Super job, Molly, esp. the instrumental sections and the run-out ending; nice improvisation …
Wel done …
Great @MollyT ! Strumming plus singing does not at all sound repetitive but the instrumental is awesome. Love this song too
Really nicely done. Admirable accuracy in picking out the bass notes. You never miss!
Do you have a background in classical guitar? I notice you keep your thumb glued to the back of the neck, your chord grips look like a classical player.
Anyway, very nice.
Oh wow, thank you all so much for watching the video and your kind comments!
So much positive feedback, don’t know what to say
Sounds like I am on the right track here then. And one day I will dare and play it at an open mic
Running through some of the specific questions and comments:
Thank you so much Jason @Ontime but I can’t take credit for the pausing - I nicked it of Rodney himself I saw him doing it in a video and thought that’s a cool effect, I’m going to copy that!
It did. When I started learning the song I always wanted to add something else to mix it up a bit, but “simple” embellishments were not enough. So then I tried to echo the melody in the break - it’s a bit more purposeful. And while moving between strumming and instrumentals is one of the holy grails (for me) I have not actually managed to do it successfully in many songs yet. I wasn’t sure if I would get the instrumental up to speed and then go in and out of it without hiccups…It helps to really like the song so I didn’t get bored of practising it until it started to come together
Thank you so much David @DavidP for your comment! As for the spaced repetition - I totally recommend it! I find that December is always so frazzled I don’t get much structured practise done anyway. And it never takes that long to bring back a song even if at first it feels like they have slipped away.
Thank you so much Gordon @sairfingers for your comment! This one in particular was one of the things I was not sure about. I settled in the end for running through only one verse progression, because it feels long when I am playing over two verses. But its different for a listener and on that receiving end it might be preferred to have a longer break. I’ll experiment with this a bit more…
Thank you so much Michael @mfeeney0110! I can tell you I worked very hard on beeing as relaxed as possible when I was recording the video
Thank you so much Pam @pkboo3! More videos are on their way
Thank you so much John @jjw for your comment on the bass note picking! And then this interesting question. No, I have never played classical guitar in my life. I’ve played a lot of classical piano but then felt stuck in it. I can’t play a single pop song on the piano. One of my reasons to pick up the guitar was to break out of that mental block and the brief for guitar was “anything but classical”. But maybe the piano background explains my hand position - It feels most comfortable to me. The glued thumb works as an anchor - when playing standing up there is no full view of the fret board so it helps the fingers to find where they need to go.
And thank you also to Paul @mathsjunky, Mark @TheCluelessLuthier and Jacek @JackPK! Thank you for watching and leaving some feedback!
And thank you Jim @HappyCat, Hec @DeltaTyne, WIll @Will_E_Vander, Boris @Boris1565, Eddie @Eddie_09, @Elixir1253 and Steve @BarrhamianSteve for watching and leaving feedback. As I said at the start of this long two-part reply I’m a little overwhelmed by all your kind comments. I really appreciate it!
Molto grazie Silvia @Silvia80! What a fun little word … probably not in the Oxford dictionary They should add it!
Back for a second spin, Molly. I love listening to this type of music and you certainly do this one justice. Love your vocal and playing. If you don’t play/sing in a band, you should.
So impressive and inspiring how you made this song so pleasing to listen to. Thank you!
Excellent you did a great job with this…. The singing and story carries to tune. The little instrumental riffs help a lot. Fun song.
Love your idea of revisiting songs from earlier in the year … or longer. I think it helps to revisit a song we learned early on and see what we can do with it after build our skills and experience.
Very nice Molly !!
Its hard to sing, play rhythm, add bass runs, & be a 1 woman band
I think we should try a song together I really enjoyed this!
Thank you Dave @oldhead49. Sadly I don’t play in a band - yet. You never know. Would be fun though.
And thank you @FabienneD @davidsynekoh and @AlyKat for checking this out and leaving a comment!
Wow - this is great and absolutely consistent in timing and strumming! Fantastic singing - the solo is topping on the cake! So well done!
I feel like such a cheat though, I have promised a lot of videos and then nothing. But the consolidation did happen and I have brushed up a good number of songs. I just didn’t take any videos
But I did take videos of two John Prine songs. “Souvenirs” I learned around Easter last year - you might have seen it in one of my open Mic videos from that time, too. With 6 more months of guitar practise since then I noticed that one of the harder sections now rolls off much smoother now (the fiddle on the A chord at the end of the chorus). Still wobbly timing in several places - I did not practise the thumb alone when I learned the song and it makes such a difference. It will take a serious effort to correct this, but that’s for another day. I also pushed the capo up two more frets - better fit for my vocal range.
In the autumn I learned the “Speed of the sound of loneliness”. By then I had changed my approach to learning fingerpicking songs and I am much happier with the result - there is still more room to steady things further but decades of loose timings don’t go away overnight.
Thank you so much Andreas! And I have now added my own two John Prine songs here
Both are lovely !!! So well sung and played !!!
Molly
Very enjoyable versions of two great songs. Your picking is really good and you sing the lyrics with a feel for the story being told. ‘The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness’ is not an easy song to do and you have done a great job.
Brian
I enjoyed listening to both songs
Thanks for posting… I think you did a great job on these, you timing is not a problem. Love John prine, and this prompts me to dig into more if his songs…
David
Thank you so much Michael @MAT1953 I am happy you enjoyed the two songs!
Thank you David @davidsynekoh! John Prine is a total treasure, I love his humour and positivity that shines through in so many of his songs. And they are fun to learn + sing.