Now it's only taken me 30 years to realise, but GO PLAY FOR AN AUDIENCE. Let me explain.
When you first start learning to play the guitar, it's pretty rough, go and hide out of earshot when you are practising. This will help the people you live with not hate you and guitars for the rest of time.
Typically you will get the right hand reasonable early on, bit longer if you are fingerpicking. There are only so many patterns you can do with 6 strings - okay, there are infinite, but you'll use only a few in most of your stuff. The left hand you'll get chords going early on too, but the left hand has to do so many different manoeuvres that you'll be "learning" that hand for the rest of time.
When you start to be able to play a whole song or two, you'll probably have really bad tempo and you'll do lots of pausing while your brain is trying to co-ordinate left hand and right hand. It's okay, it's how we learn! Eventually all that stuff going on in your "fore" brain moves into a very convenient "muscle memory" part of your brain. Convenient, because you don't actually have to think to play the stuff, it just happens. You can actually have a rudimentary conversation while playing, or after a few quiet ales wonder how on earth your hands know what to do because "it sure ain't me doing that!"
But while we are trying to push the song into muscle memory that's when we get a bit bored and tend to move onto something different. The curse of half-song playing guitarists. Don't do it! This is where audience comes in.
Unless you have a really, really, REALLY good friend who will listen to you, ie, an audience, I suggest you use a video camera as an "audience". What an audience does is force you to firstly learn the whole song by memory, but secondly, learn it to an acceptable level that won't have the audience looking for the door.
The video camera is great; you feel like you are performing for an audience - you'll probably feel anxious - but importantly you can watch yourself and see where you are getting it wrong. You can then practise the areas you struggle until they are smooth, aim to eventually post video on the internet to see what the world thinks of you ;)
The next battle, once you are comfortable playing for a camera, is finding a real audience. I recommend music shops - "test" a guitar and play your songs. Okay, nobody is _really_ listening but it still feels like an audience so you have to be able to play the songs well.
Where I'm coming from with all of this is about turning your music into that is something "about you" to something that is "about the listener". Going from being someone who entertains themselves into someone who entertains others. Playing the riff from smoke on the water with bad tempo hitting the occasional wrong note might amuse _you_ all day; people have been put in jail for trying amuse others doing the same thing.
Only by playing to an audience do you become an entertainer - which is where I think we should all be aiming. What's the point if you can't share your stuff with your fellow man? Ultimatley would anything, even if you had the entire world at your disposal, be fun if there was no-one to show it to or share it with?
Obviously the next audience is a real audience - open mike, busking, cafe gigs. That's where I'm heading - I'll let you know how it goes when I get there :)
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query audience. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query audience. Sort by date Show all posts
Monday, 3 November 2008
Friday, 12 December 2008
Audiences, again
What's it all about?
Okay, so we all like to play guitar, but why? I used to enjoy the personal challenge of being able to play music and everything it involved - learning new skills, memorising songs, developing the speed and dexterity to play a tune accurately. The satisfaction of hearing a song come out from a guitar in my hands. Eventually that wasn't enough, I wanted other people to hear it. Pride and ego? I don't really think so, it's more of a case if you owned the entire world but didn't have anyone to share it with, would that be satisfying?
Playing for an audience...there are two ways of doing that I can see - play what you want to play and hope that there is an audience to suit you...or play what you think an audience wants.
Having been reasonably well accepted on youtube I have a perhaps overinflated expectation of what listeners think of me. Out of say a billion people who have had the oppurtunity to look at any of my work, there has been about a million and a half who _have_ looked...which means just over one person in 1000. In two and a half years of being there. Now if you were sitting on the street playing for random people, 1 in 1000 equates to, well, almost nobody.
To lift the odds I have decided to play more for an expected audience. I've approached that by examining what my most popular videos are, and examining the most popular videos of other players. Naudo is an excellent indicator because (a) he is an unknown - that is, nobody is searching for his videos unlike say Tommy Emmanuel; (b) he has a lot of videos of covers to form some good popularity statistics.
Oh, I probably should mention that playing for an expected audience means playing stuff that they will know. People like to hear stuff they already like. If you were a big popular artist then you can play original stuff, but the guy playing original stuff on the corner needs to be either stupendously engaging, or playing on a corner that a high number of passers by are into his form of art. Open mike is probably a good scenario, otherwise both cases are otherwise unlikely.
Another part of the puzzle is you probably need to be able to sing. This is a double edged sword. If you can sing and play guitar you will attract far more listeners in my humble opinion; but singing is a land of personal taste and has a lot of room for error. For example, when playing the guitar most people won't notice the odd non-fatal stuff up, but stuff up singing and people recognise it in a heartbeat. Then there is whether the audience likes your voice - the personal taste thing. You do kinda need to be a good singer.
To avoid singing you unfortunatley need to be able to play the guitar really well, dare I say fingerstyle covers - catch a whole song on one instrument. I recommend learning to play simple guitar and developing your voice ;) Oh, if you are a good-looking girl then that helps immensely...
I'm not sure if there was a point to all this, lets see if I can summarise:
(a) Eventually you will need to play to an audience;
(b) Play stuff that people know;
(c) If you can't play oustanding fingerstyle covers of stuff that people know, then concentrate on your singing.
I promise I will reassess these statements when I start playing to an audience :)
JAW
Okay, so we all like to play guitar, but why? I used to enjoy the personal challenge of being able to play music and everything it involved - learning new skills, memorising songs, developing the speed and dexterity to play a tune accurately. The satisfaction of hearing a song come out from a guitar in my hands. Eventually that wasn't enough, I wanted other people to hear it. Pride and ego? I don't really think so, it's more of a case if you owned the entire world but didn't have anyone to share it with, would that be satisfying?
Playing for an audience...there are two ways of doing that I can see - play what you want to play and hope that there is an audience to suit you...or play what you think an audience wants.
Having been reasonably well accepted on youtube I have a perhaps overinflated expectation of what listeners think of me. Out of say a billion people who have had the oppurtunity to look at any of my work, there has been about a million and a half who _have_ looked...which means just over one person in 1000. In two and a half years of being there. Now if you were sitting on the street playing for random people, 1 in 1000 equates to, well, almost nobody.
To lift the odds I have decided to play more for an expected audience. I've approached that by examining what my most popular videos are, and examining the most popular videos of other players. Naudo is an excellent indicator because (a) he is an unknown - that is, nobody is searching for his videos unlike say Tommy Emmanuel; (b) he has a lot of videos of covers to form some good popularity statistics.
Oh, I probably should mention that playing for an expected audience means playing stuff that they will know. People like to hear stuff they already like. If you were a big popular artist then you can play original stuff, but the guy playing original stuff on the corner needs to be either stupendously engaging, or playing on a corner that a high number of passers by are into his form of art. Open mike is probably a good scenario, otherwise both cases are otherwise unlikely.
Another part of the puzzle is you probably need to be able to sing. This is a double edged sword. If you can sing and play guitar you will attract far more listeners in my humble opinion; but singing is a land of personal taste and has a lot of room for error. For example, when playing the guitar most people won't notice the odd non-fatal stuff up, but stuff up singing and people recognise it in a heartbeat. Then there is whether the audience likes your voice - the personal taste thing. You do kinda need to be a good singer.
To avoid singing you unfortunatley need to be able to play the guitar really well, dare I say fingerstyle covers - catch a whole song on one instrument. I recommend learning to play simple guitar and developing your voice ;) Oh, if you are a good-looking girl then that helps immensely...
I'm not sure if there was a point to all this, lets see if I can summarise:
(a) Eventually you will need to play to an audience;
(b) Play stuff that people know;
(c) If you can't play oustanding fingerstyle covers of stuff that people know, then concentrate on your singing.
I promise I will reassess these statements when I start playing to an audience :)
JAW
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Back to Gigging and Youtube Channel Question Response
I'm back gigging at BBar Cafe close to where I live in Gwelup. Last Thursday was my first night back and uncharacteristically for this time of year there was a storm howling through, so I played inside. I had played inside once before...let's just say I prefer to play outside in the alfresco. The problem with inside is it's an all concrete area so getting the sound right is difficult. And what tends to happen is people who are having a conversation over their meal need to talk over me...so I end up feeling more annoying than enjoyable. I've experienced this myself many times - been at a venue where I just want to sit back and chat, but instead I almost can't hear the person next to me, shouting to get over top of the music playing.
But I was actually playing quite well, it felt good, it is great to be back. I'm looking forward to the warm nights out in the alfresco where the acoustics are great, and people can choose to listen or chat, where I'm not competing with conversation.
In other news, I recently exchanged some messages online with a professional guitarist who is at the starting point of establishing his youtube channel. I had a look at some of his work, it's good stuff, I could get a lot of guitar playing tips from him! He wanted to know how I got my youtube channel to where it is now. I was in a very chatty mood at the time so I thought it was worth posting here My apologies, it's rambly, I could surmise it a few brief paragraphs, but then it wouldn't sound like me! Here is the slightly edited response:
---
Mark, you don't need advice from me, I need advice from you! :) You've got the skills no doubt, you are playing with feeling, looks like you have the repertoire too - I mean you play guitar for a living! Although I wish I could pour time into guitar, it's just a hobby for me, the family and the day job mean I only get 5 hours a week if I'm lucky to play and arrange. It's not enough to take the guitar anywhere special, but for this stage in my life it will have to do.
The problem with your youtube channel is exposure. I got lucky. I started a long time ago, in 2006 youtube wasn't even a year old. I posted a (dreadful) cover of Canon in D, a song everybody loves, which became popular and created enough "interest" that at my peak I was getting around 7,000 views per day. That's gone down to about 2,500 now; there are sooo many great guitarists out there I'm competing with now it is to be expected.
There ain't much you can do in a hurry. Post videos of songs you know people like. Watch other people play, and comment on their stuff and press "like" a lot. Don't hassle people to come look at your stuff, just comment on their stuff. They will come and look at your stuff if they want to. I believe you will get more people coming and looking from a good comment than a trawling comment. It's all just an investment in time and being active. I didn't realise what I was creating during the time I was very active on youtube, in hindsight it is quite obvious what happened. Firstly I was increasing my youtube search ranking, but more importantly I was creating connections with an audience who would hang around.
Keep your video and audio quality high. If you can post a video once per week, do it. Don't post a whole bunch in a batch, spread them out over a couple of days at least, so people can keep up. Videos don't need to be "super professional", as in filmed in a studio environment. The audio and video still needs to be high quality, but a few mistakes in playing a song makes it more real, more human. That surprised me at first, but that is what I have discovered my audience appreciates (my youtube audience consists mostly of non-guitarist casual listeners but also some guitar playing listeners.) I think you connect better, in the youtube environment, if you are "real" - not some ultra professional presenter, but rather you are giving a comfortable experience as a fellow human with faults. On some level I suspect a listener is thinking "this guy is great, but he isn't perfect, I could do what he does if I tried hard. That makes me feel good. What I'm listening to isn't unattainable."
Comment back on interesting comments from viewers. Not every comment, for example "You are great!" doesn't need a response, just smile, nod appreciatively, and move on. Just be active on youtube. You've got the chops, you're a better player than me, it's just an investment in time now, building connections with people (which in turn creates more connections) and away you go. Be active on your blog too, keep it useful. Talk about how you create, the little things that people like to hear they don't hear anywhere else. That you would have liked to have heard when you were starting out. Pick your audience. Talk about your gigs from a technical point of view and you will attract an audience of hobbyist guitarists that want to be playing and gigging like you. Talk about the beauty of the songs you are arranging and you'll get an audience of music lovers. It's all pretty obvious, I doubt I'm telling you anything you don't already know...
