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GMC Forum _ CHILL OUT _ That Moment When

Posted by: Phil66 May 24 2015, 06:40 PM

Someone asks you to show them what you can play on guitar then continues to ask "can you play xxxxxx, can you play xxxxx?"

What do you do? If you strum some campfire songs they aren't really recognisable without singing. If you play something you've learnt on GMC they won't know it.

I've always wanted a "party piece" with some rhythm and fills to get people clapping. Nothing they would recognise but would connect with.

Any of you know anything with tab available?

I hope you get what I'm asking here rolleyes.gif

Cheers

Posted by: fzalfa May 24 2015, 06:55 PM

phil, as i can remember, the whole part of people's singed songs are composed about 3 chords ( and a large of them share the same)
but i do not remember those chords .

with 3 chords you can make people singing and clapping for hours......

Laurent

Posted by: Phil66 May 24 2015, 07:10 PM

Thanks Laurent,

I want something that is a foot tapper where people listen and enjoy it. Something just to show I can play something catchy and tuneful. It needs to be simple too wink.gif I don't just want to strum a basic 4/4 as it can be boring. I've heard things before where a solo artist plays a chord followed by some licks then chords then licks. I just don't seem to be able to come up with anything.

Cheers


Posted by: klasaine May 24 2015, 07:29 PM

This is one of the reasons it's important to learn music, not just guitar parts.
Do you sing? At all? you don't have to be good to impress your friends and family.
There's literally 10s of thousands of 3 chord songs in all eras. What do ya like?

I don't know how old you are so I don't know your demographic but I'm guessing you and your friends probably know a Zep song or two, maybe some Beatles, Pink Floyd, etc.? This stuff has great melody and harmony (which you need for solo guitar arrangements) and is not too hard to learn.

Here's a bone simple version of Norwegian Wood ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezolKX99ghI
Here's a cool version of Kashmir (in DADGAD tuning) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSqq73Vjq5k

*What you don't want to do *unless they're all guitar players* is pick riff based metal tunes that aren't on the radio.
Also, learn the entire song, not just part of it. Nothing is more off-putting to a listener than the performer not knowing the bridge or the last verse.

Posted by: Phil66 May 24 2015, 07:59 PM

Thanks Ken,

I'm 49 years old, the scenario I'm thinking of is when someone comes to our house with my 76 year old mom, and she says something like "Philip plays guitar don't you Philip?" and I say, "Well, nothing that you'd know really" and then the inevitable comes, "oh stop being shy and play something". Or you're visiting someone and they walk in the room with an acoustic and say, "Play us something Phil". We've all been there and it would be nice for shy people like me to give a little tune then say, "ok that's all folks".

I thought maybe something along the lines from 1:28 in the video below but much simplified.



That sort of thing, catchy, foot tappin stuff but simplified.

Hope this makes sense.

Cheers

Phil

Posted by: bleez May 24 2015, 08:11 PM

some double stop style stuff maybe? I would just play some hendrix like 'wind cries mary' or something like that.


* Damn, now I wanna watch crossraods again cool.gif

Posted by: Phil66 May 24 2015, 08:12 PM

I know it's cheesy but I love that film biggrin.gif

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic May 24 2015, 08:44 PM

Cool topic Phil! smile.gif

To me the best bet would be to play an evergreen song which everyone knows (for example something by the Beatles) where both melody and rhythm and played at the same time in acoustic guitar arrangement.

The blues stuff from crossroads clip is also a good idea.
Maybe check out some of acoustic blues lessons here on GMC to get down some cool patterns which you can play in 12 bar blues type of progression :

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Expanding-The-Basic-12-Bar-Blues/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Quick-Change-Blues-in-A/

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Fingerstyle-Blues-2/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Fingerstyle-Blues-Patterns/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Fingerstyle-Blues-3/




Posted by: Phil66 May 24 2015, 08:46 PM

Thanks everyone, it doesn't happen often but I don't want to crawl away from this scenario any more laugh.gif

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 25 2015, 12:01 AM

Maybe you need this... tongue.gif


Posted by: klasaine May 25 2015, 04:36 AM

OK, so you're around my age.
Personally, I'd recommend a few easy classical pieces. They're 1) pretty, 2) generally really good music and 3) impressive.

These are in TAB as well as standard notation ... http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Guitar-Intermediate-Solos-Masters/dp/0739000772/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432524851&sr=8-1&keywords=easy+classical+guitar+tab
There's a ton of books like this.

