Yesterday - Chord Melody based on Justin's arrangement (JK)

Community Recordings Audio-Video Of You Playing
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Hey everyone,

I’ve been a bit all over the place with my guitar direction of late - something for my learning log later. Then I realised I hadn’t posted any videos since May! I think they keep me on track, so I’m going to start doing it regularly again.

Here’s Yesterday, based by Justin’s chord melody arrangement (Justin’s lesson here).

Here it is. Clickty click the pic:

image

I’ve abridged it as it repeats a few times. I learned this a couple of months ago, was playing it every day while learning it. It’s been marinating in the back of my mind for bit, but played it again today a few times to make sure it was under my fingers once I decided to record. Like Gordon would say, I’ve played it better and I’ve played it worse.

Happy for any kind of feedback.

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Hey JK, funny how I was thinking the other day about learning how to play Yesterday and you just brought it back to the fore front of my mind. It is great to see you getting another melody under your fingers again after all those rock songs. It was instantly recognisable, fluent and enjoyable, I was just waiting for you to sing along (but since you never I sang along while you played). It is difficult to tell with chord melodies and camera angles but maybe worth checking out your positive finger placement. I’m super impressed that you learned it a few months ago and still had it under your fingers.

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What a nice surprise Jk! It sounds really lovely :heart_eyes: and same as James, I sang along :blush:

I agree, thinking to share a video here gives us a further purpose, getting feedback can help us to be more objective and can give us directions.

This is the expression I was looking for! It actually gives the idea! I think Justin calls it “The spacing effect”, there’s a lesson on it in Grade 3.

James, it means the boy has done his homework diligentely and has internalised it properly :innocent::grin::blush:

@jkahn I need to ask: is it well under your fingers as well it’s in your ears? I’m asking because my dreamer song, the Killing me softly chord melody is so well under my fingers, and it’ll be there forever I’m sure, but it’s like my ear forgets it very easily if the automatism of mussel memory fails and then I would get stuck :sob::broken_heart:
I’d be grateful if you could share your experience of this, as this is not your first chord melody and you are able to perform very nicely.

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Hi JK, got to say nice work there, it looks and sounds very complex and the work you’ve put in is pretty obvious.
My feedback - it sounded great! :slight_smile:

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Hi JK,
I can totally agree with @Silvia80 , this recording from you is a really nice surprise, and it again shows what a multifaceted guitar player you are :smiley:. Congratulations on that. It must have been lots of work to get this melody to this level. So well done :clap::+1::star_struck:!

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Sounded good JK and well worth the effort so far. Just a matter of repeat practice now to get the fluency going. Definitely a good one for building finger dexterity.

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That was really great JK. Well done, you’ve clearly put a lot of time and effort into that one. No need for a vocal, your playing of the melody said it all.

It’s always the case isn’t it. :smiley:

I’m like you JK. Haven’t posted a song for ages. I’ve been drifting about with my practice and direction recently.

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Seems I’ve been in good company!

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Nicely played and it was recognizable, which is always good.

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Likewise :roll_eyes:

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Bravo! Yesterday is such a beautiful song. You played the melody really well too.

I also feel like recording songs keep me on track. Something about the whole process, makes me feel like I have a goal post to aim for, a start and a finish line, or whatever sports other metaphor aligns with a sense of progress.

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Sounded great and very recognizable to me JK. Far beyond my finger style skills. Great work!!

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Hey James, thanks for checking it out. I originally wrote some stuff that I wasn’t happy with in my post and then deleted before I posted it. One of those was around the muff notes. In the chorus, going from the D to the C with pinky down and quickly picking the high E is sometimes bad. Funny, because I’m fine with pinky down C most of the time, but not with this one. I need to practice more OMC. The other is the A7 style barre chord - often the open string between my fingers ends up muted.

Total positive finger placement (i.e. having fingers as close to the frets as possible I think) I don’t bother with too much as long as the note is ringing out correctly. I try to play with relaxed hands, and for some chords they’re not going to be relaxed if I do that. My fingers aren’t very flexible.

Spacing effect or marinating like a stir fry dinner - I’m marinating :rofl:. Thanks for the kudos Silvia.