Add value to your videos - post tabs if you can, people *love* tabs. But that only increases your popularity in the guitarist scene. They don't represent the majority of my listeners, but for me they are _my connections_. They are the people I invest my energy into, they are the ones I chat with, and exchange ideas, and critique each others work. They are the reason I'm here at all. It's interesting; I love playing live to an audience who appreciates the same music as I do, who "gets" what I'm playing. But online, you don't get that real-time connection with people. Online I love the conversations I have with fellow guitarists. I don't feel as connected with the online listeners. I'm not sure how to approach that disconnection...maybe you can take that to a new level. I think I'm more of a teacher than an outright performer, which "limits my potential audience"...perhaps you should take my learnings and modify them to reach a different audience?
I lost all my early momentum on youtube because I can't update often enough. But there is a baseline momentum that stays alive that keeps me ticking along. Throwing a handful of songs out per year keeps me in the game. Keep up your momentum. It means you have to be passionate about what you are doing, and be true to what you are doing.
What are you after? Hooking up more gigs? Want to share/teach? Make money online? There isn't much money to be made in just online videos and blogs. Even with 2,500 views per day I make slightly less than $100AUD(2012) per month. If I licensed and sold tabs, or instructional DVDs, that could make more money. But that is difficult to do legally and would take me a lot of time. I estimate if I recorded a CD I could sell about 3 per day, priced at say $12ea I could probably make $20/day in sales. But that requires time to make a _great_ CD (I would want it to be great) and managing the sales myself. I could make it work, because I have a constant flow of visitors. If you don't have a constant flow of visitors, you won't sell stuff.
Spend time. Create connections with audience. But most importantly what are you after - your answer will tell you what to do.
Oh and be careful; posting covers is a tiny bit illegal. I've had one video claimed (the copyright owner makes money from it, quite sensible, they could have had a take down notice on me but chose instead to cash in) and one video taken down. Three take downs and your account is suspended. I can't give you any advice on who will give you takedowns - maybe surf the net for it, I've only had one in six years so it isn't a problem, but perhaps it might be in the future. Avoid Supertramp covers is all I can tell you so far.
Good luck and good skill!
JAW
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
So you want to play the guitar...
"I'd love to be able to play the guitar like you, where do I start?" Well, about 30 years ago. And I'm still a long way from being satisfied. Grrr & humphf.
There is no doubt the kids pick up new things faster than us grown ups, including the guitar, but it's not a lost cause. To adult newbie guitarists looking for advice on how to play the guitar I say "learn how to sing." Huh?
It's about engaging an audience. People like to hear what they already know. Okay, this precludes any new material from ever entering the greater collective, but let's leave that out of the equation for now ;)
If you can play a three chord song and sing in tune, you'll get an audience. Even if you keep that audience to your mate, your dog, or the bedpost, you'll get an audience. If you can play the theme riff to "smoke on the water", you won't get an audience, in fact, you might get a smack on the back of the head, and you'll deserve it...
If you can sing, then playing & singing a 3 chord song is about as hard as learning the theme riff to "smoke on the water." I don't need to remind you which I consider more valuable.
So, get a guitar, learn how to strum some chords, once you know three chords, you now have at your disposal approximately 1 million songs you can play...learn how to sing a few!
Most importantly, learn how to play the whole song, from go to whoa. And play it from go to whoa everytime you play it. The scourge of the guitar world is half-song playing guitarists ;)
JAW
There is no doubt the kids pick up new things faster than us grown ups, including the guitar, but it's not a lost cause. To adult newbie guitarists looking for advice on how to play the guitar I say "learn how to sing." Huh?
It's about engaging an audience. People like to hear what they already know. Okay, this precludes any new material from ever entering the greater collective, but let's leave that out of the equation for now ;)
If you can play a three chord song and sing in tune, you'll get an audience. Even if you keep that audience to your mate, your dog, or the bedpost, you'll get an audience. If you can play the theme riff to "smoke on the water", you won't get an audience, in fact, you might get a smack on the back of the head, and you'll deserve it...
If you can sing, then playing & singing a 3 chord song is about as hard as learning the theme riff to "smoke on the water." I don't need to remind you which I consider more valuable.
So, get a guitar, learn how to strum some chords, once you know three chords, you now have at your disposal approximately 1 million songs you can play...learn how to sing a few!
Most importantly, learn how to play the whole song, from go to whoa. And play it from go to whoa everytime you play it. The scourge of the guitar world is half-song playing guitarists ;)
JAW
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Open Mic October 2014
It had been a dry spell for gigs, I hadn't been away with work for around four months, so I started looking for a new one. Just cruising the Internet, to see if there was anything going on nearby. I was quite pleased to find that a tavern near to where I live was hosting Open Mic nights! I contacted the organiser and he was happy to fit me into a spot, which I played last night.
What's an Open Mic you say?
Just that - a microphone, that is open to anyone who wants to use it. Generally they will be set up with all the sound system you need, just bring along your instrument and plug in (and sing if you can...) They are an excellent first step to getting out there and performing. Polish up your best pieces, find your nearest open mic, and get down there for a slot.
I've been aware of open mic sessions around my town for a while, but the one that I was thinking of going had put me off, they only allowed original material, no covers. So I'd never pursued any. The advantage of the open mic over finding your own regular gig is that everything is there set up for you, just plug in and the organiser will set you up. You don't have to be a professional musician, it's about having a go. It's also ad-hoc, get a slot whenever you like that the organiser can fit you in. The disadvantage is that it isn't paid (ha ha) and you only get a short slot (45 mins in my case) whereas I have about 2-3 hours of material.
Anyway.
I surprised myself at how anxious I was. Being up on a stage with bright hot lights in my face, plugged into a big PA system (biggest I have ever played through) with just a small foldback to know what I was doing. I butchered a couple of songs ("what is wrong with you stupid fingers!" he thinks to himself) but I relaxed into it and played at least 5 or 6 songs at a good performance level. When I was flicking and slapping the body I was concerned - the big PA subwoofer was pounding out a thump, reflecting off the back wall straight back at me and it sounded out of balance. But Shaun (the organiser) assured me that wasn't what the audience was hearing. I like being able to hear exactly what the audience is hearing, so I can play to that sound. So I felt out of control. But sometimes it is good to let go of control and trust in others.
There was maybe 20-30 people in the audience, which I found out afterwards that half of them were regulars on the stage too - a ha, so it's a "scene"! The location isn't exactly Central Artsville, so it isn't currently attracting avid listeners of amateur musicians. But you know what - a couple of people in the audience "got" what I was doing, and that is enough for me.
After the performance I spoke to a couple who do regular open mics and other musician get together things, and they gave me more insight into what/where/who. I also spoke to Shaun for a while about what he does - he's a musician/teacher/manager, does gigs, manages some bands, runs two open nights, fills gig bookings. He is an amiable chap, obviously loves everything about music and the scene and gets behind everybody in it. He asked if I had cards/photos/setlist, occasionally he gets asked for my kind of gig - just one bloke playing background instrumental covers of well known and popular music. That's what I would like to do, from time to time nice little gigs, but I have a busy day job and wifey and kids that I want to spend time with. It's all about priorities huh?
So overall it was good fun, I enjoyed it. Will definitely do it again. I watched some of the other acts, there was a boy on before me singing over backing tracks, wow, I wish I had that sort of confidence, he was hitting Jackson 5 type high notes and all - not my cup of tea, but great job! A guy on after me was playing heavy distorted guitar covers and singing, with backing instruments, a serious rocker from way back obviously knows what he is doing and was pretty good at it, again, not my cup of tea but great job! After him was a duo, a chic singing and a bloke on guitar. All original stuff, man they had put some serious work and effort into it from the looks of things. And it came across great. I even remembered one of their songs, "Hindsight", a catchy groovy piece. Well done! I bailed out before the final act which would have been good to see, a trio. Next time.
JAW
What's an Open Mic you say?
Just that - a microphone, that is open to anyone who wants to use it. Generally they will be set up with all the sound system you need, just bring along your instrument and plug in (and sing if you can...) They are an excellent first step to getting out there and performing. Polish up your best pieces, find your nearest open mic, and get down there for a slot.
I've been aware of open mic sessions around my town for a while, but the one that I was thinking of going had put me off, they only allowed original material, no covers. So I'd never pursued any. The advantage of the open mic over finding your own regular gig is that everything is there set up for you, just plug in and the organiser will set you up. You don't have to be a professional musician, it's about having a go. It's also ad-hoc, get a slot whenever you like that the organiser can fit you in. The disadvantage is that it isn't paid (ha ha) and you only get a short slot (45 mins in my case) whereas I have about 2-3 hours of material.
Anyway.
I surprised myself at how anxious I was. Being up on a stage with bright hot lights in my face, plugged into a big PA system (biggest I have ever played through) with just a small foldback to know what I was doing. I butchered a couple of songs ("what is wrong with you stupid fingers!" he thinks to himself) but I relaxed into it and played at least 5 or 6 songs at a good performance level. When I was flicking and slapping the body I was concerned - the big PA subwoofer was pounding out a thump, reflecting off the back wall straight back at me and it sounded out of balance. But Shaun (the organiser) assured me that wasn't what the audience was hearing. I like being able to hear exactly what the audience is hearing, so I can play to that sound. So I felt out of control. But sometimes it is good to let go of control and trust in others.
There was maybe 20-30 people in the audience, which I found out afterwards that half of them were regulars on the stage too - a ha, so it's a "scene"! The location isn't exactly Central Artsville, so it isn't currently attracting avid listeners of amateur musicians. But you know what - a couple of people in the audience "got" what I was doing, and that is enough for me.
After the performance I spoke to a couple who do regular open mics and other musician get together things, and they gave me more insight into what/where/who. I also spoke to Shaun for a while about what he does - he's a musician/teacher/manager, does gigs, manages some bands, runs two open nights, fills gig bookings. He is an amiable chap, obviously loves everything about music and the scene and gets behind everybody in it. He asked if I had cards/photos/setlist, occasionally he gets asked for my kind of gig - just one bloke playing background instrumental covers of well known and popular music. That's what I would like to do, from time to time nice little gigs, but I have a busy day job and wifey and kids that I want to spend time with. It's all about priorities huh?
So overall it was good fun, I enjoyed it. Will definitely do it again. I watched some of the other acts, there was a boy on before me singing over backing tracks, wow, I wish I had that sort of confidence, he was hitting Jackson 5 type high notes and all - not my cup of tea, but great job! A guy on after me was playing heavy distorted guitar covers and singing, with backing instruments, a serious rocker from way back obviously knows what he is doing and was pretty good at it, again, not my cup of tea but great job! After him was a duo, a chic singing and a bloke on guitar. All original stuff, man they had put some serious work and effort into it from the looks of things. And it came across great. I even remembered one of their songs, "Hindsight", a catchy groovy piece. Well done! I bailed out before the final act which would have been good to see, a trio. Next time.
JAW
Friday, 9 March 2012
A Gig!
I've played twice now at the café down the road from me, and they are still keen to have me back. I'm enjoying it - sure, to 90% of people you are just background music, but the 10% of people actively listening give you the audience interaction that makes it nice. I find my brain scrambles up a bit due to performance anxiety; stuff I'd play okay by myself in a relaxed environment doesn't come out as clean in a proper performance situation. But, play through. That's why I always encourage you to play a song from start to finish, playing through your mistakes, it teaches you how to play through your mistakes when you need to.
I also need to slow down, performance anxiety causes speeding issues!
I discovered that a few songs in my repertoire are too rusty to play, and some are a bit rough. There is a bit of re-learning and practise to do. However I found that I could play non-stop for 1 hour 50 minutes without repeating anything. Not bad. And it's all good stuff, there are no "fillers" in that. It does include just short of 25 minutes of Dark Side of the Moon too :) But it would be nice to polish up a few rusty ones, and learn a few more easy ones from tabs just to extend out the song list; Blackbird and Mad World spring to mind. Just to have good coverage for different audiences on the night.
