Direvus - July 2022 - Landslide + Take It Easy + Sound Of Silence + Californication + R U Mine + Swinging On A Star + House of the Rising Sun

Projects that stretch one are a good thing, Robert. Keep working at. No more suggestions for me to add. So far so good.

Well done on having a crack at a very challenging song Brendan and you did a pretty good job as well.

Great :clap::clap::clap:

Sure you can be proud of how it is going :slight_smile: .

And your intonation was really good for the song as well :clap:

Building a good foundation for a powerful version by Disturbed. Lots of good advice.
You’ve inspired me to look at their version, that in the Madman’s ball park !
:sunglasses:

Awesome, I look forward to seeing your take on it Toby :smiley:

When I first hit the Californication riff in Justin’s lessons I couldn’t make it work, I was always muting the 4th string with my F grip. I decided to park that one for a while and came back to it again as I was getting to the tail end of Grade 2. With a bit more full barre F practice under my fingers, the riff came easier and I moved on to attempting the whole song. That Bm - D - A - E sequence seemed impossible at first, but after a few nights of One Minute Changes, it came together faster than I thought it would.

No attempt at singing in this one :slight_smile:

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Great job! I’m struggling with that one right now. You gave me hope. :slight_smile:

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Coming along nicely there Brendan. I hear you with the bridge section and the chords, I never thought I’d be able to play it at any speed!

The only advice I’d give you is to trust the speed of your changes and not change so quickly after the single strums, it’s making it sound a bit staccato. It looks like your changes are quick enough. Maybe go for a couple of strums or a down up down on each before making the change as a challenge. It’ll force you to linger a little more and let the song flow a little bit better. Rhythm and timing seem bang on. It’s not an easy song to get to grips with at all but you’re well on the way :+1:

Cheers Mark. I think you gave me similar advice about changing too early, on House of the Rising Sun. I think you’re right and it happens when I’m not confident about the chord I’m changing to. While I don’t love the sound of leaving a chord too soon, I much prefer it to the sound of arriving on a chord too late – or even worse, landing on the chord with my fingers all out of position and the strum ends up being a jangly disaster.

The changes I feel myself going early on are anything into full barre F, Dm, F♯m or Bm. I think if I just pour more time into OMC/Perfect Fast Changes on those chords, the timing of the changes will resolve themselves. It worked that way with C, G, etc and now I feel like I can change to those ones at my leisure.

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I’m being a bit of a broken record then :wink::joy:

It’s not so much you’re too early, all your strums are on the right beat, I just feel you’re moving the chord earlier than you think you, or actually, need to that’s all.

Sounds like a solid plan with OMC / PFC work, they really helped me out with F when I was learning that to begin with which then translated to barre chords in general. Looking forward to hearing how that goes.

Good stuff mate :+1:

Not a broken record at all, I appreciate the advice and the fact that it’s consistent across multiple videos is a good thing! Thanks very much for your help.

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I think you are brave for even giving this a go its not easy! Well done!

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Coming along nicely Brendan.

This song is a good grower as there are lots of bits that can be done simply or more complicated.

Thought I’d give you tip that I reckon you could do already with a little practice if you gave it a shot.

The last note of the chord arpeggios in the verse sections are held longer. Watching your hand, you can do it, you’re changing earlier than you need to. I can tell that because you’re well ready in place waiting for the beat. Let it ring a little bit longer, then when you change, try to get your fingers there just in time. Will add a lot to the song.

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Thanks for the comment JK. I think getting moving into position well before the beat in the verses is a leftover from early sessions with this riff, when I found it really difficult to get my hand set up in the F grip properly. Suspect you are right that I don’t need to give myself so much time on that anymore.

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That was nicely done Brendan. A classic tune to cover.

I need say nothing more as others have already said it.

Taking another crack at this one, incorporating feedback on my last video (esp. from @Notter and @jkahn) and playing around with my new recording gear and Garage Band.

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I’m ‘cheating’ a little bit on this one because I had already sunk a bunch of time into the Lead track for it on Rocksmith, 6-7 years ago, so the timing feels very familiar to me.

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Clean chord changes and looks like you’ve got a good sense of the rhythm.

Next challenge would be to try a bit of distortion and play the riffs !

Sounds good, Brendan. Noted your thumb strumming, getting a smooth even sound.

For this one maybe BT a little louder would have been cool.

Thanks David. I always strum with my thumb, well on the downs anyway. I never got the hang of using a pick, and since I much prefer the sensation of having the strings under my fingers, I decided to continue learning without one.

Sorry not familiar with “BT”, what’s that mean?

Because I work full time and have got young kids at home, the only opportunities I really get to play are when they are asleep – which means playing/singing loud, or messing with distortion is rarely an option! The only way I get to fiddle with the gain knobs on my amp is if I pipe it out to headphones, but I can’t really record that way, as I don’t (yet) have an audio interface.