I would say yes, this song is in my ears as well as under my fingers. It is mostly automatic, I couldn’t tell you which strings I’m picking at any time, but I can hear if I do it wrong. I actually had a funny experience recording, a bit of red light syndrome - I had been playing it fine, and then as soon as I hit record I did one of the chord picking patterns wrong! I looked at the tab to confirm the right way to do it, so my ears knew the mistake but my fingers needed reminding.

Thanks Mark, yeah that’s one of the things I like about chord melody, they sound complicated (because they are) but once they’re programmed in it’s more automatic.

Thanks Nicole, it means a lot. That “multi-faceted” bit is where my current direction struggles come from at the moment :thinking:.

Thanks Jason. I feel like sorting my fretting hand fingers out is going to take a lot of time, changes with chord flexibility seem to happen very slowly.

Honestly my vocal would have ruined this one :rofl:. Not a song I can comfortably do, way too high!

Drifting in practice is sounding like a common theme amongst the intermediate crowd here, must be something to that. Hmm.

Thanks Trevor.

I think you’re probably one of the most disciplined ones here when it comes to regular recording. I think I set myself up to fail by trying to get too complex with multicams, it became too hard. Sigh. But yeah, I want to get back to the regular stuff. Thanks for the feedback Alex.

Thanks Eddie - you know, it was far beyond my fingerstyle skills at the start too. Learning it was a bar by bar, slow approach at first, at some stage I just remembered it though. Funny how that happens.

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…depending on wich herbs you put in we might as well call it “The Spicing effect” :rofl:…:thinking::roll_eyes::face_with_hand_over_mouth: …ok, that’s a bad joke :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: …we have an effective new learning technique for Justin to consider :sweat_smile:

Thanks for your reply, it happens to me like that too, only I don’t even remember where that old and overused musicsheet is and correcting myself by ear takes sometimes, usually more than I wish! It’s an exercise worth doing though, you may have a try.
Looking foward for your next melody :blush:

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I hear you, JK. We want it all, and we want it now :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. At least, that’s what it feels for me, although I’m not intermediate :see_no_evil:. But the truth is inexorable, a day only has 24 hours, and a week has only 7 days. To do it all, we’d simply need more time :grin:.
But you have already built up such a stable fundament, which is a great starting point in whatever direction you feel drawn to. And the good thing is, you can always come back to the junction, you’re standing right now and choose another path, and another path,…
I’m very curious to see, which direction it will be :hugs:.

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Very nice there JK. Some beautifully delicate touches there, good dynamics, and tempo. (And thats double praise from someone who thinks most Beatles music is, ‘meh’ :crazy_face:)
Man, you have come such a long, long way in such a short time. You must be stoked at your progress.

Cheers, Shane.

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Hey JK, nice work. I too have been a bit distracted lately playing with things that are above my pay grade like string bending, :open_mouth: but its been fun and I’m still learning.
Its funny but watching you (and many others) you look like your left hand movements are so relaxed and like you have all the time in the world, I on the other hand feel like I I’m always racing to make the note or the chord and that ends up causing mistakes. :roll_eyes: I guess its an experience thing.
Well done, great song :+1:
Craig

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Hey JK, sounds great! I enjoyed listening :smiley:
I’ve been playing this song on my uke. You’ve inspired me to learn it on guitar too :slight_smile:

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Oh my god! Since May? Hey, you are one of the most active members of this community, so no reason to feel behind schedule :wink:!
I enjoyed another very solid performance of yours. Hats off. I can’t comment on the tecnical aspects as I’m not at your stage yet, but it seems pretty fluent already and I can only imagine the tecnical demand, which isn’t easy for sure. Your fretting hand seems to be quite confident and relaxed (something I have to work on). Great tune.

I love this! I have a lot of songs there, hope they will come out someday! :wink:

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I think you did very well, James. Such a beautiful melody.

I can relate to how it’s a bit harder to know where to go in practicing routines when hitting the Intermediate stages. I too haven’t posted in probably at least a year - except for collaborations. However, you seem to progress quickly as far as I can tell. So I say just keep it up and you will be on track!

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