Speaking of, so far the audience have been primarily "an older crowd" (ha ha) late 30's early 40's, but also a lot of 50+. Some kids, but not many. That works out alright for me, my selection of music ties in with the late 30's early 40's :)
I have been asked for a business card once per gig by someone from the audience. Weddings, partys...at this point in time it's still a hobby for me and I'm avoiding weekend work (I play Thursday nights) so I've been politely declining. My day job pays a lot more than a gig does!
From the café owner's point of view I've been good for them - the first night they had advertised "local acoustic guiarist" and packed the joint, 70 people, and had a record takings. The second time they didn't advertise, smaller crowd, which was nice because I felt less pressure; boost confidence. It will be interesting to see what happens, crowd wise, whether me being there makes any difference. The café is near the entrance to a shopping centre, there is a lot of people walking past; will it create interest? We will see.
Safe to say that folding stuff has been pressed into my hand at the end of the night; not to mention a glass or two of red wine along the way. Just the way I like it :)
I was asked about my amplification by one of my mates, I'll repeat it here. Very simple. It's just the little Ashton Busker amp (BSK158) that I bought a few years back to replace my home brewed amps...because it sounded so much better. It has a 12V battery in it but I'm playing it plugged in. It has a surprisingly clean and crisp sound, it gets muddy if you start to crank it or the acoustics of the area are not nice, but I guess that is the case for all amps.
Ideally I'd like an AER compact 60 acoustic, the best amp I ever tried on nylon. However since I'm only running my little 15W amp at 75% volume tops, I hardly need 60W. And I don't have a lazy $2k to spend on an amp. The sound I can get out of the little Ashton is not that far off what I got out of the AER when I was comparing them, so it will do for now.
I think the key to sounding good is a good foundation - I started with a quality classical guitar (Esteve 1GR-11) and I put in what I thought was the nicest sounding pickup for a nylon that I could find (B-band A6T). Amplified I'm only after a "true" sound, that is what the guitar sounds like unplugged. No reverb, no delay, no effects, just some EQ to make up for any environment imbalance. If the lay of the land is nothing but concrete I sweep out the mids, if it's open and grassy then up the mids. Trebles and basses generally stay flat.
So the gig is going to keep me busy - I'll give you updates if anything interesting happens...or anything uninteresting happens! For now, it's good to interact with an audience, it's what I've wanted for quite a while.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Take the Survey!
A mate of mine who has been pushing me recently about my webstuff - responsible for me setting up Jawmunji.com - "Do it now." "No." "If you don't, I'm going to do it." "Argh, okay, okay." - told me I need to find out what people want, and give it to them. He's far more an "internet entrepreneur" than I am. I've always given people what I like, and what I think they like...but it's a good question, what do people like?
If you were to use my youtube viewcounts as a guide, then most people are after classical and folk...but that doesn't sound right to me.
The reality is that Jawmunji.com exists because I like to ramble on about fingerstyle guitar stuff that interests me. And my mates keep it interesting by challenging my rambles, and giving me new ideas for new rambles. (I'm back to only 3 mates now, according to my blogger subscriber list, the other 18 got left behind at wordpress. I miss you guys)
But hey, one of the rambles I have called time and time again is - "play for an audience!" One of the subtleties in that statement is "know what your audience wants".
So my mate created for me a survey. It will be interesting to see what us fingerstyle guitarists - and the people who like to listen to fingerstyle guitarists - are the most interested in. So head on over to the survey, it's pretty short and sweet, I'll report back later on what the verdict is! :)
JAW
If you were to use my youtube viewcounts as a guide, then most people are after classical and folk...but that doesn't sound right to me.
The reality is that Jawmunji.com exists because I like to ramble on about fingerstyle guitar stuff that interests me. And my mates keep it interesting by challenging my rambles, and giving me new ideas for new rambles. (I'm back to only 3 mates now, according to my blogger subscriber list, the other 18 got left behind at wordpress. I miss you guys)
But hey, one of the rambles I have called time and time again is - "play for an audience!" One of the subtleties in that statement is "know what your audience wants".
So my mate created for me a survey. It will be interesting to see what us fingerstyle guitarists - and the people who like to listen to fingerstyle guitarists - are the most interested in. So head on over to the survey, it's pretty short and sweet, I'll report back later on what the verdict is! :)
JAW
Monday, 29 April 2013
What's happening April 2013
Another poll finished, I tried to predict the results on this one, let's see how I went...For "Is this your first visit to this site?" I said:
The actual results:
It would seem that most people know where they've been and I have more regulars than I thought - thanks everybody, okay, I should write more!
I've still got my Thursday night gig, I'm still enjoying it. With the colder weather I'm playing less outside and more inside, and the number of patrons is shrinking. Maybe it might soon end for the season, I'll see what the boss is thinking.
I volunteered for a gig at a different place Sunday afternoon, this one was part of a fundraiser for Teen Challenge (an initiative to help people to get out of bad places - drugs, alcohol, self harm, those sorts of bad places.) It's a good cause and I was happy to be part of a lineup of 8 different performers. This gig came about through a friend mentioning me to a friend.
Since I've been gigging for a while I'm pretty comfortable with any sort of gig "at my level", that is, somewhere between 1 and 50 people in a small venue. This venue was another cafe style place. So I just grabbed my guitar and amp and headed in. It was all inside, with a lot of concrete, although a lot higher roof. I was concerned that the acoustics would be poor, I was in for a surprise!
The organiser had a PA setup - two very big speakers and a little 2-channel mixing table. They saw my amp and said "ah, okay, you bought your own gear" and I said "Whoa, yours looks heaps better, I'll use that!" I fumbled around with the mixer for a while and got a sensational sound out of their system. So clean, clear, true to the sound of the guitar and full, solid. It is hard to describe - the sound from my little amp is clean but it doesn't have the "presence", that big solid sound this thing had. Not loud, just solid. That represents a problem...now I am very dissappointed with my amp!
I had previously tried a modular PA system in a music shop and I knew that is the next step, but whoa, yeah thanks for the reminder, I don't need reasons to spend more money!
The guy who brought it down for the event wasn't there to set it up, which is a shame, he is a sound engineer apparently and I would have loved to talk to him. It also was a problem because the two speakers were pointing away from me so I couldn't "hear" what the audience was hearing. I needed a little monitor speaker pointing at me, I was playing mostly on the acoustic sound I was getting just from the guitar being in my hands. I was aware that there was a solid soung being projected, but the lesson is you need to have some of that sound coming at you. At my normal gig with my little amp I sit myself so that the amp is pointing a little bit at me, so I can hear the sound being projected. That wasn't possible here.
I also noticed the bass E string felt overly boomy - out of balance from the other strings. As if someone had wound up the bass EQ way too high. When I thought about it, I suspected the resonance of the room was causing that. The room happily reflected deep bass but mids and trebles didn't reflect. That's I guess what sound engineers are for - listening and tuning the sound. Even when you have a monitor speaker pointed at you you won't know what the sound is like for the guy in the back...when you are by yourself you just have to suck it and see, hope for the best, go with experience (which is low for me!)
(I asked the audience a few times "Is it too loud? Is it too quiet? How is the equalisation, does that bass sounds boomy? It the response flat? How are the dynamics? Do I need to ease off on the soundboard pickup and stick more to the undersaddle transducer? Do you think I should switch the pickup to phase invert between the two pickups?" Okay, I didn't really ask those questions but I wanted to. I need to play a venue where a sound engineer is in control - and see what they do! :))
JAW
75% Yes 15% No 10% I don't know
The actual results:
63% (87 votes) Yes 35% (48 votes) No 1% (2 votes) I don't know
It would seem that most people know where they've been and I have more regulars than I thought - thanks everybody, okay, I should write more!
I've still got my Thursday night gig, I'm still enjoying it. With the colder weather I'm playing less outside and more inside, and the number of patrons is shrinking. Maybe it might soon end for the season, I'll see what the boss is thinking.
I volunteered for a gig at a different place Sunday afternoon, this one was part of a fundraiser for Teen Challenge (an initiative to help people to get out of bad places - drugs, alcohol, self harm, those sorts of bad places.) It's a good cause and I was happy to be part of a lineup of 8 different performers. This gig came about through a friend mentioning me to a friend.
Since I've been gigging for a while I'm pretty comfortable with any sort of gig "at my level", that is, somewhere between 1 and 50 people in a small venue. This venue was another cafe style place. So I just grabbed my guitar and amp and headed in. It was all inside, with a lot of concrete, although a lot higher roof. I was concerned that the acoustics would be poor, I was in for a surprise!
The organiser had a PA setup - two very big speakers and a little 2-channel mixing table. They saw my amp and said "ah, okay, you bought your own gear" and I said "Whoa, yours looks heaps better, I'll use that!" I fumbled around with the mixer for a while and got a sensational sound out of their system. So clean, clear, true to the sound of the guitar and full, solid. It is hard to describe - the sound from my little amp is clean but it doesn't have the "presence", that big solid sound this thing had. Not loud, just solid. That represents a problem...now I am very dissappointed with my amp!
I had previously tried a modular PA system in a music shop and I knew that is the next step, but whoa, yeah thanks for the reminder, I don't need reasons to spend more money!
The guy who brought it down for the event wasn't there to set it up, which is a shame, he is a sound engineer apparently and I would have loved to talk to him. It also was a problem because the two speakers were pointing away from me so I couldn't "hear" what the audience was hearing. I needed a little monitor speaker pointing at me, I was playing mostly on the acoustic sound I was getting just from the guitar being in my hands. I was aware that there was a solid soung being projected, but the lesson is you need to have some of that sound coming at you. At my normal gig with my little amp I sit myself so that the amp is pointing a little bit at me, so I can hear the sound being projected. That wasn't possible here.
I also noticed the bass E string felt overly boomy - out of balance from the other strings. As if someone had wound up the bass EQ way too high. When I thought about it, I suspected the resonance of the room was causing that. The room happily reflected deep bass but mids and trebles didn't reflect. That's I guess what sound engineers are for - listening and tuning the sound. Even when you have a monitor speaker pointed at you you won't know what the sound is like for the guy in the back...when you are by yourself you just have to suck it and see, hope for the best, go with experience (which is low for me!)
(I asked the audience a few times "Is it too loud? Is it too quiet? How is the equalisation, does that bass sounds boomy? It the response flat? How are the dynamics? Do I need to ease off on the soundboard pickup and stick more to the undersaddle transducer? Do you think I should switch the pickup to phase invert between the two pickups?" Okay, I didn't really ask those questions but I wanted to. I need to play a venue where a sound engineer is in control - and see what they do! :))
JAW
Monday, 19 April 2010
Half song playing guitarists & the control freak
A couple of emails I've had recently with fellow guitarists inspired me to spiel up a blog entry, but I fear it is not going to go anywhere. Let's see!
Half-song playing guitarists; if I were to estimate a percentage, I'm guessing that 90% of people who can form an E chord on a guitar are half song playing guitarists. It makes sense, when you first start out on the guitar, you want, nay, *need* something that is going to inspire you. If you took up playing the guitar out of your own free will (wasn't forced on you by well-meaning parents) then you probably did so because of some riff that you fell in love with. So you learn that riff. And a few others.
The problem is that a riff is not a whole song; and probably, that song contains a whole lot of stuff that _isn't_ a riff, so you don't really have a chance of being able to play the whole thing as a complete song. It's a guitarist half-song.
That might be enough for you; pick up a guitar and noodle your favourite snippets. But don't expect any audience to appreciate it. A listener wants to hear a song from start to finish, it's just the way it is.
(I'm in the land of cover music by the way, the rules change for originals and improvisations.)
