How I learn a New Song - what about you?

[Robin, Wales]

I know that we all learn differently but yesterday I started working on a new song and thought about my learning as process as I was going along. So here it is – and I expect that it is quite different from many others as we all learn in different ways.

One of my son’s sent me a link to the video above. I loved it, and yesterday I thought that I would have a go at starting to learn the song.

Resources: The video was my first resource, and I also bought the track from the Mandolin Orange Band Camp page and downloaded it to my phone. The .mp3 recording will be my primary learning source for learning both the guitar part and the singing going forward. I have saved the lyrics to a notepad on my phone so I can learn them.

The guitar part: It was easy for me to see in the video Andrew was capo’d at 2nd fret and playing out of G chord shapes. I found that straight away on my guitar. I could hear the rhythm of his picking pattern – alt bass, some pinches and the notes on the b string stood out - the pattern rarely involved the 1st string. It didn’t take me long to get the feel of the rhythm of the pattern. I could hear the bass line changing – dropping and then climbing on the chord changes, and I could see that his fingers were not moving much. The little G to C pattern was with hammer ons. The D had an F# in the bass. And the Em played straight. I could reach all the chords although the D shape was unfamiliar, but it will come. I can’t always reach chords because I have lost the first phalanx from my left index finger, so on many tunes I have to change the arrangement. The chord progression is repetitive throughout the piece. The standout parts I could here were the G to C riff between sung phrases and the quicker change to the D chord on the second line of each sung phrase.

This is only the second tune that I have tried to fingerpick since picking up the guitar again (the first being Pancho and Lefty) but its not going to take too long to drive this pattern into my non-conscious. On my bike ride this morning I had the rhythm going round in my head.

The singing part: My overview is that this is a conversation between two lovers. One leaves to go overseas and asks the other if they can send them anything from foreign parts. The other basically says “just send me your love and come back quick”. On the voyage the traveller writes a letter saying, “I don’t think I’ll be coming back”. And the other says, “Well, you can bloody well send me a pair of boots then!”. Mandolin Orange are quite free with the melody. The two voices will start a phrase using different pitches and the male part may drop an interval where the female part climbs; so the tune is quite “loose” within the framework of the chords. But the rhythm of the sung phrases is the constant, like a poem. So, given my limited vocal range, I could probably arrange this for my voice and not lose anything by compressing the tune’s range but keeping the phrasing and concentrating on telling the story. It is going to take me longer to learn the words and learn to sing the song than it will to get the guitar part down.

What’s next: I now need to keep listening to the track on repeat play, start to learn the words and listen out for the nuances that I have so far missed. We are going away on a camping trip with lots of friends at the end of July, so I would hope to have this song “campfire ready” by then.

How would you have tackled this song if you had been sent the video above?

[Methos1979]

Great song. I love Mandolin Orange (now called Watchhouse). I preferred the old name. They remind me of a cross betwwn two of my all-time favorite bands, The Milk Carton Kids and The Civil Wars.

Anyway, as for my process (or our process, as I'm in an acoustic duo with my wife) we hear a song we want to do and there are two immediate considerations: Can I play it and can she sing it? For the playing part I do a quick check on The Ultimate Guitar app (which I subscribe to) and see how many and what chords are in the song. There are two important features of this app that help me immensely - Simplify and Transpose. Songs usually written and performed on piano tend to have a boat-load of complex chords that don't translate really well to guitar. So the Simplify function helps by removing and/or replacing many of these with less complex versions. The Transpose function helps me find the easiest key to play it in and also obviously helps with vocals.

The singing part is usually easier in that my wife who does most of the vocals just listens and knows pretty quick weather she can sing it. It's all about the range. Some singers sing songs with incredible power and range that makes it difficult for mere mortals to song. And while sometimes you can fake it (like I do with guitar) and no one will really notice, oftentimes vocal pyrotechnics are just so much part of a song that you can't deviate without losing what made the song great. On rare occasion it's a song that is perfect for my limited range and works better for me to sing. We also work hard to come up with decent harmonies. This has taken the longest to accomplish but is SO very satisfying when it comes together.

Assuming we both feel we can do it, then we just listen to the song over and over again separately at work and when we're alone and learn our parts individually. Then we work up the arrangement together. For me on guitar, I generally never play anything exactly as written but rather I come up with my own, usually simplified arrangement that is at the very least a headfake towards the original. Most times this is just because I'm having to provide the entire backing band so I need to be the guitar, piano, bass and percussion. This is done strictly on a 'feeling' basis that I developed from repeated listenings to the original (or cover) on YouTube and often I'll play along to help me with the arrangement.

We can tell pretty quick whether a song is going to come together or not. Usually within that first session of playing it together. It still takes a good couple of weeks to get it 'down' and longer to really internalize to performance worthiness. And then there are those songs that just never come. It's heartbreaking when it's a song you love and really want to do but have to eventually just walk away. On rare occasion we'll check back on it a year or so later and try it again and it suddenly works, most often because my guitar skills have improved or we find a new way to play it. More often than not though we quickly find/remember why it didn't work and abandon it again.

Another good tool we use when we identify a song we like is to do a search on YouTube with the song name plus 'acoustic cover' and listen to the dozens of versions of people doing it. Sometimes this will provide an interesting twist on things that will help us come up with our own arrangement. Another important piece of the puzzle with working it up is to identify a tempo and play/practice it with a metronome. Otherwise it almost always gets played too fast and once internalized at a faster pace it can be very hard to walk that back.

[Robin, Wales]

Thanks Methos! That sounds like a great way to work!

