Wim VD1

For this month I chose another song from the L&M Fingerstyle course. This one is from session 6 and it is one of my favorite tunes from the course. Steve has put several techniques in his arrangement: hammer-ons and pull-offs, harmonics, slides, 6ths,10ths, octaves and pedal notes. To make it even more fun, the tuning is drop D. This is the first song I recorded using my new Focusrite Scarlett Studio Bundle and Reaper as my DAW. Wim.

Hi Mandy, you made your rendition a little special indeed. Wow, you can multitask! I was already impressed by how you could combine singing and playing, and now you add some nice percussion as well 👍. As always, I enjoyed your song. Thanks for sharing, Wim.

Neil, now this is exactly what I was hoping for! When Mandy asked if I would come up with a theme for this month, I wanted to choose a challenge that would suit a jazz tune (hoping you would have one ready), but also the fingerstyle song I am currently working on. And it worked out well 😁. Your rendition is very enjoyable and well played with good timing. Thanks for sharing, Wim.

Randy, In my opinion you don't need to master sight reading to the extend that you can sight read and play simultaneously at performance tempo. This for sure has its benefits, but I don't see it as a necessity. Tab only tells you where to put your fingers. There is more to learning and understanding music however. So I would encourage you to learn music notation well enough in order to know what notes to play, their duration, the rhythmic characteristics of a song, the pauses, etc. You can use the info provided by the sheet music in combination with the additional info from the tab (where on the fretboard to play the note) to decipher and learn a song bit by bit. After "decoding" a song, I learn the all parts by heart anyhow. In a performance (or recording) setting, I want to focus on putting emotion and feeling into my music and not on reading the notation. I do recommend to build a good knowledge of music theory as provided by the course. Understanding how music works with keys, scales, chords, harmony etc. is part of the fun and will be essential to continue to make progress as a musician in the long run. Wim.

This is an old thread containing a lot of interesting info relevant to me just now. Over the past months, I got frustrated with the poor sound quality of my acoustic guitar recordings using the iRig Acoustic clip-on microphone and interface into Garageband. I never really got it to sound natural. So I decided to join @Nutty 1 and @NeilES335 and ordered a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Studio bundle (and a Gravity microphone stand) just yesterday. The shipment should arrive later this week. The Scarlett should work with my iPad and Garageband using the Apple Lightning to USB Adapter that I ordered as well. I do consider changing platform and the use of a Windows laptop instead of iPad. Learning from Neil's adventures, I will try out the Reaper DAW and stay away from Pro Tools for now. Hopefully there will still be some time left to practice guitar when I start digging deeper into the world of DAW 😏 Wim.

Fantastic, Greg. Another very well elaborated recording from your side! I know the song, but it's been a long time since I heard it on the radio. It's great that you do all those parts and the singing yourself. That must have been many hours of fun. And the result is beautiful. Do you let your children listen to your recordings? Thanks for sharing, Wim.

Well done, Mandy. You could play the song in the key of D and play the D5 and A5 power chords in the open position. The other 2 chords are Bm and G then. This is the link to the song lesson on Justinguitar. The muting is also explained there. https://youtu.be/owPLZdGkNFs Let there be rock 😎. Wim.

Great advice. I couldn't agree more, Neil. Wim.

I surely enjoyed it, Neil, and listened to it several times. It's a great tune and you did an excellent job on both chords and melody. Wim.

Thanks Greg. There are so many nice guitar genres to learn. The guitar is a PRS S2 Standard indeed. It's a very versatile instrument. Wim.

Thanks, my friend. I will start practicing the duck walk as well. Wim.

It was hard to find a fingerstyle song with powerchords, so I had to pick up my electric 🎸again after playing only acoustic for the past 6 months 😎. The challenge of this month gave me a good reason to finalize a little project of last year. Back then, I learned and recorded a solo "in the style of" Angus Young when doing the Classic Rock Guitar Unleashed course. Now was the right time to work out the intro and the rhythm part. I recorded in stereo, so it sounds better using headphones or monitors. I got the album Back In Black when I was 12 years old and have always loved the bluesy rock of AC/DC. Thanks for listening. Wim.

The prize 🏅is instant fame 🎸👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 😉. So Neil, I hope it will be a theme that fits your song! Wim.

Thanks for sharing this, Amy. You played it well. I forgot about this intro to lesson 10 but now I feel like revisiting it 😀. Wim.

That's a nice original, @rockinrickard. Both your playing and singing are great. Wim.

Hey Greg, it makes me happy to listen to your recording 😀. Great rendition. A lot of work must have gone into creating all the parts. I must say you have a good taste in music. I love Cheryl Crow and especially this song. Wim.

Working from home, I save lots of commuting time. I have been working intensively on the classical guitar session 5 from the fingerstyle course and could finalize it in 2 months where I thought I would need at least 3. More practice time is one of the few benefits of this whole lockdown situation. Wim.

It's time to move on again! Session 5 offered a nice introduction to the world of classical guitar and I enjoyed learning some great songs from F. Tarrega, J. Pachelbel and especially J.S Bach, on a borrowed nylon string. To finalize this session, I recorded "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". Reading a bit about him, I learned that Bach is the master of counterpoint which is a setting of different melodic lines (or voices) against each other. Also in this song, there are 2 voices played together, the melody and the bass lines. This makes the song interesting, but also challenging. https://soundcloud.com/wim-van-damme-401299565/joy Thanks for listening, Wim.

@NeilES335, You did a great job on the comping and the melody, Neil! The tone you get out of your ES-137 is very sweet. It's a beautiful song full of melancholy. Wim.

Nice playing. Did you create all parts or did you play it over a backing track? Wim.

Hey Mandy, That's a sad song. Singing and playing at the same time, I envy you for that 🎤🎸. Well done, Wim.

Ron, My recording setup is very basic using Garageband on my iPad and a clip on microphone. I do plan to upgrade the microphone to a Shure, because I am not satisfied with the current clip on one. Wim.

Thanks, @matonanjin, @Dave White, @Simira, @K9kaos, @NeilES335 and @Eracer_Team-DougH! @K9kaos, I did not really master Canon in D after finishing Session 10 of the main course and realized that Session 10 was just a first introduction to fingerstyle. I decided to "drop the pick" in December last year and have played only fingerstyle in the past 6 months. Steve's fingerstyle course is great and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn this style. @NeilES335, I agree on the string noise. I borrowed a not-so-good nylon string for this Session on classical guitar and recorded Canon in D with it. So the string noise is coming from the 3 wound strings. It's due to my very dry hands and calluses, playing technique, and the clip on microphone. Avoiding string noise remains a real challenge to me. The tempo should be fine. I played it at the suggested 105 bpm. @Eracer_Team-DougH, I appreciate your comments, there is no reason to doubt that. You are the one playing guitar for a big audience in church and I have nothing but respect for that 👍. Wim.

I remember well how I struggled with Canon in D when I was in Session 10 of the main LMG course some years ago. Now I came across the same song in Session 5 of the fingerstyle course and finally enjoyed relearning and recording it. https://soundcloud.com/wim-van-damme-401299565/canon-in-d Wim.

@Ron Service I surely enjoyed your playing. It's perfect! I also love your rendition of Misty that I found on your YouTube channel. That ES-150 is a stunning guitar with great tone. Wim.