So what are your choices, when you are one bloke/blokette with a guitar, and have finally/thankfully become sick of playing half-songs? I see three excellent choices, in reverse order of recommendation: 3 - learn fingerstyle, that's where I went; 2 - learn to sing and play guitar, either just strumming or strumming with some picking either finger or plectrum; 1 - don't be one guy playing a guitar, play with other musicians.
Singing and playing guitar is great. Someone who can hold a tune while playing the guitar will engage an audience easily.
I rarely play with other musicians, but of late when I do I've realised that I'm missing something special. The style that I play isn't designed to fit in with other instruments, it's solo fingerstyle, trying to be a one-man-band. So I'd have to drop that style and go for lead, rhythm or bass. None of them really appeal, so I don't think I'd fit in a band.
And there shows the control freak. When you are solo-fingerstyling, you are completely in control, you rely on no-one except yourself, you're doing everyone's job. The situation then self-fulfills, the more you solo-fingerstyle the more control freak you become, the more control freak you become the more you solo-fingerstyle.
Is there a way to break out, and "let go"? I dunno. Do we want to "let go"? I dunno.
My advice then is, if you have played half-songs for long enough then (1) join a band and enjoy being part of a team (2) learn to sing, the guitar is "backing" for your singing and (100) go down the control-freak solo instrumental fingerstyle path.
JAW
(I love solo instrumental fingerstyle)
Half-song playing guitarists; if I were to estimate a percentage, I'm guessing that 90% of people who can form an E chord on a guitar are half song playing guitarists. It makes sense, when you first start out on the guitar, you want, nay, *need* something that is going to inspire you. If you took up playing the guitar out of your own free will (wasn't forced on you by well-meaning parents) then you probably did so because of some riff that you fell in love with. So you learn that riff. And a few others.
The problem is that a riff is not a whole song; and probably, that song contains a whole lot of stuff that _isn't_ a riff, so you don't really have a chance of being able to play the whole thing as a complete song. It's a guitarist half-song.
That might be enough for you; pick up a guitar and noodle your favourite snippets. But don't expect any audience to appreciate it. A listener wants to hear a song from start to finish, it's just the way it is.
(I'm in the land of cover music by the way, the rules change for originals and improvisations.)
So what are your choices, when you are one bloke/blokette with a guitar, and have finally/thankfully become sick of playing half-songs? I see three excellent choices, in reverse order of recommendation: 3 - learn fingerstyle, that's where I went; 2 - learn to sing and play guitar, either just strumming or strumming with some picking either finger or plectrum; 1 - don't be one guy playing a guitar, play with other musicians.
Singing and playing guitar is great. Someone who can hold a tune while playing the guitar will engage an audience easily.
I rarely play with other musicians, but of late when I do I've realised that I'm missing something special. The style that I play isn't designed to fit in with other instruments, it's solo fingerstyle, trying to be a one-man-band. So I'd have to drop that style and go for lead, rhythm or bass. None of them really appeal, so I don't think I'd fit in a band.
And there shows the control freak. When you are solo-fingerstyling, you are completely in control, you rely on no-one except yourself, you're doing everyone's job. The situation then self-fulfills, the more you solo-fingerstyle the more control freak you become, the more control freak you become the more you solo-fingerstyle.
Is there a way to break out, and "let go"? I dunno. Do we want to "let go"? I dunno.
My advice then is, if you have played half-songs for long enough then (1) join a band and enjoy being part of a team (2) learn to sing, the guitar is "backing" for your singing and (100) go down the control-freak solo instrumental fingerstyle path.
JAW
(I love solo instrumental fingerstyle)
Monday, 12 January 2015
Poll results and Never Tear Us Apart
I hadn't run a poll for a while, which was a shame, I love polls. So I posed this one: "Out and about...who do you play guitar for?"
The results from 69 votes were:
Other than the usual analysis of "100% of people polled are the sort of people who respond to polls", I didn't find it surprising that nobody plays large gigs and everybody plays guitar. (Except for you, my 1% friend, but I'm sure you will soon). People who play large gigs or don't play guitar don't need this.
I was hoping for more people who play for friends and family and anyone who will listen. I spent too many years playing for myself, you are missing out when you hide away. Sure, there is that "putting your heart on your sleeve" when you play, the opening yourself to potential emotional distraught, but you are missing out on the connection you get to make with other people through music. What a powerful thing music is! How great is it to share it!
So my 53% of mates out there, yes sure, practise by yourself to get your stuff up to performance level, but then go play for an audience! It is good for you! The rest of us - keep playing for audiences, and keep refining and expanding your set - don't ever be a half song playing guitarist.
In other news, Wifey and I watched a great documentary the other week, INXS - Never Tear Us Apart. I wasn't a fan of my home town band during the day - wifey was - but over the years I have come to appreciate them more. And I like being able to play Aussie Pub Rock! So while I was away with work just before Christmas, I had a crack at "Never Tear Us Apart". I've really enjoyed how it came together as an arrangement.
In other other news, I've been doing some renovations to our bedroom, it is currently completely gutted. So it's one big concrete echo chamber. I decided to record "Never Tear Us Apart" in there, for Ultimate Natural Medium Room Reverb. The play needs work, I'm finding it hard to get the arrangement to stick to my fingers. Some arrangements are like that. As for the reverb - well, the sound just gets muddy. The trebles are nice, but the bass is washed out. I ran some post EQ to demuddify it, it's tolerable, but it reminds me why I never use any reverb/delay for gigs. Keep the sound flat and clean - the room is already going to add reverb/delay and mess up the EQ. And get the tone you want with your fingers - not with electronics!
Have a listen if you like - Ultimate Natural Medium Room Reverb "Never Tear Us Apart":
JAW
The results from 69 votes were:
53% I play only for myself 23% I play for anyone who will listen 18% I play for friends and family 2% I play small gigs 1% I don't play guitar 0% I play large gigs
Other than the usual analysis of "100% of people polled are the sort of people who respond to polls", I didn't find it surprising that nobody plays large gigs and everybody plays guitar. (Except for you, my 1% friend, but I'm sure you will soon). People who play large gigs or don't play guitar don't need this.
I was hoping for more people who play for friends and family and anyone who will listen. I spent too many years playing for myself, you are missing out when you hide away. Sure, there is that "putting your heart on your sleeve" when you play, the opening yourself to potential emotional distraught, but you are missing out on the connection you get to make with other people through music. What a powerful thing music is! How great is it to share it!
So my 53% of mates out there, yes sure, practise by yourself to get your stuff up to performance level, but then go play for an audience! It is good for you! The rest of us - keep playing for audiences, and keep refining and expanding your set - don't ever be a half song playing guitarist.
In other news, Wifey and I watched a great documentary the other week, INXS - Never Tear Us Apart. I wasn't a fan of my home town band during the day - wifey was - but over the years I have come to appreciate them more. And I like being able to play Aussie Pub Rock! So while I was away with work just before Christmas, I had a crack at "Never Tear Us Apart". I've really enjoyed how it came together as an arrangement.
In other other news, I've been doing some renovations to our bedroom, it is currently completely gutted. So it's one big concrete echo chamber. I decided to record "Never Tear Us Apart" in there, for Ultimate Natural Medium Room Reverb. The play needs work, I'm finding it hard to get the arrangement to stick to my fingers. Some arrangements are like that. As for the reverb - well, the sound just gets muddy. The trebles are nice, but the bass is washed out. I ran some post EQ to demuddify it, it's tolerable, but it reminds me why I never use any reverb/delay for gigs. Keep the sound flat and clean - the room is already going to add reverb/delay and mess up the EQ. And get the tone you want with your fingers - not with electronics!
Have a listen if you like - Ultimate Natural Medium Room Reverb "Never Tear Us Apart":
JAW
Thursday, 29 March 2018
What's happening March 2018
A bunch of smaller things happening this month, in no particular order:
JAW
*not specifically true, playing the guitar is so ingrained it's like breathing, I can't _not_ play. But playing the guitar to people who dig what I'm doing is the highlight of guitaristry.
- The other side I have noticed to using d'Addario EXPs is that the silkiness of the string actually reduces the scrape sounds as you run down strings heading for a new chord, where you aren't specifically lifting your fingers off. You can't always avoid it, and it's not always bad, but reducing it is A Good Thing(tm).
- My classical guitar teaching isn't terrible. I have two girls that can now sight read treble and open basses to an acceptable level. I teach out of the old Aaron Shearer red book, that I learnt from, which is fantastic if not a little dry. I supplement with other stuff from the internet.
- Fingerstyle of the Moon is going well, I have played it at a few gigs and I am still excited playing it at home to myself. It's fairly consistent; usually comes in around 23-24 minutes of play time, I can play it fairly reliably without too many critical errors. It would be nice to have somewhere to play it weekly, where I can really hone it and make it "amazing"...perhaps I will play it on a big stage when Dark Side of the Moon turns 50 :-)
- One of the ukuleles in the house had a broken string, I replaced it with a set of uke strings I had purchased on the last string order. It was a slightly fancy set and I was surprised to find it had a wound 3rd string! (This is my tenor uke). I was so fascinated with the new sound that I have been playing it a bit more recently. I fully cheat; I just play my guitar songs on the top 4 strings, so the key is transposed 5 semitones. Like wearing a capo on the guitar at the fifth. I had previously found that my brain doesn't do well trying to map out fingering for 4 string fretting from fingering 6 string fretting, like the "extra" fingers want to do something but don't know what, but I am getting better at it. My repertoire isn't only "Here Comes the Sun" anymore.
- Both my daughters play stringed instruments; my son plays a reeded instrument but I still love him anyway. Recently the girls have really stepped up a notch in their playing ability, hats off to their teachers. But what I really appreciate is the eldest is in 3 bands at school, the youngest in 1 band at school and 1 outside of school. And it really really helps musicianship. I've played solo for so long that I don't play well with others. They pretty much have only played with others. And I see it when I occasionally play along with them. I am terrible at maintaining a tempo, and at fitting in - I only really have the ability to be the dominate "Everyone follow me", and then fingerstyle by it's nature is trying to be a one man band so there is also "Stop it, that's my part." I have really missed out not being in a band, I'm so glad the kids get to experience it. But I don't feel too bad, at one gig I was chatting with the audience "I've been playing solo too long, I don't play well with others" and one dude said "You've missed nothing - rather than waiting on other band members to show up, them not having practised, nobody agreeing on what to play, looking for new band members when they quit - you haven't been held back and have been able to hone your craft."
- Warm season is basically over. I don't have any upcoming gigs. I'm very busy with the family this year so it's not a bad thing, but gigs is why I bother*.
JAW
*not specifically true, playing the guitar is so ingrained it's like breathing, I can't _not_ play. But playing the guitar to people who dig what I'm doing is the highlight of guitaristry.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Happy Birthday!
A few weeks ago I did the same winery gig that I did last year, and something happened that I had planned for many years ago, but hadn't kept up with - it was someone's brithday and I got a request to play "Happy Birthday". I couldn't even remember the chords!
Basically if you ever play to an audience you need to keep "happy birthday" in your bag of tricks, because it will come up. Fear not, I dusted off some old notes, did a cross check with other tabs on the net (many had parts that I liked but none were enough by themselves...besides, nobody should ever play a tab exactly as someone else has written it! :))
Here, have a listen to me play it. It's short, mostly in chords, and easily remembered. Only two parts may cause you some frustration: in the first two bars I'm holding a C shape but I bend my second finger backwards to fret the A second fret third string. I do this sort of mini-barre quite often so it comes reasonably natural to me.
The F(b5) chord may throw you - do it as and F barre chord but don't lay your first finger for the full bar, just fret the low 6, leave the top strings un-barred. Then clamp down the barre for the full F in the same measure.
The rest should be easy for a fingerstyler...don't worry about running up the fret board for the last G and C chord if you don't want to; as with all tabs, make them your own!
