Okay, I've set myself a goal to perform at an IRL open mic in 3 weeks

[Mustela]

So the open mic where my wife has been performing, and where I’ve been making a bunch of friends just had its 1yr anniversary (tonight, even). It’s a really welcoming bunch. The organizer and a few other folks have been bugging me to perform for awhile. Not really trying to pressure me, but they know I play so they’re trying to be encouraging.

My big holdup is that I am not good at singing, let alone singing and playing. I can barely do that with 2 songs locked away in my music room so nobody else has to hear it (well, nobody except for my wife and the 4-legged children). I want to be able to hold my own on some instrumental songs so I don’t have to rely on my voice to make my performance interesting.

Last month, the organizer did the first theme. His first theme was a pretty easy one that most people do already, which is to sing a song either written or performed by someone of the opposite gender. Tonight, he announced the theme for this month’s theme night, and it’s Disney songs. My wife is absolutely thrilled and plans to learn to play Le Poissons from The Little Mermaid. She loves Disney and can sing a LOT of those songs from memory.

I decided to go a different direction. I think I’m going to cover a cover of something that’s technically a Disney song now.

Imperial March by Metallica - Guitar Pro Tabs

[GrytPipe]

Well, all i can say is: go go go!!!

Go for it!!

[Mustela]

Just have to figure out what I’ll do for the rest of the songs (at this open mic, 3 songs is standard). Thinking I’ll play with my wife on a song or two, also.

[TheCluelessLuthier]

Go for it! Maybe even share a video.

[tony]

Open mics are a great learning experience. Practice with a mic and amplified at home if at all possible before the public event. My first open mic I’d not sung into a mic before and didn’t realize they are often quite directional. So when i turned me head to look at the fret board I could hear that my voice was fading. Plus your guitar, if acoustic, does sound different amplified than it does unplugged.

[Mustela]

So…I won’t be singing so I have that part covered.

I have to decide if I want to play my electric and be more “faithful” to the Metallica cover or if I want to keep things simpler and play my acoustic. I’ll be practicing with both to see which I prefer and that will certainly color anything else I might do. I could technically cut it off at just 1 song, but that one as written for guitar is pretty short.

Not sure I have enough time to mash up a few bits of different songs as an instrumental medley and learn it well enough to play. I suspect it’ll take me plenty long to learn that one piece well enough that I won’t need to bite off even more and overextend myself. I have a feeling that I’ll most likely play along with my wife and then just do the one on my own.

[CD02]

Nice one. I’m sure this will be a blast. Looking forward to hearing your follow up afterwards maybe even get it videoed .

[Mustela]

the organizer does Facebook livestreams every week now. He leaves it up so we can crop our own performances out if we want.

[markr31]

Okay, it’s driving me crazy. What does IRL stand for?

[LadyOfTheCastle]

“In real life” is my guess

[Silvia80]

This is great to read Nate! Practice your song and have fun! So much to learn for you from this opportunity…I hope you’ll share how it went, your considerations and feelings.
Ah…Les Poissons big thumbs up for your wife’s choice…though I don’t know the song by Metallica

[Mustela]

It’s a metal-ified version of this:

Star Wars- The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme)

Metallica’s version:

Metallica - Star Wars Imperial March

This is apparently a fairly uncommon song for them. Feels to me like they did a performance with some symphony for this.

This is a pretty rad version:
Galactic Empire - Star Wars - The Imperial March

[Mustela]

Ok, I need to shift songs. I can “play” this, but slowly, haltingly, and most certainly not smoothly. I just don’t think I’m going to be able to get it good enough to perform in 2 weeks so I need to choose something else.

I’ve been going through Disney songs to find stuff that’s at least closer to my current skill level. A lot of Disney songs are surprisingly complex! Especially the major, popular ones. My wife has agreed to perform with me so I mostly don’t need to worry about a bunch of vocals. I’m going to try a few out to see what works, but I’ve got a little bit of a list.