Another important piece of the puzzle with working it up is to identify a tempo and play/practice it with a metronome. Otherwise it almost always gets played too fast and once internalized at a faster pace it can be very hard to walk that back.

Oh, I can so relate to this! I was listening to "Boots of Spanish Leather" this morning and another song I do "Diana" by Johnathan Byrd played after it - and I realised that I'm now singing this much faster than the original!!!

[rllink]

That is a beautiful song. So for me a couple things. The first and most important is that he is a much better singer and guitar player than I am. So I would first listen to the song until I could sing along. Because to me the song comes first and the guitar is accompaniment. It is futile for me to try to learn a song I don't know how to sing. Then I would break it down to the basic chords and progressions to see if there is something I'm already familiar with or if it is something new to me. Then I would learn to sing and play in in its basic form. Then I would see how far I could go with it and if I wanted to emulate the guitar playing in the video I would try to slowly add little subtle pieces that dress it up and add in the transitional chords like he does. But more than likely once I got the basic foundation I would see what I could do to make it my own.

That's how I approach a new song. I dumb it down and then build from there.

I guess much like methos does it when I think about it.

[Robin, Wales]

It is futile for me to try to learn a song I don't know how to sing.

That is a very good point! I guess that I have dropped quite few songs because I really couldn't sing them once I'd had a go at them.

But more than likely once I got the basic foundation I would see what I could do to make it my own.

Yep, I do that too.

I dumb it down and then build from there.

And I have lots of that going on!

It sounds like the first three of us in this thread are "by ear" learners and quite happy to build a song based around our own skills and not worry about being a note for note "copy" of the original recording. And no mention of TAB so far, it is all about listening. I know that not everyone is like that.

[foxo]

Absolutely beautiful cover of a Dylan classic. It works so perfectly as a duet. Thanks for sharing.

[TBman]

I'm not talented in the "learn by ear" department.

If I hear something I want to learn I will hunt down the notation with tab, buy or download the music track/video and practice the score a section at a time and once I get up to a decent speed, lets say 50% I'll start to play along with the original in Transcribe! where I can drop the speed down to my level. Then I will speed it up over time. Quite often I don't finish the tune, I'll go onto something else and return to it later. That's all part of my guitar entertainment.

Years ago I would buy an album, like NY's Harvest, love the tunes and track down the music book only to discover it was piano music and most of the guitar was left out - all they gave you were chords. Then I had listen to the song over and over, playing along, picking up the needle and moving it back over and over and over again.

Boy do I wish I was born in 1995 and not 1955. Things are so much better now to learn things.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by foxo

Absolutely beautiful cover of a Dylan classic. It works so perfectly as a duet. Thanks for sharing.

It was my son in Milngavie who sent me the link. Anywhere near you?

[foxo]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

It was my son in Milngavie who sent me the link. Anywhere near you?

Nah, I’m in Fife.

[Robin, Wales]

I'm not talented in the "learn by ear" department.

I would think that you are just not practiced rather than not talented Barry!

You have a very different approach to me. But, when I play mountain dulcimer and I'm searching out Appalachian or old Welsh dance tunes then I use sheet music. The dulcimer is the only instrument where I have taught myself to read music because that's how the old tunes are displayed in fiddle books - and it is to fiddle tune books that I go to find tunes.

I say "read" music. I don't actually "read" it, I sort of follow the intervals and timing. I couldn't actually tell you what the notes were without thinking about it, but I could sing you the tune. So, to me, simple sheet music of a melody is like learning by ear on paper! When I'm learning a dulcimer tune I'll often read the music in bed to learn the tune; I don't need to have the instrument in my hands but can then play the tune the next time I do pick up the instrument because the melody is in my head.

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

....It sounds like the first three of us in this thread are "by ear" learners....

Yeah, I guess just through familiarity (and a keyboard background) I can just "hear" the chord changes and know what they are, particularly on fairly simple compositions, which describes a lot of Dylan songs.

For other pieces, a youtube video showing the player's left hand will be enough. I needed that to see how Jorma did Embryonic Journey, which resulted in my 12-string version (after about 6 months of practicing ).

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

Yeah, I guess just through familiarity (and a keyboard background) I can just "hear" the chord changes and know what they are, particularly on fairly simple compositions, which describes a lot of Dylan songs.

For other pieces, a youtube video showing the player's left hand will be enough. I needed that to see how Jorma did Embryonic Journey, which resulted in my 12-string version (after about 6 months of practicing ).

Blimey! Well you certainly have that one down

[Robin, Wales]

Second evening at it and I'm just loving this song! I've had a hard day working and just needed to unwind and this picking pattern is mesmerising. I love the way Andrew bounces his wrist when playing, and it really helps me to flow the pattern if I copy that. I've been also working on getting a nice tone from my thumb pick and fingerpicks but making small adjustments in the angle of attack and positioning over the sound hole.

I'm starting to sing over the top of the pattern. And with some work I think that I can get a difference between the two voices using slightly different melodies for the verses. Perhaps this song is going to work for me, it is already starting to come together in places - a long, long way to go yet though.

[Aimelie]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

Yeah, I guess just through familiarity (and a keyboard background) I can just "hear" the chord changes and know what they are, particularly on fairly simple compositions, which describes a lot of Dylan songs.

For other pieces, a youtube video showing the player's left hand will be enough. I needed that to see how Jorma did Embryonic Journey, which resulted in my 12-string version (after about 6 months of practicing ).

Can I just say that this is fantastic? Why yes, I think I can! Wow—love it!

[Andy Howell]

I find working on the vocal is as imporant — and often more important — than tbe guitar part. If you have a guitar amp that can take a vocal channel practice through that — it really cna make a difference.