...oh and make sure you throw in the heavy vibrato on the end note of "And many more..." I love a bit of comedy in guitar playing, it's not easy to put comedy into guitar playing, so anywhere you can do it you should! :)
JAW
Basically if you ever play to an audience you need to keep "happy birthday" in your bag of tricks, because it will come up. Fear not, I dusted off some old notes, did a cross check with other tabs on the net (many had parts that I liked but none were enough by themselves...besides, nobody should ever play a tab exactly as someone else has written it! :))
HAPPY BIRTHDAY 3/4 C G C |---------|----------|----------|----------|----------| |---------|-------1--|-0--------|-------3--|-1--------| |-----0-0-|-2--0-----|-0----0-0-|-2--0-----|-0----0-0-| |---------|----2-----|-0--------|-0--------|-2--------| |---------|-3-----3--|----------|-2--------|-3----3---| |---------|----------|-3----3---|-------3--|----------| F(b5) F C G C ~~~~~ |-3--0-----|-------1-1-|-0--------|--8------|----------|------*| |-1--1--1--|-0-----1-1-|-1--1--3--|--8------|----------|------*| |-0--0-----|-2--2--2-2-|-0-----4--|--9------|-0--2--0--|-3----*| |-2--------|-3---------|-------5--|-10------|----------|------*| |-------3--|-----------|-3--------|-10------|----------|------*| |----------|-1-----1-1-|-------3--|--8------|----------|------*|
Here, have a listen to me play it. It's short, mostly in chords, and easily remembered. Only two parts may cause you some frustration: in the first two bars I'm holding a C shape but I bend my second finger backwards to fret the A second fret third string. I do this sort of mini-barre quite often so it comes reasonably natural to me.
The F(b5) chord may throw you - do it as and F barre chord but don't lay your first finger for the full bar, just fret the low 6, leave the top strings un-barred. Then clamp down the barre for the full F in the same measure.
The rest should be easy for a fingerstyler...don't worry about running up the fret board for the last G and C chord if you don't want to; as with all tabs, make them your own!
...oh and make sure you throw in the heavy vibrato on the end note of "And many more..." I love a bit of comedy in guitar playing, it's not easy to put comedy into guitar playing, so anywhere you can do it you should! :)
JAW
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Arranging: concepts
Arranging pop and rock songs for solo instrumental fingerstyle is not as difficult as you would think, and it can really help you develop your skills. Here is a brief strategy that I use:
Choose a song. Sounds like the easy part, but not always the case. Some songs are crying out to be fingerstyled. Listen to the song; see if you can pick out a good simple repeatable beat/bassline, a simple melody, and nothing complex in between. Some songs may have a very distinctive riff that wouldn't fit with the melody, and leaving out the riff would just not be right. The songs that I have arranged aren't necessarily songs that I particularly like, but they are ones that I noticed would suit the style.
Now, why invent the wheel? A well known pop/rock song will have been tabbed out several times over, do an internet search for "<song> tab" and you are bound to find the chords, words, tabs, somebody who has nutted out the solo. Muck around with any tabs you find to see how accurate they are. Another good source of info is midi files, believe it or not. You can open up a midi file in most tabbing software, and it will show you the tab. I quite often use this for getting the melody for the voice. You'll have to fiddle around with midis; they are usually made up of several channels, often the song will wander in and out of channels depending on what the author was trying to achieve.
I will typically work on the bassline to start with, get something that is easy to play but is in line with the song. You really want the bassline to use as many open strings as possible - E, A, D - because if you are racing around a melody up high, you won't be fretting low F's. Try changing the key of the song to fit more into what the guitar is set up for. You can also try a non-standard tuning; I've used Drop D a few times for songs that spend a lot of time needing D.
If the song has a distinct bassline/beat then try to match it. If it doesn't, then just playing the root bass note in the chord on the beat is an easy out. But try to mix it up a bit, through in double striking a note, or on the 3.5th beat in a 4 beat bar hit that bars root bass note and then hit the bass note for the next bar. Listen to Naudos basslines, they are great. Mine are simpler; what you need to achieve is filling up the bottom end frequencies.
Next tackle the melody. Start basic; just pluck a single note lining up with what the singer is singing. The bass might be important, but the melody is critical - your audience uses the melody to lock in and follow the song. The melody causes the words of the song to pop into their heads and gives them that enjoyment you get when you hear an instrumental version of a song you know. Get the melody as spot on as you can.
Fill the melody out where you need to, double or triple notes plucked at the same time to accentuate parts of the song that need it. This is where playing a nylon string comes in handy; it is easier to vary the volume, sound, timbre of each note than on a steel string. You want to make sure the melody is loud, remember, it is what the listener is focussing on.
Invert your chords where you need to, to ensure you get the "coverage" that you need for the bass and the melody. For example, if you wanted to play a first string 5th fret high A, then rather than fretting up an open A X02220, go for a root 6 A 577655. You've still got access to the bass A note (on 6th string), but there is that high A you need.
Add some mid, but don't let it drive the song. Certainly don't let it overpower the melody. I've been using a lot of little strums, say on the 3rd beat mimicking a snare drum. Traditionally fingerstylers would arpeggio fill in a mid; I still use that a lot to break the song up, but it feels olde school to me. The little flicking/stab, across 2 or three strings in the chord adds a "modern" and percussive feel, less "classical". Don't be afraid to sound out your melody in that mid flick - you can't flick and pluck at the same time. (Okay you can, but that technique is too advanced for me ;)
Now that you have built up a song, don't be too repetitive. Make little changes to keep it different and lively between each verse. You'll find that most songs are the same thing over and over, it is the words that makes it, but since we aren't using words, we've got to do something different to mix it up. Play one verse an octave up...or an octave down. Cut out a verse altogether if it is sounding too repetitive. Include any solo or bridge that the song has, even if it is just as much work doing an 8 bar bridge as doing the rest of the song. If there seems to be nothing you can do to make it more interesting, then cut it down to half a song and medley it up back to back with another song by the same band.
Write it all up in a tab editor as you go, primarily so that you don't forget the good ideas you've had. In an editor like powertab, you can play back the tab. I find this very useful to "test" ideas, for instance a tricky bass line/melody resolve that I'm having a hard time trying to play. Type it in how you think you want it to be, play it back and tweak it until you think it sounds good, then learn it!
Experiment, try some percussive body tapping, but don't let it "segregate" the song; as in, tapping should be part of the sound, not one sound-then that sound-then this sound. It will come out stuttery. Apply that rule to the entire song, the whole thing should be fairly continuous, not suddenly a few notes plucked then massive strumming and repeat. Of course sometimes this is needed for the song, but as a whole, the song should be reasonably smooth.
Well I hope I have give you some good ideas and inspiration for turning that classic old rock song you loved as a kid into a cool new instrumental solo fingerstyle cover; record a video and post it on youtube and send me a link!
JAW
Choose a song. Sounds like the easy part, but not always the case. Some songs are crying out to be fingerstyled. Listen to the song; see if you can pick out a good simple repeatable beat/bassline, a simple melody, and nothing complex in between. Some songs may have a very distinctive riff that wouldn't fit with the melody, and leaving out the riff would just not be right. The songs that I have arranged aren't necessarily songs that I particularly like, but they are ones that I noticed would suit the style.
Now, why invent the wheel? A well known pop/rock song will have been tabbed out several times over, do an internet search for "<song> tab" and you are bound to find the chords, words, tabs, somebody who has nutted out the solo. Muck around with any tabs you find to see how accurate they are. Another good source of info is midi files, believe it or not. You can open up a midi file in most tabbing software, and it will show you the tab. I quite often use this for getting the melody for the voice. You'll have to fiddle around with midis; they are usually made up of several channels, often the song will wander in and out of channels depending on what the author was trying to achieve.
I will typically work on the bassline to start with, get something that is easy to play but is in line with the song. You really want the bassline to use as many open strings as possible - E, A, D - because if you are racing around a melody up high, you won't be fretting low F's. Try changing the key of the song to fit more into what the guitar is set up for. You can also try a non-standard tuning; I've used Drop D a few times for songs that spend a lot of time needing D.
If the song has a distinct bassline/beat then try to match it. If it doesn't, then just playing the root bass note in the chord on the beat is an easy out. But try to mix it up a bit, through in double striking a note, or on the 3.5th beat in a 4 beat bar hit that bars root bass note and then hit the bass note for the next bar. Listen to Naudos basslines, they are great. Mine are simpler; what you need to achieve is filling up the bottom end frequencies.
Next tackle the melody. Start basic; just pluck a single note lining up with what the singer is singing. The bass might be important, but the melody is critical - your audience uses the melody to lock in and follow the song. The melody causes the words of the song to pop into their heads and gives them that enjoyment you get when you hear an instrumental version of a song you know. Get the melody as spot on as you can.
Fill the melody out where you need to, double or triple notes plucked at the same time to accentuate parts of the song that need it. This is where playing a nylon string comes in handy; it is easier to vary the volume, sound, timbre of each note than on a steel string. You want to make sure the melody is loud, remember, it is what the listener is focussing on.
Invert your chords where you need to, to ensure you get the "coverage" that you need for the bass and the melody. For example, if you wanted to play a first string 5th fret high A, then rather than fretting up an open A X02220, go for a root 6 A 577655. You've still got access to the bass A note (on 6th string), but there is that high A you need.
Add some mid, but don't let it drive the song. Certainly don't let it overpower the melody. I've been using a lot of little strums, say on the 3rd beat mimicking a snare drum. Traditionally fingerstylers would arpeggio fill in a mid; I still use that a lot to break the song up, but it feels olde school to me. The little flicking/stab, across 2 or three strings in the chord adds a "modern" and percussive feel, less "classical". Don't be afraid to sound out your melody in that mid flick - you can't flick and pluck at the same time. (Okay you can, but that technique is too advanced for me ;)
Now that you have built up a song, don't be too repetitive. Make little changes to keep it different and lively between each verse. You'll find that most songs are the same thing over and over, it is the words that makes it, but since we aren't using words, we've got to do something different to mix it up. Play one verse an octave up...or an octave down. Cut out a verse altogether if it is sounding too repetitive. Include any solo or bridge that the song has, even if it is just as much work doing an 8 bar bridge as doing the rest of the song. If there seems to be nothing you can do to make it more interesting, then cut it down to half a song and medley it up back to back with another song by the same band.
Write it all up in a tab editor as you go, primarily so that you don't forget the good ideas you've had. In an editor like powertab, you can play back the tab. I find this very useful to "test" ideas, for instance a tricky bass line/melody resolve that I'm having a hard time trying to play. Type it in how you think you want it to be, play it back and tweak it until you think it sounds good, then learn it!
Experiment, try some percussive body tapping, but don't let it "segregate" the song; as in, tapping should be part of the sound, not one sound-then that sound-then this sound. It will come out stuttery. Apply that rule to the entire song, the whole thing should be fairly continuous, not suddenly a few notes plucked then massive strumming and repeat. Of course sometimes this is needed for the song, but as a whole, the song should be reasonably smooth.
Well I hope I have give you some good ideas and inspiration for turning that classic old rock song you loved as a kid into a cool new instrumental solo fingerstyle cover; record a video and post it on youtube and send me a link!
JAW
Monday, 17 July 2023
Rusty Songs
Most of my songs I need to play once a month or they go a bit rusty. Where I'll forget a chord or a section and I'll have to fake it through it. The problem is further exacerbated - if a song is already rusty, I'm less likely to play it in a performance situation, so I avoid it making it rustier still.
The solution to rust is to spend five to ten minutes in quiet practise time to polish it up. If I haven't played a song in six months I might need to refer back to my sheet and spend half an hour.
How to stop it rusting again? I'm still playing for an hour in the lunch room at work on Fridays. Since my set list is around three hours long, what I'm thinking is, have a setlist sheet and play in order. And then next session pick up where I left off. Until the sheet is finished, and then restart. That will give every song a play through once a month minimum!
