#1
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There's playing and then there's PLAYING a song
I'm taking a break from a harder tune to learn a few of the songs in Woody Mann's The Complete Acoustic Blues Guitar Method. They are mostly 2 page songs which is perfect for my almost 62 year old brain,
Anyway I'm learning Ragtime Strut, which is cool as it has that ragtime feeling as well as alternating thumb bass. I can play it through slowly now after only spending a couple of hours on it and probably will play it at performance speed in a few days if not sooner, but the question came to my mind, "When will you be able to really play it, from memory and with the right groove." Hmm. Could be a couple of weeks, month or two, maybe six. Anyone else have that gap, do you continue to practice something to perfect it or just to learn it and slowly bring it along as time goes on naturally?
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Barry Sad Moments {Marianne Vedral cover}: My SoundCloud page Some steel strings, some nylon. |
#2
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From my experience (started with guitar in the late '50's...THE 50's, not MY 50's), the "Zen tipping point" is when the tune plays me rather than the other way 'round.
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Harmony Sovereign H-1203 "You're making the wrong mistakes." ...T. Monk Theory is the post mortem of Music. |
#3
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It's a great point. It varies of course, but I'd say it takes at least as long to really PLAY a tune as it does to learn it in the first place. It takes a while to embed itself in your fingers, so it comes out sounding natural, feeling like it's almost no effort at all.
That's when it becomes "music", because you no longer have to think about the technical stuff and can start applying some feeling, dynamics and expression to it. You feel like it's "yours" now, not the property of whoever you learned it from.
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. |
#4
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"Playing a song?" You sing a song.
"Two page song?" - a good song only needs a chorus and three verses. Are you talking about lyrics or ....tablature/notation? I don't know about this publication. but playing any popular (and some) classical pieces - don't have to be like anybody else's version, make it your own. simply, expand as you want. The idea of learning an improvised music like blues by tablature concerns me.
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Silly Moustache, Just an old Limey acoustic guitarist, Dobrolist, mandolier and singer. I'm here to try to help and advise and I offer one to one lessons/meetings/mentoring via Zoom! |
#5
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Quote:
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Barry Sad Moments {Marianne Vedral cover}: My SoundCloud page Some steel strings, some nylon. |
#6
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I like to say "I never play a song the same way once" meaning I'll often change chord inversions, or walk down to the vi when the "real" version stays on the I, or similar change. I play some songs in different keys to accommodate what my voice can support which varies from day to night, seasons, etc. I also change lyrics for the crowd - at a bar I keep all the cussing of the original but not at a farmer's market when kids are around. Since I do all this on the fly without pre-planning I maintain that yes I do know the song. I just don't adhere to the idea of attempting a note for note, word for word jukebox version of the original.
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#7
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1. Get the guitar score down.
2. Memorize lyrics. 3. Mechanically play song. 4. Artistically play song. 5. Passionately play song. 6. Perform song. |
#8
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There you go. Thank you.
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Barry Sad Moments {Marianne Vedral cover}: My SoundCloud page Some steel strings, some nylon. |