So my wife already knows the song Someone To Lava, which comes from an obscure Disney/Pixar short from 2014. The chords on it are all chords I know. She sings it very lovely so we just need to work out what I’ll play to accompany her ukulele (which should probably still be the most prominent instrument given the subject matter of the song). This will probably involve more background fill type stuff, especially on the low end.

A few that have come up as interesting to me mostly come from classic Disney animated films. From the 1967 Jungle Book, Bear Necessities looks like a lot of fun. Challenges here are that it’s faster than I tend to play (at least it’s a subtle variation of a strum I already know) and it also uses Fm and F7 which probably mean I need to get the full barre F chord down, too.

From the 1973 animated Robin Hood, Phoney King of England looks really fun. It has the cadence of a drinking song, which I think would work well for an open mic at a brewery. This one is also one I feel like I could “sing” as the vocals are less about the pitch and more about the rhythm/cadence. They’re almost “spoken” if you will. Tracking down the chords for this is tricky. I’ve found a couple wildly different ones. I have a feeling I can go incredibly simple on this one and nobody will care. But there’s a lot going on musically in the movie so I think I’d want to try to get the rhythm down, and I’d have to work that out from the movie because I haven’t seen it described anywhere.

From the more recent Coco, the song Un Poco Loco looks like a lot of fun. The chords are all ones I know so I would just need to work out the strumming. I’m even tempted to sing the whole thing in Spanish.

My wife still hasn’t tracked down chords for Le Poissons so I have a feeling we’re going to need to transcribe it or work it out ourselves. Maybe I can find sheet music for it to help with that process? She’s found the lyrics entirely in French which would be fun, but neither of us knows it enough to be able to sing a song in French with convincing pronunciation. I don’t know if she wants to try to work out the chords or if she’d rather just pick something else.

[Mustela]

More song shifting. The chords we were finding for Les Poissons simply didn’t work. Changing keys on those didn’t work. Bad transcriptions, I’ll say.

So I paid for the sheet music (had chords listed). THAT sounds right, and changing keys allows for my wife to get it in her vocal range. Problem is, no matter what key you put it in, it has a LOT of very difficult chords. For both of us. Yikes. That one is going to be more aspirational, I think (along with most disney songs).

She has shifted to a different Little Mermaid song that she learned awhile back. Under the Sea will be easy enough to play.

I also had a bad feeling about the chords I was finding for Phony King of England. They were dead simple, but when I listened to the song, it sounded like the song has more. So I bought the sheet music for that one, too. I was right to feel like the transcriptions I kept finding were “off”. They were mostly right for the bulk of the verses, but there are some chord changes that I think are important on some of the lines. Mostly not troublesome. The outro could give me fits. The progression in the outro goes C, C7/E, F, Fm (2 beats on each) and then C, C7/E, F, G7, C (one beat on each). I’m not doing full barre on F in songs quite yet, so doing Fm could be hard without that. The sheet music does show using a “simplified” Fm using only the top 4 strings so that might help.

Of course Songbook Pro’s chord library limitations are rearing their ugly head on this one. The grip shape for C7/E that the sheet music shows isn’t in the app. Close, but not quite. There’s also a spot (maybe you’d call it the bridge?) in the song with a Dm7(add4) to G7 progression (2 beats on each, repeats 12 times) and the app has NOTHING for Dm7(add4). Thankfully the sheet music shows it. But stuff like this really makes me grumpy that the app developer hasn’t added the functionality to define your own chords. I’ll see about using the grip shown on the sheet music, but I might try to find an alternate chord I could use if I have trouble with it.

Looks like other chord lookups call it Csus2sus4 or G7sus4. Given the progression, I think G7sus4 makes more sense for the name. And of course, the app does have G7sus4, but not the grip shown on the sheet music. Lol, but it does show an alternate grip for it that I think I can do and actually makes a bit of sense if I’m going back and forth between it and a plain G7.