For even better skillz, I'll give the sheet to an active listener and ask them to pick songs. I'll have to know my songs well for that. I plan later this year to stop in some open mics, I reckon if I have 70 songs in good condition and ask the audience to pick, that will be a good party trick 👍
In the meantime, play, and polish. I reckon currently 40 songs are rust-free, 10 are rusty, 10 need some more serious sanding, and around 20 are almost a lost cause 🙂
Monday, 25 January 2010
Right Hand...more than likely part 1...
One of my 3 readers, Rich, inspired me to write about the right hand. It's a good call, because as far as the left hand goes, there isn't a lot of difference between a fingerpicker and a wailing one-note-at-a-time lead guitar shredder, but the difference between right hands is chalk compared with the proverbial cheese. Each fingerpicker will have his own take on the right hand, I'll try to stay open minded, but I only have one opinion, my own ;)
First up, you need to have accuracy. I was nearly going to say stability there, but accuracy doesn't have to come from stability everytime . Somewhere in our brains there is a 3D spacial awareness of self, and we have to tap deeply into that for all forms of guitaring. There are a couple of shortcuts - for example you can stare at your right hand. You can put your pinky on the soundboard. You can rest fingers on strings not in use. You can just have your arm resting on the guitar.
Each of these things creates a relative hand-to-string position and your brain can calculate the offset of what it is requested to do next. For example, consider a flat picker, he's just downstroked the G string, his next move is an upstroke is the B string. His brain controls the amount of movement, learned from experience, to perform the task. Do it enough and you'll never miss. It's only a short move afterall! It is possible to move to any string next - but the further away the more risk of an error.
If you are just fixing your relative position by your arm, you brian doesn't have a lot of reference feedback to go by - it's a long, error potential causing distance from where your arm rests on the guitar to where your hand is. If your pinky is on the soundboard your reference is much shorter and there is less error. For me I find resting pinky down as an anchor is awkward and detracts from playing, but that won't be the case for everyone. Pinky anchor at your own leisure.
We all look at our right hand from time to time, the visual cue is valuable position feedback for the brain. Playing staring at the right hand will also detract from playing, it's as if there is only a certain amount of CPU cycles available in your brain, and once you start using your eyes you have stolen a lot of CPU cycles that you could spend doing other more useful things, like looking and making contact with your audience ;) But a quick glance at the right hand to fix a reference point, especially when you are about to launch into a flurry of activity, is beneficial.
Three treble strings - three fingers; a thumb to move around the three bass stings. Sounds pretty sensible! And if you are playing a Travis picking style song, well, the right hand is basically dead still, the correct finger at the correct time moves to pluck the correct string, the thumb, which is a bit more manouverable than the fingers, can fairly easily jump between one or two strings plucking. If it is a repeating pattern, well that's even easier!
I'm not a big fan of Travis picking, it is a bit formuliac. It has its place, but you wouldn't want to play every song Travis picking style.
Same can be said for classical. Picking out a p-i-m-a-m-i (that's thumb-index-middle-annular(ring)-etc) is fairly standard fair for classical. Nice, use it all the time. Easy to play because your fingers are right there, relative positioning is almost a given. Can get repetitive if used excessively.
Let's look at Naudo. Throw the book out the window, he is playing every string with any finger and he's not just plucking, he's downstroke flicking, part strumming, holding his fingernail like a pick and lead-guiaring, he's slapping and whacking!
Well go and get your book back, a lot of this is based on the "normal" styles, but if comes down to accuracy, and how to get it. And that is helped by minimising reference errors.
Stability to start with will minimise reference errors. I use a classical style postion to get stability; that is, you have your wrist basically locked, your fingers pluck mostly from the second knuckle and your thumb is nearly stiff moving from the joint at your hand. A wise fella once told me if you think you are playing from your fingers you are probably playing from your hand, if you are playing from your hand you are probably playing from your wrist, wrist-elbow, elbow-shoulder. I'm still not quite sure what he meant, but I've taken away that if I essentially lock my hand and wrist in a fixed position then I'm probably playing from my fingers like I should be :)
My wrist is at quite a high angle, it doesn't need to be, I just find that is the most comfortable. If it doesn't hurt and it makes it easy to play, go with it.
So with a good stable right hand position, relative positioning of your fingers is less prone to errors. Playing top E and bottom E is always going to be easy, you have a wide margin for error, "start out wide and feel your way in".
What I see Naudo doing is keeping movement to a minimum. A heavy handed follow through on a single string leaves your fingers out there somewhere and can blow your reference to the next string, whereas a short effective stroke leaves you exactly where you know you are.
Classical players talk about rest stroke and free stroke. Rest stroke means that as you play a string, your finger follows through and comes to rest on the string next to the original string. This is of course a good method of keeping a reference, because rather than your hand floating you are physically touching a string, "reseting" in your brain the reference position (because you know which string you are resting on). This is very similar to pinky anchor or resting your not-in-use fingers on known strings.
I've gone off rest stroke over the years, it is all free stroke for me these days. I don't like the sound of rest stroke it is always heavily accentuated; I can get that if I need it from a hearty free stroke pluck.
But now let's throw in some flicking/strumming Naudo style in between songs - if that doesn't mess up your reference then a well grounded player you are ("Strumming" is moving more from the wrist or arm, "flicking" is just from the fingers, ie wrist more or less locked.) I've taught myself to flick chord pieces with all three fingers, kinda like a little chip or flick across the chord fragment I'm after. At first I played them fairly wide, strum style with wrist movement, but it creates the risk of reference loss. Most of the time after you have strummed a chord fragment the next note is a pluck in the melody, and by gee, you want to pluck the right note!
Looking at Naudo he adds flicks with only his second or third finger keeping his index finger ready at a target string, and the movement contains no wrist. It is minimalist, and reduces the risk of a missed note pluck. You extremely rarely see him miss a note; his stability and reference is rock solid so his accuracy is almost 100%.
The other trick he employs to further reduce risk is making sure the whole chord is formed. If you miss a note and hit something out of chord someone is going to notice. But if you miss a note, but the note you hit is in chord, it won't sound quite right but it won't sound wrong, if you know what I mean.
And there we come to probably the most critical point of all - what do you do when you make the mistake and pluck the wrong string? The brain has to quickly re-reference and get back on track. Hopefully the sound of the one wrong note is enough of a clue to the brain to say "I'm up a string too high" or "I'm down a string too low" and get your hand to take the corrective action. Alternatives include breaking out into a wide chord strum to fill your way through the bar and then pickup in the right place at the start of the next bar; or having a second attempt - many times in a melody if the note comes an off-beat late it could be construed as just adding a bit of lib. Of course a second attempt means breaking out of the picking pattern you are in; is it possible? I find these days the answer is a resounding yes; it is possible, just maybe, that I am heading toward true thumb independance...
Sorry my 3 readers, this has been a real brain dump, devoid of structure! There is so much to say about the right hand that I'd need to spend the time just planning a table of contents of what I have to say about it. But since this is a place of venting, ranting and rambling, that's all you are going to get for now :) I'm sure one of my three readers, you know who you are, will pipe up and steer this in a particular direction. This is a time that a forum would be useful!
For example, I didn't even mention fingernails...(but I have done in the past). Oh to bring all these things together in a coherent manner! ;)
JAW
First up, you need to have accuracy. I was nearly going to say stability there, but accuracy doesn't have to come from stability everytime . Somewhere in our brains there is a 3D spacial awareness of self, and we have to tap deeply into that for all forms of guitaring. There are a couple of shortcuts - for example you can stare at your right hand. You can put your pinky on the soundboard. You can rest fingers on strings not in use. You can just have your arm resting on the guitar.
Each of these things creates a relative hand-to-string position and your brain can calculate the offset of what it is requested to do next. For example, consider a flat picker, he's just downstroked the G string, his next move is an upstroke is the B string. His brain controls the amount of movement, learned from experience, to perform the task. Do it enough and you'll never miss. It's only a short move afterall! It is possible to move to any string next - but the further away the more risk of an error.
If you are just fixing your relative position by your arm, you brian doesn't have a lot of reference feedback to go by - it's a long, error potential causing distance from where your arm rests on the guitar to where your hand is. If your pinky is on the soundboard your reference is much shorter and there is less error. For me I find resting pinky down as an anchor is awkward and detracts from playing, but that won't be the case for everyone. Pinky anchor at your own leisure.
We all look at our right hand from time to time, the visual cue is valuable position feedback for the brain. Playing staring at the right hand will also detract from playing, it's as if there is only a certain amount of CPU cycles available in your brain, and once you start using your eyes you have stolen a lot of CPU cycles that you could spend doing other more useful things, like looking and making contact with your audience ;) But a quick glance at the right hand to fix a reference point, especially when you are about to launch into a flurry of activity, is beneficial.
Three treble strings - three fingers; a thumb to move around the three bass stings. Sounds pretty sensible! And if you are playing a Travis picking style song, well, the right hand is basically dead still, the correct finger at the correct time moves to pluck the correct string, the thumb, which is a bit more manouverable than the fingers, can fairly easily jump between one or two strings plucking. If it is a repeating pattern, well that's even easier!
I'm not a big fan of Travis picking, it is a bit formuliac. It has its place, but you wouldn't want to play every song Travis picking style.
Same can be said for classical. Picking out a p-i-m-a-m-i (that's thumb-index-middle-annular(ring)-etc) is fairly standard fair for classical. Nice, use it all the time. Easy to play because your fingers are right there, relative positioning is almost a given. Can get repetitive if used excessively.
Let's look at Naudo. Throw the book out the window, he is playing every string with any finger and he's not just plucking, he's downstroke flicking, part strumming, holding his fingernail like a pick and lead-guiaring, he's slapping and whacking!
Well go and get your book back, a lot of this is based on the "normal" styles, but if comes down to accuracy, and how to get it. And that is helped by minimising reference errors.
Stability to start with will minimise reference errors. I use a classical style postion to get stability; that is, you have your wrist basically locked, your fingers pluck mostly from the second knuckle and your thumb is nearly stiff moving from the joint at your hand. A wise fella once told me if you think you are playing from your fingers you are probably playing from your hand, if you are playing from your hand you are probably playing from your wrist, wrist-elbow, elbow-shoulder. I'm still not quite sure what he meant, but I've taken away that if I essentially lock my hand and wrist in a fixed position then I'm probably playing from my fingers like I should be :)
My wrist is at quite a high angle, it doesn't need to be, I just find that is the most comfortable. If it doesn't hurt and it makes it easy to play, go with it.
So with a good stable right hand position, relative positioning of your fingers is less prone to errors. Playing top E and bottom E is always going to be easy, you have a wide margin for error, "start out wide and feel your way in".
What I see Naudo doing is keeping movement to a minimum. A heavy handed follow through on a single string leaves your fingers out there somewhere and can blow your reference to the next string, whereas a short effective stroke leaves you exactly where you know you are.
Classical players talk about rest stroke and free stroke. Rest stroke means that as you play a string, your finger follows through and comes to rest on the string next to the original string. This is of course a good method of keeping a reference, because rather than your hand floating you are physically touching a string, "reseting" in your brain the reference position (because you know which string you are resting on). This is very similar to pinky anchor or resting your not-in-use fingers on known strings.
I've gone off rest stroke over the years, it is all free stroke for me these days. I don't like the sound of rest stroke it is always heavily accentuated; I can get that if I need it from a hearty free stroke pluck.
But now let's throw in some flicking/strumming Naudo style in between songs - if that doesn't mess up your reference then a well grounded player you are ("Strumming" is moving more from the wrist or arm, "flicking" is just from the fingers, ie wrist more or less locked.) I've taught myself to flick chord pieces with all three fingers, kinda like a little chip or flick across the chord fragment I'm after. At first I played them fairly wide, strum style with wrist movement, but it creates the risk of reference loss. Most of the time after you have strummed a chord fragment the next note is a pluck in the melody, and by gee, you want to pluck the right note!
