Guitar Musings

If You have read some of my previous Tommy posts, you will know I’m on a quest for an accurate Borsalino transcription.  I think I found one that when combined with the other transcription that I found, I get a pretty good idea on how to play it.  The thing that makes this so hard is that Tommy plays the song differently depending on when he played it.  So there cold possibly be many versions of tab out there.  Anyway, this site has many different transcriptions for you to try out.  (I lost count after 20)  They are in PDF format so you don’t have to worry about having Guitar Pro or Power Tab.

I have sampled two two transcriptions; Borsalino and Bye Bye Blackbird(Up Close DVD).  Borsalino is fairly accurate but it’s hard to say because in the performance notes for the transcription, it says, “As seen in concert…”   What concert would that be?  Who knows but it fills some holes the other left.  Bye Bye Blackbird is OK as far as the notes and fingering but the rhythm was not as accurate as I had hoped.  In the “Up Close” DVD, Tommy did a lot of syncopation which wasn’t represented in the music. 

Of course, a sample of two tabs doesn’t represent the whole of the transcriptions available.  Please check it out and leave a comment with your findings/recommendatons.  I am excited to see what others think.

Keep Playing!

http://tommyemmanuel.wordpress.com/gitar-tabok/

Have you had one of those days where no matter what you do, the guitar will not cooperate? Of course you have!  Well, I’m pretty sure today is my turn.  Here’s the deal; my guitar won’t stay in tune, my 9 volt went dead and my left and right hands have decided not to cooperate with each other.   I know these things happen and I shouldn’t get frustrated but I am.   I’ve been advised by many that when this happens, it’s time to put the guitar down and walk away and play another day. So, as I write this, the guitar is sitting on it’s stand, put to bed, mocking me.  Must resist the urge to pick it up…..

I’ve been practicing my guitar a ton lately and sometimes it feels like I’m never going to “master” the pieces that I’m trying to learn.  Sometimes I think that I have gotten it down and then a complete mind fart happens and I can’t remember how to play it and have to re-learn.  After thinking about this a bit, I realized that I go through, what I call the four stages in learning a song.

Stage 1: Learning

This is the initial site reading of the song, either by tab, regular notation or just jamming along with it on CD or iPod.  I the progress to a point where I can play the piece fairly well with the music in front of me.  Depending how many times I’ve heard this song, I can progress pretty quickly in this stage.

Stage 2: Fixing and Polishing

This is where I need to sit down and work on certain parts that might have given me trouble during site reading.  I still don’t have it memorized and maybe not playing it at a slower tempo.  By the time I’m finished with this stage, I’m playing it at tempo and it’s pretty much memorized.

Stage 3:  Re-Evaluate and/or Re-Learn

I hate this stage!  This is where I think I have it “performance ready,”  I’ve been playing it practically perfect time and time again for a few days.  I’m confident that it’s ready to go and then I start to stumble and begin to forget or mess up parts of the song.  What’s frustrating is that sometimes it’s a part that I never had trouble with, ever.  I’m not playing as well, my articulation and tempo is all messed and I can’t seem to get it right.  It feels like what I learned just fell right out of my head.  Here is where I have to take a step back and re-learn the song, sort-of-speak.  I will play the song slower and make sure my fingerings are correct and use a metronome to work on the rhythm.   If I have a recording, I will listen to it over and over so it’s ingrained in my head.

Stage 4: Performance Ready

Finally ready to go.  It’s memorized and even if I go a few days without playing it, I can perform it without worrying too much about stage 3 coming back.  Here is when I can take some artistic licenses with the piece and try to make it a bit my own.

Why does stage 3 happen for me, it’s hard to say.  I have heard that lack of sleep can inhibit your ability to memorize/learn a piece.  I have also heard that maybe I never learned it properly in the first place and I was just practicing my mistakes over and over again.  I’m thinking that might be what’s troubling me. I focus so much on one section of the song, I neglect other sections.  I find it helps to record my practicing so I can make notes on what to work on.  I just have to get past watching or hearing myself play not-so-well, at times.

So how many stages do you have?  Is it two, four five, more?  What techniques do you use to overcome your stage 3?

In a previous post, I did a review of Bruce Cockburn’s performance at the Swallow Hill Folk and Roots Festival last March.  I also posted my report to CockburnProject.net and found an interesting addition to my review by someone called Audrey.   Audrey had some really good “inside” information regarding the circumstances surrounding Bruce’s performance.  Apparently, Bruce’s normal stage crew wasn’t there to set his rig and so there was a bunch of “fiddling” around trying to figure out what was wrong and Bruce’s in ear monitor was also on the fritz.    Plus, with the long delay Bruce had to keep focused because there was a curfew and if they went over that curfew, there would be fines.   Therefore the reason why Bruce wasn’t engaging the audience like I mentions.   Anyway, thanks to Audrey for shedding some light on the situation and knowing what I know now, I’m even more grateful for Bruce’s performance.  He could have thrown in the towel and just showed up but he still played a great show.  THANKS Bruce!

Had an interesting conversation with a friend last weekend.  We were watching YouTube showing each other different guitarists that we dig.  I showed him some Michael Hedges and William Ackerman videos,

which then led us to a conversation about open tunings. I explained to him that Hedges and Ackerman used/use alternate tunings almost exclusively. 

When I pointed this out, he seemed unimpressed and maybe even lost a bit of interest once I mentioned open tunings.  The first thing he asked was why not just learn/write the song in normal tuning; adjust yourself to the instrument instead forcing the instrument to adjust to you.  Interesting point but I had to disagree and explained that many of these songs would be impossible to replicate in standard tuning and if you could play it in standard tuning the mood or feel of the piece might be adversely affected.  He nodded as if to agree but not totally convinced.  His background is as a progressive metal guitarist and in his experiences, he has witnessed some players tune to an open tuning and just bar everything for every song. To him, that is a shortcut or cheating.  I agreed with him to some extent but that person still needs to have rhythm and a feel for the changes, so there is some sort musicianship going on there.   We went back and forth a bit more and I think he has more respect for alternate tunings but I don’t think I’ll see him playing any open C tunings any time soon.

So are alternate tunings cheating?  I don’t think so.  It’s just another tool at our disposal we can use to enhance our music and to, at times, make it easier for us to play.  If we really want to nitpick, we would have to call capos, effects, amps, computers,etc… cheating as well.  I guess I’m a cheater and glad I have all these resources to cheat with.  How about you?

Links of Interest:

• William Ackerman’s list of alternate tunings
• Michael Hedges alternate tunings