Hi guys!
Another session flew by. No clue where the time went. It just zips past when you're having fun making music with your friends.
Speaking of which, we've all got gigs this week so I'll get to the rundown straight away--after reminding you that my own band Vamplifier (loud rock and roll, for which I play bass and write songs) is playing this Friday the 19th at the Red Line Tap in Rogers Park. Come up to my neighborhood, have dinner at the Heartland Cafe, and stick around for some music. We play at 10pm and the cover is $5.
On Thursday, Guitar 4Ever will tackle a MEDLEY! It'll be some verses of Don't Think Twice, a transition TBD--hopefully covered by harmonica (Ken, hope you're reading this!)--and then There is a Light by The Smiths. Both tunes are capoed at 4 so there's no switching necessary. Those of you that missed The Smiths lesson, never fear. It's easy enough. Just play a quarternote strum on the one, and then eighth notes for beats two, three, and four. (Down, down-up down-up down-up)
When you have split measures, continue that rhythm, transitioning chord shapes on the "and" of two and the "and" of four so that your fretting hand lands on the new chord in time for the ones and threes. There's a fiddly bit you can ignore if you're worried about prepping it in time for the gig. It's not hard, but we don't need everyone playing it. The intro rhythm is:
| One Two and Four | One and Two and and Four |
You're on Dm for the first measure, F for the first two beats of the second measure, and G for the last "and four." You'll likely want to play that G as a barre chord shape you just slide up to from the F for the sake of speed.
That's all there is to it. Sing your sad, sad hearts out and we'll have a winner!
Saturday's Guitar 1 Rep class worked on some festive holiday tunes, just for fun. No real explanations needed on those. Just feel 'em, and share 'em with family next week. For our upcoming show, we narrowed it down to either REM's "The One I Love," or "Time is On My Side" by The Rolling Stones. For the former, concentrate on the riff and the dramatic rakes. For the latter, keep the strumming from speeding up, while maintaining that nice texture--long deliberate strums on the ones and fours, lighter chuck-a chuck-as on the other beats. Perhaps Bill will grace us with a spoken-word bridge if we select that one for the stage? Remember, show will start at noon so tell your guests to grab seats in the concert hall at 11:45am. We'll work together in the classroom until then and head down as a group.
And Sunday in Guitar 4 we worked up The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want." It's in 6/8 time. Don't think of it like 3/4.
It's more like 2/4. Emphasize the first and 4th beats. There's a
strumming pattern shown on the songmap but you'll have to double it to
make up a full, single measure of 6/8 strumming. There are a few new
chords we talked about, most notably G major 7, which can be written as
either Gmaj7 or GM7. Capital letter means major, lower case means minor!
You play that one by modifying a regular G chord on the 1st string so
that you're playing the note on the 2nd fret (F#) instead of on the 3rd
fret like you normally would. It's only a half-step different than a
regular G chord, but it gets a little finger-tangly so be patient with
yourself.
As for fiddly bits on the second page, you only need to be
responsible for either the top line OR the bottom line of printed
tableture. You and your partner playing your parts in unison will form
the chords. Remember I mentioned that that sequence is written as 4
measures, but it's really only two. The rhythm is:
One-and-two-and-three-and four five six (which you do twice). That slots in over the two measures of Bm. The second bit of fiddly business--the handwritten one--should be relatively straightforward and fits over the GM7 between verses. Here's an awesome video of the song set to a montage of the "it's-just-too-hard-to-do-things-WITHOUT-this-wonder-product" moments from infomercials. Could anything be more perfect?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U3Rh9mxcoU
For our grad gig, it was a unanimous vote for "Alison," which I'm very excited about. Be mindful of the timing on the intro (see summary a few posts back), and don't rush through the quick change split measures. Savor those! If we do that, and hit the "stop!" chord crisply, I think we'll bring the house down. Our show will start at 12:45pm for any guests you're inviting, but we'll meet at noon as per usual.
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