Looking at Naudo he adds flicks with only his second or third finger keeping his index finger ready at a target string, and the movement contains no wrist. It is minimalist, and reduces the risk of a missed note pluck. You extremely rarely see him miss a note; his stability and reference is rock solid so his accuracy is almost 100%.
The other trick he employs to further reduce risk is making sure the whole chord is formed. If you miss a note and hit something out of chord someone is going to notice. But if you miss a note, but the note you hit is in chord, it won't sound quite right but it won't sound wrong, if you know what I mean.
And there we come to probably the most critical point of all - what do you do when you make the mistake and pluck the wrong string? The brain has to quickly re-reference and get back on track. Hopefully the sound of the one wrong note is enough of a clue to the brain to say "I'm up a string too high" or "I'm down a string too low" and get your hand to take the corrective action. Alternatives include breaking out into a wide chord strum to fill your way through the bar and then pickup in the right place at the start of the next bar; or having a second attempt - many times in a melody if the note comes an off-beat late it could be construed as just adding a bit of lib. Of course a second attempt means breaking out of the picking pattern you are in; is it possible? I find these days the answer is a resounding yes; it is possible, just maybe, that I am heading toward true thumb independance...
Sorry my 3 readers, this has been a real brain dump, devoid of structure! There is so much to say about the right hand that I'd need to spend the time just planning a table of contents of what I have to say about it. But since this is a place of venting, ranting and rambling, that's all you are going to get for now :) I'm sure one of my three readers, you know who you are, will pipe up and steer this in a particular direction. This is a time that a forum would be useful!
For example, I didn't even mention fingernails...(but I have done in the past). Oh to bring all these things together in a coherent manner! ;)
JAW
Thursday, 4 December 2014
After a lesson, the boys light up
Since the "issue" from the other day, I found another couple of hours I could spend with the guitar. A quick test to see if I could re-record some audio, nah, "tone" won't be back for another week. So, what have I got to work on? Hmm...
I've been asked by several people after playing "Reckless" "Do you know any other Australian Crawl?" I don't. My mate Jono, when we catch it usually ends in a few beers, maybe a whiskey or two, he sings and I play guitar. Last session he was super keen for more Crawl, particularly "The Boys Light Up". "I have the whole internet here on my phone, let's look up the chords." After strumming, with some embellishment, I mentally noted it was a good fingerstyle candidate.
So here I am, "The Boys Light Up"
First challenge was putting the chords into fingerstyle - Bm, G, A. Pretty much the entire song. Hey, it's 80's Aussie Pub Rock, keep it simple. I didn't like the idea of having to do stuff while hanging onto a Bm, so I shifted it down two steps to Am, F, G. Better, I could work with that. It is a seriously backbeat song, which made it both challenging and interesting. I developed a pattern quickly, bass-pick-rest-pick, similar to my current standard, but with a rest instead of body slap.
Harmonica solo at the start. I pulled apart a midi file I found on the internet for ideas for the whole song, there wasn't much in it but the harmonica solo was pretty clear. It went easily onto the pattern. No problems there. The verses were slightly problematic, 'ole Reyney sings pretty radical (nobody has deciphered some of his lyrics) and the melody was difficult for me to work out. But it seemed essentially in chords so I just winged it, trying to sing it in my head.
Sadly still, the melody is midrange, which puts it smack bang in the backbeat chord fragments I was going for. If it was up high you can put it up there out of the way, but in the middle, again, makes it more challenging. The whole song being down two steps from Bm to Am it also sounded "flat". Capo on the second fret, ha ha, back to normal, still with open chords, yah!
There are a lot of lyrics in the verse structure, which makes it kinda boring for fingerstyle. So I aimed for "variation" to not bore the audience too much. There's a little bridge which follows the verse structure which is signature for the song and very cool, then it is chorus, which is same as verse.
It was just about a wrap! A nice easy one, bit of interest, very simple phrases to remember. I was sad to put aside some of the groovy bass and distorted guitar, which didn't immediately fit, but I slipped in a nice bend on the beat before the start of the main phrases which made up a little bit for the loss of the groovy bass.
Not my best work, but an easy three minute song to fit into the repertoire, and it is 80's Aussie Pub Rock, a personal fave.
Here, have a listen to the demo I just recorded:
Never heard the song? I love this super-early recording where they stuffed up the backbeat for the first 20 seconds, even Reyney looks back "what the heck are you doing?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtniUXtDY6M
Or, much more recently, and this one has cowbell! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7luJhTELfI
I've been asked by several people after playing "Reckless" "Do you know any other Australian Crawl?" I don't. My mate Jono, when we catch it usually ends in a few beers, maybe a whiskey or two, he sings and I play guitar. Last session he was super keen for more Crawl, particularly "The Boys Light Up". "I have the whole internet here on my phone, let's look up the chords." After strumming, with some embellishment, I mentally noted it was a good fingerstyle candidate.
So here I am, "The Boys Light Up"
First challenge was putting the chords into fingerstyle - Bm, G, A. Pretty much the entire song. Hey, it's 80's Aussie Pub Rock, keep it simple. I didn't like the idea of having to do stuff while hanging onto a Bm, so I shifted it down two steps to Am, F, G. Better, I could work with that. It is a seriously backbeat song, which made it both challenging and interesting. I developed a pattern quickly, bass-pick-rest-pick, similar to my current standard, but with a rest instead of body slap.
Harmonica solo at the start. I pulled apart a midi file I found on the internet for ideas for the whole song, there wasn't much in it but the harmonica solo was pretty clear. It went easily onto the pattern. No problems there. The verses were slightly problematic, 'ole Reyney sings pretty radical (nobody has deciphered some of his lyrics) and the melody was difficult for me to work out. But it seemed essentially in chords so I just winged it, trying to sing it in my head.
Sadly still, the melody is midrange, which puts it smack bang in the backbeat chord fragments I was going for. If it was up high you can put it up there out of the way, but in the middle, again, makes it more challenging. The whole song being down two steps from Bm to Am it also sounded "flat". Capo on the second fret, ha ha, back to normal, still with open chords, yah!
There are a lot of lyrics in the verse structure, which makes it kinda boring for fingerstyle. So I aimed for "variation" to not bore the audience too much. There's a little bridge which follows the verse structure which is signature for the song and very cool, then it is chorus, which is same as verse.
It was just about a wrap! A nice easy one, bit of interest, very simple phrases to remember. I was sad to put aside some of the groovy bass and distorted guitar, which didn't immediately fit, but I slipped in a nice bend on the beat before the start of the main phrases which made up a little bit for the loss of the groovy bass.
Not my best work, but an easy three minute song to fit into the repertoire, and it is 80's Aussie Pub Rock, a personal fave.
Here, have a listen to the demo I just recorded:
Never heard the song? I love this super-early recording where they stuffed up the backbeat for the first 20 seconds, even Reyney looks back "what the heck are you doing?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtniUXtDY6M
Or, much more recently, and this one has cowbell! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7luJhTELfI
Friday, 12 May 2017
Two recent gigs
I've played at South Beach Tacos in Fremantle twice now which has been a good experience. Fremantle has more, for want of a better term, "hipsters", who as a complete generalisation get more into live music. So in playing my stuff I get more connection with the audience, which inspires my "A game" which is good for everyone! I take my active speaker, a stand for it, power cable, lead and guitar. Minimal - though the speaker is heavy so I put it on a trolley if I'm going to be walking for a bit. I sit with the speaker partially behind me so I can hear what is coming out of it, I play better when I'm playing to the sound that we are all hearing.
Speaking of playing to the sound you are producing, I played at my mate Shaun's new open mic at The Windsor in South Perth. Shaun provides the sound system, you just plug in. He's got a few speakers on poles directed at the crowd, and a big sub, and a foldback speaker for you, all through a mixer. Which is a pretty standard thing to do from what I've seen. The problem being the foldback was giving a sound hard to play off; I felt that some notes were resonating, the bass wasn't coming through properly, the crowd was loud, etc etc. They told me afterwards it sounded great, I guess it's just something I will have to learn. When I'm playing I'm very much playing off what I hear from the guitar, so if what I'm hearing is not a good indication of what is actually happening then I'm distorting what I'm doing to "fix" it. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense...well picture playing the guitar with 100% block out earmuffs on. Sure I'd be playing the right chords and all that, but I would be losing subtlety. In the engineering game we call that open loop, as compared to adjusting for feedback which is closed loop.
Maybe I should record myself playing closed loop (playing to what I'm hearing) and playing open loop (playing without hearing what you are playing) and see if there is any difference. Ha.
While there, I had an interesting conversation with a professional gigging musician who answered some of my questions with his insights. For example, I said "Good on cafe owners for getting me in to play live music, but I'm not attracting more business, how are they getting value?" He said "When venues ask how many people I'm going to bring to a gig, I say 'zero'. This isn't the 80's anymore, it's not about bringing a crowd with you. But what I do give is a better experience to the people there. I'll turn somebody who might not come back for 6 months into someone who will come back in two weeks. Someone will buy another cup of coffee or a beer or a bottle of wine a listen a bit longer. That's the value I'm offering to the venue."
He waxed philosophically for quite some time further, my brain popped, I should have been taking notes :-)
Speaking of playing to the sound you are producing, I played at my mate Shaun's new open mic at The Windsor in South Perth. Shaun provides the sound system, you just plug in. He's got a few speakers on poles directed at the crowd, and a big sub, and a foldback speaker for you, all through a mixer. Which is a pretty standard thing to do from what I've seen. The problem being the foldback was giving a sound hard to play off; I felt that some notes were resonating, the bass wasn't coming through properly, the crowd was loud, etc etc. They told me afterwards it sounded great, I guess it's just something I will have to learn. When I'm playing I'm very much playing off what I hear from the guitar, so if what I'm hearing is not a good indication of what is actually happening then I'm distorting what I'm doing to "fix" it. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense...well picture playing the guitar with 100% block out earmuffs on. Sure I'd be playing the right chords and all that, but I would be losing subtlety. In the engineering game we call that open loop, as compared to adjusting for feedback which is closed loop.
Maybe I should record myself playing closed loop (playing to what I'm hearing) and playing open loop (playing without hearing what you are playing) and see if there is any difference. Ha.
While there, I had an interesting conversation with a professional gigging musician who answered some of my questions with his insights. For example, I said "Good on cafe owners for getting me in to play live music, but I'm not attracting more business, how are they getting value?" He said "When venues ask how many people I'm going to bring to a gig, I say 'zero'. This isn't the 80's anymore, it's not about bringing a crowd with you. But what I do give is a better experience to the people there. I'll turn somebody who might not come back for 6 months into someone who will come back in two weeks. Someone will buy another cup of coffee or a beer or a bottle of wine a listen a bit longer. That's the value I'm offering to the venue."
He waxed philosophically for quite some time further, my brain popped, I should have been taking notes :-)
Thursday, 26 December 2019
Live stream rig
I've been building up hardware and software so that one day I could live stream to the tens and tens of people out there who would want it! Moreso, it feels like a good skill, and I love to ramble on about all things guitar, even better if someone was live and asking questions! I'm not playing out at the moment so I miss audience interaction.
The gear:
2x Logitech C920 webcam (one is actually a C922, I don't think there is much difference). These are the current (2019) cheapest decent webcams for a live rig the google tells me. A better solution is DSLR cameras piped via HDMI into a capture card, but the cards are quite expensive $500 or so, and I don't know if I'm going to even enjoy live streaming. Put the cameras on tripods and have one capture full frame and one up close for guitar.
My usual Zoom H1n can go into USB live stream mode. All good there.