Posted by: Phil66 May 25 2015, 07:59 PM

Nice one Gab,

I smiled when I saw you appear laugh.gif Thing is I can't sing, they won't want to sing, they just want me to play something and strumming four chords isn't enough, I know I see a lot of buskers playing the same chords over and over with different rhythms and singing. I usually manage to change the subject and distract them away from it but I need a little party piece to shut them up cool.gif laugh.gif wink.gif

Cheers

QUOTE (Gabriel Leopardi @ May 25 2015, 12:01 AM) *
Maybe you need this... tongue.gif




Thanks Ken but I'm struggling with a pick never mind using all fingers and thumb blink.gif

Thanks for your input though smile.gif

QUOTE (klasaine @ May 25 2015, 04:36 AM) *
OK, so you're around my age.
Personally, I'd recommend a few easy classical pieces. They're 1) pretty, 2) generally really good music and 3) impressive.

These are in TAB as well as standard notation ... http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Guitar-Intermediate-Solos-Masters/dp/0739000772/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432524851&sr=8-1&keywords=easy+classical+guitar+tab
There's a ton of books like this.



Thanks Bogdan,

Some of those look great. Then I can just say I don't know any pop songs laugh.gif

Cheers

QUOTE (Bogdan Radovic @ May 24 2015, 08:44 PM) *
Cool topic Phil! smile.gif

To me the best bet would be to play an evergreen song which everyone knows (for example something by the Beatles) where both melody and rhythm and played at the same time in acoustic guitar arrangement.

The blues stuff from crossroads clip is also a good idea.
Maybe check out some of acoustic blues lessons here on GMC to get down some cool patterns which you can play in 12 bar blues type of progression :

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Expanding-The-Basic-12-Bar-Blues/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Quick-Change-Blues-in-A/

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Fingerstyle-Blues-2/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Fingerstyle-Blues-Patterns/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Fingerstyle-Blues-3/


Posted by: Bogdan Radovic May 28 2015, 08:31 PM

BTW - I was in this situation the on a gig recently. We were preparing for the sound check etc and there was a huge concert piano in the club (the club is called Jazz Bar) and I just couldn't resist. I took up and played stuff I remember on the piano which is mostly a few Beatles songs and a really simple boogie woogie groove. Now what happened is that I was jamming/playing the Imagine by John Lennon and it was going well. Then the singer got his acoustic guitar out and started jamming along and singing. The issue? I never learned bridge/chorus section laugh.gif

Damn it was annoying, down putting and simply stupid - clear example why we should always learn "full" songs or not learn them at all.

Positive side? I've been practicing the song on piano for a few days and now I can play it in full. There are mistakes to fix and technique but at least I now know all the sections etc.

Posted by: Phil66 May 28 2015, 08:54 PM

rolleyes.gif

I always thought it would be good to learn 50 famous intros but then I know someone will say, "Oh go on, play that one please" blink.gif unsure.gif laugh.gif

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic May 28 2015, 09:03 PM

QUOTE (Phil66 @ May 28 2015, 09:54 PM) *
rolleyes.gif

I always thought it would be good to learn 50 famous intros but then I know someone will say, "Oh go on, play that one please" blink.gif unsure.gif laugh.gif


Hahah Phil the first thing that I imagined when you wrote this was :

The scene at the rehearsal/club with a lot of friends and a guitarist teasing everone with the 50 intros with "too bad I don't know the rest of it" each time laugh.gif

Now when it comes to teasing, a first guitarist in the band I was playing with back in the days had a great sense of humor smile.gif

We were playing a RHCP cover repertoire at that time.

He started playing the intro to this song:



....and then just moved to playing the intro of the song "Otherside" and we played the full song :



His thinking behind it was (almost exact words) : "Hey guys, what do you think I play this intro before Otherside, both are in the same key and gothic chicks in the audience are going to die when they hear it. It is like hymn for them (Bright eyes)." laugh.gif

I must say that it actually worked and you can hear screams in the intro and then weird silence hehehehe

Posted by: Phil66 May 28 2015, 09:27 PM

laugh.gif

Posted by: Slimfinger Jun 1 2015, 08:30 PM

Phil

You described what I have been going thru perfectly.

I go over to my parents to play the guitar ( to try and showoff ) but all I do is noodle because I cant sing.

I try to play popular 3 and 4 chord songs but my brother interjects , that sounded like the last song , cause I am not singing.

I started practicing acoustic blues, because , you don't really have to sing with that steady bass , I still am not great but that is besides the point.

I have never been into Electric because it seems everyone needs a rhythm track or something else , not to mention all the extra money on gadgets that I wold be wanting to buy, pedals etc

There is nothing wrong with Electric , its just not for me.

I have been practicing some songs and just singing ( no matter what it sounds like ) and I can here the song this way.

