who wants to join a friendly "learn an new song" challenge?
 

Hi guys,

It been a while since I've posted much on the forum so I thought I'd get back into the action with one of my challenges.

So would anybody like to join a friendly "learn a new song" challenge? Anyone can join! Just try to learn an new song however long it takes. It's that simple. If it takes you 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year it's all good!

The only requirement is that as you learn please post your progress, triumphs and troubles here. The whole point is to support each other, talk about the learning process and have fun.

My goals:
- learn a fingerpicking version of "I'll Fly Away" (I've started on it but it's far from ready)
- record and post it

Who's in?

How about a song that I haven't played in a while. Will that qualify? I have a bunch I would like to relearn.

Sounds good to me!

Now for the update. Day 1: I'm working on a fingerstyle chord melody arrangement of the hymn I'll Fly Away as shown to us by Woody Mann this year at his Fur Peace Ranch workshop. It's based on Reverend Gary Davis' playing. I've been picking away at the tune for a week now and can play all of the chords in sequence but out of time. Now I'm in the process of getting it in time and up to tempo. I'm working through the verse and I was able to play it through in time and at tempo a couple of times tonight. The worst part for me is an A7add9 in there. Some good progress though. I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far. I'm trying to figure out how many RGD'isms I want to add into the arrangement. I'm liking it kind of sparse right now.

Ok, I'll take a look tonight and see what I will take a shot at doing. I'd like to find something that is about 2 pages long, but a lot of good stuff is at least 4 pages.

Day 2: spent some time on the song after changing strings. Getting smoother. Mostly focused in the verse right now but I'm still trying to get the chorus together at the same time. I should probably just focus on the verse. When I get it together it sounds pretty good. I might work on it a bit more tonight if I have a few minutes.

is posting a song a requirement? If not,(Techno-weenie here), put me down for the circle game. Do we document the process we use? or just give updates?

I don't know, buy I'm going to try posting bits and pieces using that soundcloud place. I like the way people have embedded the clip in their post. No diverting readers to another website. Later on tonite I'll pick out a tune.

Nope, posting a song is not a requirement. Really it's up to you how you want to post as you go along. Just let us know how things are going for you.

j-doug this is going to be fun..ok, so I chose my song, I'm trying it on a couple different guitars..I've decided on the key of c, I'll try swapping out some substitute chords tomorrow.

Ok I picked out two songs, I'll document what I'm doing with both. The one I finish first gets posted (or maybe both, lol). The songs are Foggy Dew, arranged by Mark Hanson and Doug Young's arrangement of Shenandoah. Foggy Dew is in standard and Shenandoah is DADGAD capo II.

ok in case I do this does learning a song mean I have to be able to play it the next day or can I just sight read it and if I have to be able to play it the next day how will you know if I have memorized it and not sight reading it?

Really it's up to you. Whatever works. No hard and fast rules here, just trying to encourage people (including me) to challenge themselves and learn a new song. :) Do post how things are going for you as you progress.

I'll join in for this one. I'm feeling ambitious, so I'll try Rev Gary Davis's version of "Death Don't Have No Mercy". I found what sounds like a good transcription online (isn't the internet amazing?) so the next step is to convert it to tab/standard from ASCII so I can read it properly when playing.

I need to set up my recording gear to lay down some drum tracks for my band's demo disc, so that will give me a reason to finally quit procrastinating and record something.

Great! Happy to have you aboard.

Update: Day 3: had a bunch of time Sunday afternoon between house work responsibilities so I focused on the tune. I pretty much have all the chords and the picking under my fingers so now I'm working on fleshing out the arrangement. Mostly deciding what endings to put at the end of verses and choruses. I think I have some ideas in my head now that I think will sound good. I'll try to find some time tonight to try the arrangement out but I probably won't be able to.

Ok, here is page 1 of Shenandoah. I practiced for about an hour yesterday between the two songs and about 30 minutes tonight. I'll see if I post anything from Foggy Dew this week or maybe more of this one. It's played on my Larrivee OM-05. DADGAD, capo II. I like this soundcloud thingamabob. Its recorded in mono with Adobe Audition 1.5 using 1 Rode NT-5 mic. Later on this week I'll get my other mic out and play around with recording in stereo.