I've got Naudo's Crazy Little Thing Called Love more or less complete, well, good enough to make a video and post it. It's just a matter of finding the time and currently the missus and I are revisiting some Star Trek episodes, which is taking up all my available spare time. Yeah I know, very nerdy but we do love our Star Trek. We should have processed the last ones we have queued in about 2 weeks.
I did however scrounge together about 2 hours last week and worked out the verse for Jealous Guy. It's relatively straight forward you will be pleased to know. It should only be about 5-10 hours to get it tabbed up. It's nice to play, feels good. Nothing too tricky so far, no tough chord work just yet.
Meanwhile, on youtube I've been slipping down the ratings board; I'm currently sitting at about number 25 most subscribed in Australia. I swap between 25 and 26 with another guitarist, a young-ish girl. It's pretty hard to compete with pretty young things especially the ones that play the guitar and sing with lovely voices ;) The only ammo I've got is that people like my tabs, that's what keeps me on the scoreboard at all. There are plenty of better guitarists out there than me!
I have been watching Delta Goodrem catch up to me, and I reckon I've got about 2 months before she overtakes. It will be a sad day, I've enjoyed being ranked higher than Delta ;) Kylie Minogue was once below me...but she overtook pretty fast. Delta joined up about the same time as me, so it's been a fair fight. Kylie was a much newer member, but she's a pop princess so no suprises there.
There was one time, about when the Australian scoreboard first started up, that I was in the top 20 - okay, I was 19th. I should have taken a screendump :)
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Saturday, 6 September 2008
Jealous Guy
A while back I ripped all of Naudos songs to mp3 and a CD of them has been playing in my car non stop for nearly a year now. Rather than just listen, I analyse what he is up to, and what I could do with the song if I had a try. I decided about 6 months ago that I should get a few "easy keepers" into my repetoir; songs like "Baby can I hold you" and "Losing my religion" are easy to learn and remember, but most importantly they sound great.
For the past week I've had "Jealous Guy" on repeat. Which means about 3 plays between my house and the train station. The song suits what I've currently been working with - very deliberate strum, simple bassline and a high note melody on top. I particularly love the bridge he put in there as well. He is the king of improvising a solo in a well known song that obeys the laws and theme of the tune.
So anyway, sometime soon I'm going to start tabbing out Jealous Guy. I'm pretty busy with work and the family at the moment, so don't expect it soon. I haven't played the guitar for about 5 days in a row at the moment, I'm getting withdrawal pain! ;)
For the past week I've had "Jealous Guy" on repeat. Which means about 3 plays between my house and the train station. The song suits what I've currently been working with - very deliberate strum, simple bassline and a high note melody on top. I particularly love the bridge he put in there as well. He is the king of improvising a solo in a well known song that obeys the laws and theme of the tune.
So anyway, sometime soon I'm going to start tabbing out Jealous Guy. I'm pretty busy with work and the family at the moment, so don't expect it soon. I haven't played the guitar for about 5 days in a row at the moment, I'm getting withdrawal pain! ;)
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
What's happening August 2008
I'm usually working on several tunes at a time, I flick between them as my interest weathervanes. The funny thing is if I've been away from a tune for a week when I get back to it I can play it better! Strange old thing the brain.
Anyway, what's happening - I've been processing Naudo's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" for about 6 months. It's hard, good fun though. I can't play it well enough for youtube, but it is next on the list. This one is more plucked than strummed; I used a similar technique that I applied to my "Reckless". Naudo strums it but I found it initially easier to pluck it. If I was to do it again I'd probably force myself to strum it instead. Next time.
It's got a skippy feel to it baaah-da-baaah-da-baaah-etc and you lock your first finger across second fret first 3 strings and your _third_ finger on the third fret second dtring to make a D - and then use your second finger to do the walk the thumb bassline F# and B. Give the intro a try, remember, skippy and mute the treble strings with your left hand after you plucked them:
Another tune I've been working on for a long while is "Great Gig in the Sky". Whenever I play "Breathe" I spawn straight into it. It's quite complex from a chord point of view, and I tried for ages transposing it for a "nice" left hand position, but nothing worked. Found a piano version, it doesn't transcribe very easily to guitar; pretty much everything ended up being a bar chord. Which means I can practise it for about 3 minutes before my left thumb is knackered ;) However, it sounds *fantastic*. I'm up to the vocal solo, and surprisingly it is going to be straight forward to oo-ah-ah-oo while keeping the bassline going, as the vocal is in the chords (which are Gm and C9). Just a case of memorising it...and putting in the 3 minutes a day practise!
I've got a couple of others on the go...talk about them next time.
Anyway, what's happening - I've been processing Naudo's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" for about 6 months. It's hard, good fun though. I can't play it well enough for youtube, but it is next on the list. This one is more plucked than strummed; I used a similar technique that I applied to my "Reckless". Naudo strums it but I found it initially easier to pluck it. If I was to do it again I'd probably force myself to strum it instead. Next time.
It's got a skippy feel to it baaah-da-baaah-da-baaah-etc and you lock your first finger across second fret first 3 strings and your _third_ finger on the third fret second dtring to make a D - and then use your second finger to do the walk the thumb bassline F# and B. Give the intro a try, remember, skippy and mute the treble strings with your left hand after you plucked them:
|---2---2---2---2-| |---3---3---3---3-| |---2---2---2---2-| |-0---------------| |---------0---2---| |-----2-----------|
Another tune I've been working on for a long while is "Great Gig in the Sky". Whenever I play "Breathe" I spawn straight into it. It's quite complex from a chord point of view, and I tried for ages transposing it for a "nice" left hand position, but nothing worked. Found a piano version, it doesn't transcribe very easily to guitar; pretty much everything ended up being a bar chord. Which means I can practise it for about 3 minutes before my left thumb is knackered ;) However, it sounds *fantastic*. I'm up to the vocal solo, and surprisingly it is going to be straight forward to oo-ah-ah-oo while keeping the bassline going, as the vocal is in the chords (which are Gm and C9). Just a case of memorising it...and putting in the 3 minutes a day practise!
I've got a couple of others on the go...talk about them next time.
Monday, 25 August 2008
Opener
...they call me "JAW" but that username isn't often available so I go with the "Jawmunji", a name given to me by an an old boss and so unique on the web that if you see it, yep, it is me. Indeed, it is a reference to the movie Jumunji, I'm not of the clan "Munji" (yes, I have been asked). In real life I am Jason Waddell, and by saying that the internet now knows the connection, job done.
The purpose of this blog is for me to rants and raves about playing guitar. Lets see if I can explain why:
~~~JAW
The purpose of this blog is for me to rants and raves about playing guitar. Lets see if I can explain why:
- I post videos of me playing songs on youtube (http://youtube.com/jawmunji), but that's not really a place for ranting and raving.
- I've got a lot to talk about and occasionally the tens and tens of people who read this blog might find stuff useful, insightful, or just plain humourous.
- I spend all day in front of computers and I can type fast so finding time now and then to blog is convenient. However I don't get much time to play guitar (to paraphrase John Denver "I'd play my guitar all day if I could but The Lord and my wife wouldn't take it very good") - so if I can't play much, then I will talk about playing instead.
~~~JAW
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