19. Januar 2024
Project ‘Play with others!’ is coming along slowly:
I’ve had a friend over for a few days who likes to sing, and we made some music together. It was awesome! We only had three songs in common, though (Eleanor Rigby, Country Roads, Über den Wolken) so they gave me a lot of new songs they like to sing. I’m slowly checking them out, and so far, I’ve found a few tutorials for ‘Me and Bobby McGee’. I’ll put all the others in a list at the bottom, so I don’t forget. I also asked another friend for a Christmas song, and they gave me ‘Fairytale of New York’, so it goes on the list as well. I also found a teacher who is living roughly in my neighbourhood, and I’m not sure if I can afford it, but I might just check him out for a few lessons if he’s OK with it.
List of songs to check out: Me and Bobby McGee, Sugar Mountain (Neil Young), San Francisco Nights (Eric Burdon…), Living Life (Kathy McCarthy), Sweet Baby James, People are strange (The Doors), Father and Son, Peace Train (Cat Stevens), Dein Anblick (Schandmaul), Schritt für Schritt (Ton Steine Scherben), Paloma Negra, La Llorona (Chavella Vargas), Ever Fallen in love… (Buzzcocks), Country Joe and the Fish, You got to hide your love away, I should have known better, Can’t buy me love, Lelia, The Sidewinders (REM), Bella Ciao
I really like muddling my way through ‘Sweet Baby James’. It’s one of Justin’s earlier videos, so not everything is explained in every detail. I think I got the chords now where they should be, even without the video. I love the little embellishments, and so I’m learning them as well from the beginning, even though I probably should concentrate on the chords, really, especially that pesky B minor barre. But, quite frankly, the embellishments also help me remember what chord is next, and they are what’s making this fun, so there
‘Me and Bobby McGee’ is a bit more difficult. I’m practicing the difficult bits, but I have not yet played it through completely, because I find the chords kinda boring, and my singing is not good enough to make it fun. And I’m also not fast enough yet to play with the recording, which is a shame.
I seem to have some problems now with F barre chord. I am shifting my guitar position around a lot atm, and most of them seem to hurt my hand a lot more when I play it. F# minor barre is easier, so is B barre in this respect. I don’t have a solution to this yet, I’m just watching it for now.
3. Februar 2025
I did a deep dive into ‘Sweet Baby James’ today, which means I put it in my song book, and spent entirely too long listening both to the original recording and Justin’s lesson a few times. I spent most of that time figuring out how many bars on each chord at the end of the phrases, and what Justin does in there with the hammer-on’s, since he does not explain it.
I’ve also worked on my timing. First by ‘playing’ along with the original (it was mostly just strumming along with no chords, with one or two chords in there when I got lucky. The original is fast, y’all), and then using a metronome on 60 bpm because I noticed a tendency to play the easy chords faster and slow down for the barre chords. I’ve also played it without embellishments for this, concentrating on timing and chord changes, and only added some frills when changing into easy chords, mostly to get used to hammer-on’s with a metronome.
I’m learning this one to play with my friend when we meet again, but it will be some time. I have written to a local teacher and asked for a few lessons, but he hasn’t responded yet.
