Same here, Craig…
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Thanks very much @JokuMuu and @CD02 for the feedback and the kind words.
I don’t know much about Ray LaMontagne other than his album Trouble. I find his performances (vocal and feel especially) really engaging.
I’m working with this live performance of Jolene as my reference point (rather than the album) as the guitar and vocals are a bit more exposed. Justin also has a lesson on this song on the website but I think it was during his brief non-singing phase, which is a shame as synching the vocals and the guitar is one of the challenges (and Justin is a really good singer!).
Thanks for the feedback on the audio - I seem to have the same. I’ll investigate. Another upside of this little project - learning how to use my recording software properly 
Anyhow, thanks again and all the best.
Martin
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That’s quite an ambitious project, 1 song a week, but you’re off to a great start. Your cover sounds like it would be fine for the end of the week’s version as well! 
(Another really lovely Ray LaMontagne song is Such a Simple Thing, if you want to learn a 2nd song of his.)
Thanks @Mari63 for the feedback and the kind words. Totally agree - one song a week may well be a stretch but it felt like a good place to jump off, at least for the less technical songs. I’ve listened to this song a lot and had a look at the chord changes a little while back (they’re relatively straight-forward) so hopefully I can make some improvements over the week. I’m sure there will be lots of songs that I decide to give a second week to or move on from half-done. The idea really is to keep my music practice focused on songs and use them as the basis for more technical study (e.g. here I’m trying to transcribe the melody on electric and understand what scale patterns it fits into).
Thanks for the pointer towards Such a Simple Thing - just listened to it for the first time. Really beautiful. He has such an amazing voice and is a great lyricist - ‘My heart is like paper, Yours is like a flame’. I hadn’t realised Ray L had published so many songs. Time to start exploring!
Thanks again and all the best.
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That’s a really good way to start. Kudos to you!
Listening from my AirPods and the sound is only coming from one side. It still sounds good but something that you could fix for the next video. Also like @JokuMuu already mentioned, it would be nice to see how you actually play the guitar.
Good job! 
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Thanks @CarlosAP.
Having done a little research, it seems the sound coming from one side only is because I recorded with QuickTime. That was pretty convenient but not a great result. Apparently QuickTime always treats the signal coming in as stereo (so if I’m sending single channel from my audio interface, it just treats it as either the left or right signal).
According to this YouTube video the fix is to open the recording in GarageBand and switch the setting on the track to mono; then re-export the video with the mono sound. Seems like it should make sense and I’ll try it next time to see how time-consuming it is. Given this is a practice log, rather than performance stuff, I’m trying to keep the recording process pretty quick and easy!
If anybody has any suggestions on alternatives to QuickTime that would cut out the GarageBand step they’d be gratefully received!
All the best!
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Martin, you could try OBS. Quite a few of us use it and I see it runs on Apple devices. I’m a Windows PC user so have no idea what other options there may be.
Thanks DavidP - I might have to explore OBS. The GarageBand work-around has defeated me tonight! I managed to get everything working until I exported from GB. It defaults to using an .mv4 file (apparently it’s essentially mp4 with Apple add-ons re content management). Youtube doesn’t accept it and I can’t see a quick way of converting the file.
So - the file is stuck on my computer for now but I’ll try to upload it in due course.
Thoughts from the week:
(i) the melody was not very repetitive so took a good bit of work to transcribe. I did it though so that’s good!
(ii) transcribing the melody is one thing but I am a long way from being able to play it as a lead line with any feel. Plenty of scope for improvement in that area of my playing (which I knew already).
(iii) on the rhythm/accompaniement side, I need to clarify the time-feel. The play/sing through I recorded tonight was quite stiff.
(iv) I need to work on smoothing out the top notes (particularly the E and the high G) in the vocal.
All in all though I think this has been a success. I’ve learned lots (even if the tech side has been frustrating) and I’ve really appreciated the engagement and encouragement from everyone who has commented (thank you!).
I’ll decide tomorrow what next weeks project will be. I’m thinking something mostly instrumental.
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I record straight into Garageband when I use a mic through my audio interface, When I record into QT (which is very rare and mostly as a scratchpad) I just use the built in mic on the Mac. It doesn’t sound like your rig is providing better audio than the built in mic. For simplicity sake the built in mic would be the way to go for your progress journaling (in my opinion).
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Thanks Clint!
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To round out last week, here’s the end of week version of Jolene (Ray LaM). In some ways the performance isn’t as good as the start of week version (it was a tired Sunday night thing) and the guitar rhythm is pretty ropy. That’s all good though - this is a progress journal and I’m going to have to keep it as that in my head. I’m sure there’s somewhere else where I can try to polish and perform!
This video suffers is also just from Quicktime so suffers from the same one-speaker only problem. On the plus side, thanks to @DavidP 's suggestion, I think I’ve got OBS up and running with GarageBand (using a multi-out put device and Blackhole as the link between GB and OBS. It seems to work for straight electric. I don’t know yet how to also get a vocal mic into the mix but that’s another day’s work!
Watching the end of week video through again, I think my observations from this morning all still stand.
