Quote:
Originally Posted by heathdwatts
Very nice rendition of Blackwaterside.
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Thanks! Although my wife raises the bar significantly every time she sings with me,
I knew for a long time that my guitar playing just wasn't right for this song. Since that last version, I finally worked out how to get the phrasing better and more Bert like.
Bert's famous motive appears in several of his songs (especially Blackwaterside) and while I learnt them, I always knew that it just didn't sound like Bert. I also noticed that the covers I heard online also didn't get it like Bert. I was playing it too flat, with equal importance and time for each note.
It was all written in the score above the tabs, but as I am a poor reader of music I didn't notice it, and I also didn't get it when I originally learnt Blackwaterside from Rolly Brown's lessons (who, in hindsight, I don't think presented that motive well enough).
Eventually, last month when beginning to learn 'First time ever I saw your face', I noticed, from this incredible tab book, where I had been going wrong. I finally saw it in the score and knew what Bert was doing. And practiced. He's playing those notes like Anne Briggs sings with embellishments (just as I had read Jon Renbourne describing it). It is hard to explain, but if you compare the new cover with the previous cover you'll hear what I'm talking about.
It is like he's hanging on to that first note for longer than normal, establishing it, and then quickly putting in his motive of hammer-ons and pull-offs as embellishments to get to the next note, just like Anne Briggs with her voice. It's like I have crossed a threshold of understanding.
New cover:
https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=547804
Previous (presented earlier in this old thread):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqBPv16hRsQ
I quickly went back to Reynardine also to relearn those phrases, and now I am much happier with how it sounds.
Those phrases are so important to the feel of these songs. Anyway, I'm still in love with this tab book and really looking forward to a second edition.
I hope you are listening JonPR! I'd love to see your tabbed version of One for Joe, which I also learnt from Rolly Brown, be doesn't seem quite right to me. And the rest of Bert's great tunes
(like his version of Lady Nothyng).