Lighting - I've got a couple of fill lights but just one with only half the bulbs on lights me up so there aren't distracting shadows. I should have been recording videos when I was young and good looking, those lights just make me look old :-) (I don't feel old. Well, most of the time.)
Computer - my trusty old Dell Latitude E6530. She's dated and clunky, but has 8GB RAM and two dual i7 cores running at 2.9GHz, and enough USB3 ports to deal with the large bandwidth that HD webcams throw at it. I bought it at an online auction 5 years ago and haven't found a requirement to upgrade it yet.
The Software
Musescore. I'm not as fluent in it as I was the original Powertab, and the revised Powertab from a few years back didn't grab me, they changed it too much. Musescore frustrates me somewhat, but the scores it makes are beautiful, and it has _everything_ you could possibly need for scoring. Since I also arrange these days for multiple instruments, which is does really well, Musescore is my go-to.
OBS Project. Apparently the gamers streamers choice, it's freeware and it's really good! You can tell it about your cameras and microphones and the application you are running, and arrange scenes. and hotkey between those scenes. It even let me put a live bandpass filter on my microphone (I dislike prominent mid frequencies, I want a solid bass and high frequencies, it has that "professional" sound).
Windows 7. Yeah, I'm still living in the past, I use Windows 10 and all the variants of Windows Server at work, but you know what, I plug in the webcams and the mic as USB and Windows 7 instantly knew what they were, and it all just worked.
I ended up making 5 OBS Project scenes:
1 - one line of music, a small full frame thumbnail and the close up for the majority of the screen. I can kinda fit all this together so you get to see everything at once.
2 - mostly music and two thumbnails of the webcams. To talk about music.
3 - Small full frame thumbnail and close up filling the screen but no music. For when the music is getting in the way.
4 - just the close up
5 - just the full frame.
I hotkey'd this to 1,2,3,4,5 on the keyboard, so I can quickly click between the scenes. Musescore is running side by side with OBS Project so as I move around that you get to see it too.
The Delivery
So then it is up to me to make a compelling video! Got the tools, can I do anything with it? Ha ha, the more you do it the easier and better it becomes - well that's my thoughts. I am prone to waffle and I forget to mention important things, but being able to speak about a subject on the spot is a good skill to have. I recorded a test, up on youtube already at https://youtu.be/OL7idVlbxVs, let's see what the tens and tens of people who watch it say.
JAW
The gear:
2x Logitech C920 webcam (one is actually a C922, I don't think there is much difference). These are the current (2019) cheapest decent webcams for a live rig the google tells me. A better solution is DSLR cameras piped via HDMI into a capture card, but the cards are quite expensive $500 or so, and I don't know if I'm going to even enjoy live streaming. Put the cameras on tripods and have one capture full frame and one up close for guitar.
My usual Zoom H1n can go into USB live stream mode. All good there.
Lighting - I've got a couple of fill lights but just one with only half the bulbs on lights me up so there aren't distracting shadows. I should have been recording videos when I was young and good looking, those lights just make me look old :-) (I don't feel old. Well, most of the time.)
Computer - my trusty old Dell Latitude E6530. She's dated and clunky, but has 8GB RAM and two dual i7 cores running at 2.9GHz, and enough USB3 ports to deal with the large bandwidth that HD webcams throw at it. I bought it at an online auction 5 years ago and haven't found a requirement to upgrade it yet.
The SoftwareMusescore. I'm not as fluent in it as I was the original Powertab, and the revised Powertab from a few years back didn't grab me, they changed it too much. Musescore frustrates me somewhat, but the scores it makes are beautiful, and it has _everything_ you could possibly need for scoring. Since I also arrange these days for multiple instruments, which is does really well, Musescore is my go-to.
OBS Project. Apparently the gamers streamers choice, it's freeware and it's really good! You can tell it about your cameras and microphones and the application you are running, and arrange scenes. and hotkey between those scenes. It even let me put a live bandpass filter on my microphone (I dislike prominent mid frequencies, I want a solid bass and high frequencies, it has that "professional" sound).
Windows 7. Yeah, I'm still living in the past, I use Windows 10 and all the variants of Windows Server at work, but you know what, I plug in the webcams and the mic as USB and Windows 7 instantly knew what they were, and it all just worked.
I ended up making 5 OBS Project scenes:
1 - one line of music, a small full frame thumbnail and the close up for the majority of the screen. I can kinda fit all this together so you get to see everything at once.
2 - mostly music and two thumbnails of the webcams. To talk about music.
3 - Small full frame thumbnail and close up filling the screen but no music. For when the music is getting in the way.
4 - just the close up
5 - just the full frame.
I hotkey'd this to 1,2,3,4,5 on the keyboard, so I can quickly click between the scenes. Musescore is running side by side with OBS Project so as I move around that you get to see it too.
The DeliverySo then it is up to me to make a compelling video! Got the tools, can I do anything with it? Ha ha, the more you do it the easier and better it becomes - well that's my thoughts. I am prone to waffle and I forget to mention important things, but being able to speak about a subject on the spot is a good skill to have. I recorded a test, up on youtube already at https://youtu.be/OL7idVlbxVs, let's see what the tens and tens of people who watch it say.
JAW
Sunday, 17 November 2013
Youtube stats 2013
Ah YouTube, what a great platform. It has greatly helped my guitar enthusiasm and performance. Without it, I would probably still be like I was during my twenties - maybe play a few hours a month, when I could be bothered. If you aren't playing regularly for a reason - that is, for an audience, could be a gig, church, guitar teacher, something that forces you to play and practise regularly - then YouTube can fill that space.
I first posted a video on YouTube as part of a discussion on a forum about fingerstyle guitar. A guy inspired me to record a video. But how was I going to send a video - too big for email, too tedious with ftp! He said "Use that new YouTube thing". I'd never heard of it, it had only been around for nearly a year when I created an account.
It wasn't until Sept 2007 that they started recording proper statistics. I do love a good statistic. Here is a simplified lifetime statistic for my Jawmunji channel:
The graph shows number of views per month, each dot is a month. May 2010 was the all time high just short of 200,000 views in that month. All time highest day ever, 7,344.
But the graph shows a rise and fall. Currently I'm down to half of the views from where I started; and at 10% of my peak, and it looks like it is continuing to fall. Why? I have a few ideas:
I first posted a video on YouTube as part of a discussion on a forum about fingerstyle guitar. A guy inspired me to record a video. But how was I going to send a video - too big for email, too tedious with ftp! He said "Use that new YouTube thing". I'd never heard of it, it had only been around for nearly a year when I created an account.
It wasn't until Sept 2007 that they started recording proper statistics. I do love a good statistic. Here is a simplified lifetime statistic for my Jawmunji channel:
But the graph shows a rise and fall. Currently I'm down to half of the views from where I started; and at 10% of my peak, and it looks like it is continuing to fall. Why? I have a few ideas:
- In the early days, there weren't many fingerstyle guitarists on YouTube. Now every second fingerstyle guitarist has videos on YouTube, so the viewers have a lot more videos to choose from. Supply and demand.
- You can see that more than a third of my views come from "Canon in D", so that one pretty much dictates my channel performance. Over the years, YouTube has featured that video, which drew far more views. None of my videos get featured anymore, see point 1.
- Most of my views come from YouTube/Google searches, so as each time they update search algorithms, it can cause a lot more views, or a lot less.
- I don't post as much now as did originally. YouTube "rewards" frequent posters, "engagement" is what's in, "social networking" is everything and that drives search results.
- YouTube is changing. It's more like watching a TV station than watching random videos. Since people can now upload videos as long as they like, it means that the total amount of time spent by people watching is no longer 20 x 2 minute videos, it is 2 x 20 minute videos. Less clicks, less "channel surfing". This change will be to increase income through advertising. YouTube/Google model people's behaviour, and tailor YouTube to drive (and reward) what works best for them. After all, YouTube is a business, that Google paid a lot for.
- YouTube isn't all there is. There are plenty of other places to find video. YouTube is the biggest (at 82% of the market Google tells me), so this probably isn't a major factor.
Getting views was never a big driver for me; I have watched it increase and decrease over the years with fascination, but the reality is that the conversations I have with just a few people are far more valuable to me than thousands of silent views. I did "monetise" my videos a while back, and I kind of regret it now. For the $20 a month I get, it's not worth making people watch advertising to see it. Too late now, I can't go back.
It's been an interesting project, and one that I will continue. I've got several songs I'm planning to record soon, watch this space.
I'm not exactly sure why I wrote article, perhaps it's just my love for statistics, and analysis of them :) But if you had ever wondered how my Jawmunji YouTube stats went over the years, now you know!
JAW
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
What's happening October 2015
This month I created an opportunity to sit down and record some songs. Okay, I did it twice. The first time was outside and I was so displeased with the recordings that I ditched them. The video was just awful. The second time, inside, was tolerable. My lighting still sucks. I generally turn on all the lights in the room, and put a lamp facing me. The videos end up full of excessive highlights and shadows, and the not-enough-light makes the camera recording noisy. I tweaked the balance later in software, but you need a good video source to start with, you can't make a silk purse from a pig's ear!
So, I played three songs, recorded the video with a Canon EOS-M and the audio with a Zoom H1. Around 3-4 play throughs on each song. Post processing the video consists of choosing the best play through and putting on a watermark, tweaking brightness and re-encoding. I then take the audio from the winning take, and if there are any really horrible mistakes I will punch them out with audio from one of my other takes. I have to do this, because I don't feel like you, as the audience, are receiving what I'm trying to give you if there are obvious horrible mistakes in there. I'm happy to live with small (but noticeable) mistakes, hey I'm only human - perfectionism is a life destroyer.
I only ever run a graphic equaliser across the audio, usually boosting the high and low frequencies and scooping out the mids. Any reverb you hear is actually from the room, but there is very little reverb. The room has a big woolly mat on the floor, and three cloth loungechairs I'm playing into which soak up the sound nicely stopping it from turning to mush. The room is quite long anyway, so reflections straight back are minimal. The then synchronise the resulting audio and video by eye "that looks about right" in virtualdub and job done!
Rather than dump all three videos on youtube at once, I uploaded them all as private, and over a week (whilst organising the tabs) switched them to public. There is only so much JAW anyone can take at once.
So all good, but I'm going to buy some lighting equipment. I've read up about "three point lighting" and what I need to do; I've seen you can buy some pretty reasonable lights from ebay for a reasonable price. I'll let you know how I go!
JAW
So, I played three songs, recorded the video with a Canon EOS-M and the audio with a Zoom H1. Around 3-4 play throughs on each song. Post processing the video consists of choosing the best play through and putting on a watermark, tweaking brightness and re-encoding. I then take the audio from the winning take, and if there are any really horrible mistakes I will punch them out with audio from one of my other takes. I have to do this, because I don't feel like you, as the audience, are receiving what I'm trying to give you if there are obvious horrible mistakes in there. I'm happy to live with small (but noticeable) mistakes, hey I'm only human - perfectionism is a life destroyer.
I only ever run a graphic equaliser across the audio, usually boosting the high and low frequencies and scooping out the mids. Any reverb you hear is actually from the room, but there is very little reverb. The room has a big woolly mat on the floor, and three cloth loungechairs I'm playing into which soak up the sound nicely stopping it from turning to mush. The room is quite long anyway, so reflections straight back are minimal. The then synchronise the resulting audio and video by eye "that looks about right" in virtualdub and job done!
Rather than dump all three videos on youtube at once, I uploaded them all as private, and over a week (whilst organising the tabs) switched them to public. There is only so much JAW anyone can take at once.
So all good, but I'm going to buy some lighting equipment. I've read up about "three point lighting" and what I need to do; I've seen you can buy some pretty reasonable lights from ebay for a reasonable price. I'll let you know how I go!
JAW
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