I would say to give singing a go with 3 and chord songs. Im working on Maggie may currently, I think it is pretty easy but I use a thumbpick and have to work on my strumming with the index.

Anyways, just wanted to pop in and give you my 2 cents

Slimfinger

Posted by: klasaine Jun 1 2015, 08:41 PM

QUOTE (Slimfinger @ Jun 1 2015, 12:30 PM) *
I started practicing acoustic blues, because , you don't really have to sing with that steady bass , I still am not great but that is besides the point.


Anyways, just wanted to pop in and give you my 2 cents

Slimfinger


And a great .02 it is!
My first really good guitar teacher started me off (after the basic open chord stuff) with acoustic blues.
They were super simple but they had a melody and accompaniment built into them.
As basic as they were, it was a song. And folks - parents, friends, relations, etc. - were actually impressed.

*IMO a guitar player or a piano player should be able to play solo for about 45 minutes to an hour by themselves (after you've been studying maybe a couple of years). Honestly, if you can't do that you're wasting the instruments potential.

Posted by: bleez Jun 1 2015, 08:59 PM

QUOTE (klasaine @ Jun 1 2015, 08:41 PM) *
*IMO a guitar player or a piano player should be able to play solo for about 45 minutes to an hour by themselves (after you've been studying maybe a couple of years). Honestly, if you can't do that you're wasting the instruments potential.

Totally! That's a great point.
Im completely in that 'wasting the instruments potential' group, unfortunately.
I was watching some youtube demos of telecasters recently and the first 60 seconds of this video, I thought, was simply fantastic. I wish I could play like this -


Ken, I'll wager you could play that kind of stuff all day long without breaking a sweat!

Posted by: Phil66 Jun 1 2015, 09:17 PM

QUOTE (bleez @ Jun 1 2015, 08:59 PM) *
Totally! That's a great point.
Im completely in that 'wasting the instruments potential' group, unfortunately.
I was watching some youtube demos of telecasters recently and the first 60 seconds of this video, I thought, was simply fantastic. I wish I could play like this -


Ken, I'll wager you could play that kind of stuff all day long without breaking a sweat!


I'm completely wasting the instruments potential more than you are Scott but it's a hobby. Not all fishermen catch a lot of fish wink.gif laugh.gif

I get enjoyment from it anyway and that's the main thing. cool.gif

Posted by: klasaine Jun 1 2015, 10:35 PM

QUOTE (Phil66 @ Jun 1 2015, 01:17 PM) *
but it's a hobby. Not all fishermen catch a lot of fish wink.gif laugh.gif

I get enjoyment from it anyway and that's the main thing. cool.gif


Absolute agreement and true on those points.
But you did ask the question in your first post, "I want a party piece to play that folks will respond to".
There's a lot of great suggestions here in this thread.

Posted by: Slimfinger Jun 1 2015, 10:56 PM

Hi,

I think what Phil is asking in my own opinion,

How to play songs on the fly and make them recognizable by regular people.

I don't think playing scales , notes , modes, etc over a backing track is going to get anyone's attention, especially when you don't have a backing track available. It works great here or in a band playing for a audience but not in real life family and friend scenarios.

Im pretty sure what he was asking is how to make a song recognizable.

Sure, you can play scales over a backing track for 45 minutes , but in the end, what are you really accomplishing.

Im not even sure where I am going with this , I just associate Electric with people playing notes and scales to a backing track, cause thats all I ever see, they always need some accompaniment.

Im not meaning to walk on the Electric feild cause god knows , im in the minority .

I think the key is, you have to sing if you want to play 3 and 4 chord songs , unless you do some type of fingerstyle..

Just my thoughts

P.S I just wrote this because i think Phil took klasaine the wrong way , when he was only trying to help

thanks

Slimfinger


Posted by: Phil66 Jun 2 2015, 04:46 AM

QUOTE (klasaine @ Jun 1 2015, 10:35 PM) *
Absolute agreement and true on those points.
But you did ask the question in your first post, "I want a party piece to play that folks will respond to".
There's a lot of great suggestions here in this thread.


Thanks Ken,

I know I aked but what I meant by a party piece was a little showpiece of a few minutes to stop people asking me to play. Some people don't understand how much it takes to get good on this instrument particularly when you have limited practice time, and they expect great things, some even think you should be able to play Surfin With The Alien after picking up the guitar for the first time twelve months ago rolleyes.gif I don't like playing anything to other people until I can do it correctly which is why it was such a struggle for me when I posted my first video here. In all honesty I'm not really the performing type. If I had the skills on the instrument I would more likely be a studio/session musician than a stage performer. Hope this makes sense as to why I wanted a little piece to get it out of the way when asked to play wink.gif

Slimfinger,

I didn't take Ken in a bad way, Ken is a pro who I will always listen to and take advice from so I hope my light hearted reply didn't offend. I was just trying to say that we can't all get to the same level in the same time span even if we spend the same amount of time practising. We just have to enjoy our own journey. wink.gif

Cheers smile.gif

Posted by: klasaine Jun 2 2015, 02:58 PM

I get where you're coming from Phil.
I just did a super quick version (phone vid) of the Beatles 'Drive My Car' with a pick.
It uses 5 chords that I demonstrate at the end.
Everybody knows this song and it's pretty upbeat.
Check it out ...


