It’s been a while since I have taken my guitar to the pub and performed at our local Open Mic. Yesterday was the first time this year. “Speed of the sound of loneliness” was part of the set and the performance I was most happy with. There have been a few John Prine postings this month (including me sharing a living room video take of the same song here Molly's 2024 Consolidation - first up: Leaving Louisiana - #27 by MollyT) so why not share another one
Sound and picture quality is poor as always (noise pub and old phone) but you get the vibe.
The real vibe is not fully captured in the video though - it’s all very friendly and the punters do go quiet when I start playing. The background noise on the videos is just an artefact of the pub being in two halfs with the open mic in one half and tables for food in the other. There is not really any good spot to take videos of the performance other than right in front of the people who actually listen to the music which I don’t really want to do either. So we have settled for the spot between the two areas even if that picks up the talk from the tables.
Thank you so much Andreas @andyPlays ! That confidence is deceptive but it helps to really love the song (tick) so I have played it a fair number of times I actually missed a lot of notes in the picking (and the start of the second verse!), but it didn’t rattle me as much this time. I think that has something to do with how I learned the song - I know you have read my comments about the approach elsewhere, the key being to first learn just the thumb / base line before adding the other fingers and melody, and then do the same again when adding the singing - first just over thumb / base and then add in the rest later. And that was the safety net I fell back to in all the bars when I missed some notes, I just “thumbed out” the bar and added the other fingers back in in the next bar. So I really recommend this approach.
Thank you Hec @DeltaTyne , Will @Will_E_Vander , Mark @TheCluelessLuthier , Pam @pkboo3 and Viv @Viv_cee for stepping by and leaving a comment! I am glad you enjoyed the video, and reading the comments is really motivating to get some more songs to performance level Two new ones coming up in next week’s JustinGuitar community open mic
I actually missed a lot of notes in the picking (and the start of the second verse!), but it didn’t rattle me as much this time. I think that has something to do with how I learned the song - I know you have read my comments about the approach elsewhere, the key being to first learn just the thumb / base line before adding the other fingers and melody, and then do the same again when adding the singing - first just over thumb / base and then add in the rest later. And that was the safety net I fell back to in all the bars when I missed some notes, I just “thumbed out” the bar and added the other fingers back in in the next bar. So I really recommend this approach.