I can find the studio recording - maybe Google Play Music since I have a bunch of credit saved up on Google Play.

Edit: I now, as of the past year, am completely deaf in both ears but also have Cochlear Implants in both ears. Although my long-deaf (right) ear still has a long way to go on the rehabilitation, I am starting to learn to hear in "stereo"

[jstegeman]

Troll - absolutely fantastic suggestion - panning together with "slowdown" software makes this so much easier. I can hear the one guitar doing simple arpeggios and the other mainly picking out the melody. Panning should also help the group I play with tease out the vocal parts too.

Another interesting thing... I found it fascinating how, when played by itself, the melody guitar playing is slightly unpleasant sounding, there's a significant "twangy" sound to some of the notes, but when you put the whole thing together, it sounds great. I will have to check out whether OnSong allows you to pan the backing track, because I think that would make practicing very effective (pan to the "other" side when practicing a single part). Learning lots of new stuff as I go along... the Internet and technology adds a new dimension that I never had when I played guitar 25 years ago.

[JonPR]

My favourite fingerstyle version of this tune is Bert Jansch's instrumental one, from 1966 (DADGAD tuning):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqdi6evOclY
You'd hardly recognise the original melody from that, but you can hear his strange take on the tune better on his later vocal version with Mary Hopkin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RBRWWZdq98

(He recorded another solo vocal version later, but that's not on youtube.)

PP&M are more true to the original Peggy Seeger version (AFAIK Ewan MacColl never recorded it himself):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg6hLunBOsw
(Roberta Flack removed a lot of subtlety from the melody, IMO; although she didn't distort it quite as Jansch did.)

BTW - biographical note - Ewan MacColl wasn't from Scotland (as PP&M believed), although he did have Scottish parents and must have felt a strong Scots identity. His real name was James Miller and he was from Salford in Lancashire (the subject of his other great song Dirty Old Town). But he presumably thought a Scottish name would give him more folk authority. Not the first or last example of "fake authenticity" in popular music...

I have tab for Jansch's version if anyone's interested, and I'll be working out a one-guitar version of PP&M's...