I don’t think the strumming is going to be a big problem. The film piece has several instruments doing all kinds of things that just go all over the place. I think a simple rhythmic strum will do the job. Maybe a boom chick sort of thing.

I think Lava is going to be one we go with. My wife can definitely sing that one nicely. But if I can, I might try to sing it also, as it’s a song that would work well going back and forth between a couple singers. It’ll be tricky for me, though. One benefit there is that I don’t necessarily HAVE to play guitar on that one and that would give me a bit more bandwidth to handle vocals for the male parts.

[MAT1953]

Nate @Mustela

I expect I will get criticism for this but are you getting too pedantic about playing exactly the right chords. You are there to entertain the audience but more importantly to back up the singer. I have done a few solo performances singing as well and yes I simplified some of the chords and sequences you need to be realistic you are just starting on this stage of your journey. Will the audience notice the exact chords are not being played I think that is extremely unlikely after all it is not an exam it is entertaining.

Just my thoughts

Michael

PS if the chords I want are not in Justin’s library then I go to ultimate guitar.

[Mustela]

You mistake what I’m trying to do. I’m just talking things out.

The transcriptions I was finding on UG were objectively BAD. The chord progressions just sounded bad. I’m sure this is largely because Disney protects its IP hard core. Les Poissons was by far the worst. My wife was the one who made the decision in the end that she didn’t want to go there. I was willing to look at simplifying the licensed sheet music to make it so we could actually play the song but she didn’t want to spend the time. So she moved on.

Sure, Phony King of England is so old that it’s unlikely anyone will actually know it so things matter a lot less. But I still want it to sound interesting. The UG version just wasn’t interesting. Making it interesting means putting some chord changes in there. The VAST majority of what I got from the sheet music is no big deal. There was one spot I needed to simplify. I found a doable alternate that still sounds good. I could simplify that spot even more if I wanted and still get the effect of having chord changes there.

I’m pushing myself a bit to get the full F barre for the song because it’s something I need to do anyway. I’ve been close for awhile, so maybe this will be just the kind of extra push I need.

I am going to need to have the songsheets when I play at open mic. I don’t have enough time to fully memorize the songs, so I need that reference.

Also, I have ADHD and am likely Autistic on top of it. Pedantic is what I do. It’s how my brain works. So you can buzz off on telling me to stop. It won’t happen.

[sairfingers]

@Mustela

Pedantic is what I do. It’s how my brain works. So you can buzz off on telling me to stop. It won’t happen.

No need for that sort of response. Michael was just giving you his thoughts and advice.

[MAT1953]

Nate @Mustela
I must say I am surprised at your last sentence was just trying to help, there are more polite ways to tell me to “buzz off”
Michael

[Mustela]

@sairfingers

No need for that sort of response. Michael was just giving you his thoughts and advice.

@MAT1953

I must say I am surprised at your last sentence was just trying to help, there are more polite ways to tell me to “buzz off”

There absolutely is a need for neurodivergent folks to stand up for themselves. We get pressured to “conform” our entire lives and that pressure is HARD on us. The fact that we tend towards “pedantry” (aka attention to detail) is actually a SKILL that allows us to do certain jobs extremely well that other people might find impossible.

[LadyOfTheCastle]

Nate, I know it’s difficult, but try to look at Michael’s post as trying to be helpful. Let’s face it, a lot of players try to play songs exactly the way they were played originally, lots of players don’t take into account the effect the stress of playing for an audience has on their playing and the benefit of going for a song/version that is a bit below their normal level to accommodate for this. Michael only wanted to warn you for these pitfalls. Apparently, you’re aware of them, which is of course great. You could simply have said that. Of course you are allowed to explain you’re neurodivergent and that this also plays a role, but it can be no excuse to be rude to someone who’s trying to help. People can’t take into account what they don’t know. That’s absolutely not the same as being of the opinion that people who are ‘different’ have to conform to the ways other people do things.