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Week 2 (March 4th on): I’ve decided to revisit the classical piece Romanza (Spanish Romance). I had half-learned the first (minor) section a while back on classical but I don’t know the major section at all. Out of necessity I’m trying to play this on electric as my left index finger just can’t handle the barre on the classical (oldish injury from too much guitar enthusiasm!). My plan is:
- try to learn the first (minor) part so I have it clean and by heart
- see how much of the second (major) part I can learn this week
- do some harmony analysis, of the second part in particular (the first part is essentially I-IV-V in Em)
- play the Em and the E scale on the 1st string. I think it’s interesting that this pieces moves up and down the scale on the same string (instead of in our usual guitar box patterns).
- E major has 4 sharps (F#, C#, G#, D#): try to memorise that.
- experiment with playing classical on electric
- have fun!!
I don’t have a reference track to listen to / get inspired by yet (any suggestions very welcome!).
As my starting point, here’s my initial couple of minutes of messing around and failing to sight-read the second part this morning (quick capture on phone camera).
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Martin,
Glad you are making progress, both recording and your playing.
I thought Jolene sounded great. Your guitar sounds great and vocal is lovely. I suggest you post something like this in Audio-Video Of You Playing You may get more feedback and more people will get to enjoy it.
I don’t recall or notice anything digging into what you are doing in GB. If nothing other than using it to record the audio, then you may be able to take it out of the chain. On my Windows PC OBS can receive input from all 4 of my AI channels independently. I assume the same would be true on a Mac.
Again on Windows, OBS can add what they have called filters, which is typically referred to as a plugin. So I have added VST-format plugins to my audio. OBS has some standard but can access others if in the correct folder. Again, not sure how this would work on a Mac.
If not doing a lot of post processing then it becomes a simple one-step process to make the video.
Thanks David - that’s all really helpful. I’ll have a look more closely at OBS - it would be great to simplify! Really appreciate all your support on this.
So I’ve found my track to listen to for learning Romanza (YouTube link below). Bonus - it also includes a full lesson on how to play the piece and a link to a good free score (notation and tab). The guys at Classical Guitar Corner are amazing if anyone ever fancies exploring classical.
The lesson has also give me some better perspective on the piece - it’s actually quite difficult (especially the second part in major). I’m going to aim for what I heard once described as minimum-viable-piano (but on guitar obviously) and just focus on learning the first part (minor), the melody to the second part (major), and if I can get there, the bass note to go with the melody in the second part.
I’m also finding that my ancillary exploration of the Em and E scales across just the 1st string is really interesting, especially when taking the approach of (i) play a bar or two of chord (in whatever CAGED shape seems best); (ii) play a bar or two of melody on the relevant scale in quarter notes. Really ties the harmony and melody elements together in my ear and is much more challenging to do cleanly than it might sound.
Anyhow, off to work: happy guitaring everybody!
(PS If anybody who stops by here is also running a progress journal / learning log, please let me know as I’d be interested to see what you are getting up to).
Here’s my end of week on Romanza (Spanish Romance) practice. Plenty of progress - plenty of distance left to go.
1st (minor) section needs some technical work (particularly the section before, after and during the B bar chord) and lots more recall work. This morning’s recording was essentially ‘cold’ without having warmed up or played through so for that I’m happy with where we’ve got to over the week.
The 2nd (major) section is a work in progress. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t take my own advice earlier in the week and work out a minimum-viable-version; instead of getting sucked into learning all the notes (which I didn’t have time for this week). Worth reflecting on that.
I did at least do one bit of homework that I set for myself, harmonic analysis. The minor section is in Em and is essentially: i - iv - V - i - V7 - i.
Like a pop song
The major section is in Emaj and is: I - ii - V - I - IV - I - V7 - I.
Like a slightly jazzy pop song
I didn’t spend as much time as I’d have liked on the scale aspect but I do at least remember that Emaj has 4 sharps (C,D,F,G).
I’m happy that the practice I did on the electric translated to classical pretty well. Loads of space for further musical development on the classical (phrasing, energy etc) but I think the approach allowed my hands to learn the movements well enough that I would be able to develop this further on classical without making that old left index finger injury worse.
I’ve really enjoyed learning this piece and it’s reminded me both why I love learning classical music and why I moved away from it. I might try to revisit this periodically (practising the spots that are difficult) to see if I can clean it up and put a performance piece together. Would be a good one to have under the fingers, and I really do like the less famous (harder to play) major section.
Anyhow, that’s enough reflecting for this one; on to the next project!
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Week 3 (March 11th on): I’m going to revisit a song I’ve always loved: Old Love (Clapton). I had more or less learned the rhythm part about a year ago but didn’t practice it much so need to refresh that. I’ve never tried to sing it so that’s this week’s main focus, along with transcribing the vocal melody on guitar.
As far as I know it’s essentially all in Am (mostly pentatonic) so my more technical practice will be trying to learn to sing the scale and connecting vocal with guitar. I’ll use some version of the “rhythm - fill - rhythm - fill” approach that Eric Haugen promotes. I think that’s going to be a challenge as my ear really isn’t very developed still.
Homework includes writing doing the roman numerals for the chord progression.
If there’s time (there probably won’t be) I’ll see if I can learn some phrases from the solo. No doubt I’ll end up doing some random Am pentatonic improv at least!
Link to my reference track:
Should be fun