Posted by: Slimfinger Jun 2 2015, 03:12 PM

klasaine:

Wow, that was awesome...now that makes want to pull out my Electric and give it a go again.

Thanks for that

Jeff

Posted by: Phil66 Jun 2 2015, 06:49 PM

Thanks Ken,

Really appreciate you doing that for us. That would take me months to get down I think, maybe if I had more chords etc under my fingers things would be easier. I know the basic open chords, E shape bar chord, power chord shape and that's about it.

I'm a fairly proficient engineer, and I remember trying to watch what people did on a lathe or milling machine (pre CNC), all the little tricks the old guys did used to baffle me, now I do them without thinking. There's a lot of times when I train people how to load components on some fiddly fixtures and jigs that we have made in house, the new guy will sometimes come up to me and say "how did you do that again?" and I say, "Oh just put it on and clamp it" and they say "I've done that but it's a few microns out of flat". You know what? when I think about it so that I can explain, I really struggle. I have to go to the fixture and do it real slow and analyse what I do, a little twist here, a little bit of extra pressure on one side when tightening the clamp etc etc. I think this is the same with guitar. When you're proficient, as you are Ken, you say things like "It's real simple!" because you've been doing it so well for so long that you have forgotten how difficult it could be for a beginner, and I say that with the utmost respect.

I trained a guy a couple of weeks ago, that we've had at work for 25 years. It was a simple job but different machine and programming language. After I had given him full training I let him do the next set up himself, telling him not to be afraid to ask if he got stuck. It took him three hours. The next time it took an hour and now he can do it in 15 minutes and you know what he says? "I can't see how it took me 3 hours the first time, it seem impossible now that it could take that long". I think this holds true with a musical instrument.

What do you think Ken?

Cheers

Phil


Posted by: klasaine Jun 2 2015, 11:14 PM

QUOTE (Phil66 @ Jun 2 2015, 10:49 AM) *
What do you think Ken?


I think that if you learn the Major, Minor and 7th barre chord shape - not 'power' chords but legitimate barre chords, a couple of strumming patterns and are able to keep those consistent and in time (rhythm) you can learn to do this ... or something like what I video'd.

There's a ton of great beginning and intermediate (read: non-shred) lessons at GMC.
A better thing to do would be to get mentored on a schedule by one of the teachers here.

Posted by: Phil66 Jun 3 2015, 07:12 AM

QUOTE (klasaine @ Jun 2 2015, 11:14 PM) *
I think that if you learn the Major, Minor and 7th barre chord shape - not 'power' chords but legitimate barre chords, a couple of strumming patterns and are able to keep those consistent and in time (rhythm) you can learn to do this ... or something like what I video'd.

There's a ton of great beginning and intermediate (read: non-shred) lessons at GMC.
A better thing to do would be to get mentored on a schedule by one of the teachers here.


Thanks Ken,

I am currently mentored by Gab, he is brilliant and I won the first student award last month due to notable improvements in various areas but like most I want too much too soon and not enough time to get it wink.gif

I'm struggling a little with my current rhythm lesson so I may ask him to suggest something more like this.

When I asked what you thought, I also would be interested to know what you think about my engineering/learning analogy.

Cheers buddy.

Phil

Posted by: klasaine Jun 3 2015, 02:32 PM

QUOTE (Phil66 @ Jun 2 2015, 11:12 PM) *
Thanks Ken,

I am currently mentored by Gab, he is brilliant and I won the first student award last month due to notable improvements in various areas but like most I want too much too soon and not enough time to get it wink.gif

I'm struggling a little with my current rhythm lesson so I may ask him to suggest something more like this.

When I asked what you thought, I also would be interested to know what you think about my engineering/learning analogy.

Cheers buddy.

Phil


The engineering analogy is a good one and holds true much of the time.
Though I'm sure you've noticed or been in a situation where something looks/seems really hard and daunting but once someone shows you how, you realize that's it's not so difficult.

Congrats on the Student Award! But be patient my friend.

Cheers to you! - KL


Posted by: Phil66 Jun 3 2015, 03:05 PM

Cheers Ken smile.gif

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