Triple-o

Recession Blues, I like these songs where you sing without playing and play without singing. https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0039670

This morning I started singing “I know, I am just crazy, but isn’t love often crazy. Then I tried using intervals and single notes from the key of C to see what would be easy to play and sound those words. It wasn’t to difficult. I was only thinking about intervals and I was surprised when I looked at what I was playing how it all fit into the Am pentatonic patterns, So, that tells me I haven’t “pay my dues” as far as the scales go. I also think that I might not need to play someone else’s lick, but maybe a few measures might be useful to get me started. Then as I start building I could eliminate the beginning and replace it with my own. I know the song is 32 bars long and in the AABA form. I guess I also need to learn about that song form and some song building blocks to see where a solo would go.A crash course in song writing seems to be what I need.

It must be nice to have a three friends over to help you practice songs like this. Will things ever be normal again? .https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0067191

https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0113900

https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0098959

I am changing the way I approach soloing. Instead of looking at scales and chords for direction I am looking at the melody and feeling in the song. For example, this morning I was working on a solo for the song “Crazy” by W Nelson. I came to the conclusion that if I take the basic song melody and try to “sing the song with the guitar” with the use of bends, slides etc. it sounds more like an extension of the song.I even tried making up additional lyrics. so it wouldn’t just be a repeating the song.I found that I have a better sounding base for a song solo.Keep in mind I am still using the C scale diatonic chord tones except Am and I am using a dominant A7 C7 just like the song hits version.I am just not letting them “pull the strings” only as a framework to get around. Playing licks never made sense to me. They are just melodic lines that have no meaning.Just numbers in a tab.It would be like taking David Gilmour’s solo in Comfortably Numb and playing it as a solo to Autumn Leaves. It would still sound really good, but what does it have in common with Autumn Leaves. Well, that may be a stretch, but you get the picture. Anyway its a work in progress and I’ll see where it takes me. By the way it was Gilmour’s solo that made me look beyond the standard licks, because when I hear him play, I hear the song, even though it’s in another language.

Better grab that rum and coke. Here’s an arrangement of “If I Fell” by the Beatles, that will have you scratching your head. Because the way they indicate “capo Clll“ or 1/2 CV for example I think it is written for “nylon”. At least that’s how I am “trying”to play it. The letter C probably stands for capo, short for capodastro (Italian)or cejilla (Spanish). I think barre is a French term. PS the horizontal line means hold the barre for the following notes. https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0105793

You might know this Mason Willians song by its shorter name “Classical Gas” https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0211533

I have “The Real Blues Book” I don’t know if it’s about the same as the “FakeBook”. It has about 400 songs that are notated very simply. They don’t give much direction in the way of articulations.They seem to be something written out on a napkin that needs more work. What I started do is look at a song I like, then google sheetmusic to see how some professionals have arranged it. Take, for example “Before You Accuse Me” I found the basic song Re-arranged by Bo Diddley, and another by Eric Clapton. That way you can “tweak” the fake book or real book without getting too complicated.

Thanks I had some problems, but I inserted a link for the music.

You guessed it, a line from “Still Got The Blues” by Gary Moore. The 2nd video is pretty interesting, because it also shows what you can do with the first three patterns of Am pentatonic. Following the slide to E in the 2nd pattern play the notes GACD, bend the D back then back to the G and A then slide into pattern 3 C and you can take it from there. https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0069798

My favorite ice cream flavor, Yum, Yum, Now for the commercial, "Elem Blues" by the Grateful Dead, it seem to fit nicely into the beginning of the blues course.

ThIs Is the version Dylan based his version on before The Animals used arpeggios.

Torrefaction, well that sounds a little better. Don’t panic, it’s probably not a bad thing. It’s away to make your guitar sound better today and not make you wait around 400 years, for the wood to age. Torrefaction is a process to remove pitch, sugars, oils etc. from the guitar wood. Kind of like making coke, no not the white stuff, the kind steel mills used to use. Maybe they can reopen all those “Coke Ovens” near our steel mills for torrefaction. So, what do guitars makers call this process. These are the terms they use; Collins guitar say their guitar tops are “baked”, well that’s pretty close, Taylor guitars are “specially aged” sounds like they’re making whiskey and Gibson boast “super sturdy” and Martin guitars say it’s a “vintage tone system”. Vintage tone system, I like that one. Now you know, see it wasn’t so “torrefing”. Is that really a word?

Pahrump, now there’s a town waiting for a song. Not many places can boast of buried treasure, (6 million in silver, if I remember correctly ) murder and a book with connections to Dylan’s song Positively 4th St. The only thing missing, it’s not on ET highway.

You probably recognized that line from “The Sound Of Silence “ by Paul Simon. So, if you are a struggling song writer you might want to do what Paul Simon did, go into the bathroom, turn the lights off, so it’s just you in the darkness, where it’s nice and quite, no telling what you might touch. Who knows, it might also help you concentrate. It apparently helped him. Anyway the song is in the key of F#, but that could be a little misleading, because it’s sounding in the in the key of D# minor. I guess Paul didn’t want to play D#m, C#, F# and D#sus2 chords or maybe it had to do with his or Art Garfunkel’s voices. So, he transposed those chords to A minor chords and then to get those D# Minor sounding chords, placed his capo on the 6th fret. You might take a look, doesn’t seem to difficult of a song.Here is another version without capo https://www.sixstringfingerpicking.com/thesoundofsilence/

Joey Ryan and ken Pattengale, Can’t say that I ever heard of these two or of the “Milk Carton kids”. Their song “Hope of a Lifetime” looks pretty easy, only one barre chord F, but since you are playing with a capo it’s not bad. I read that it was a Campfire Classic,“Seems to have Forgotten Me” The other chords are Dm,G,C and Am. I’ve looked at 2. versions one has the capo at the 3rd fret the other at the 8th.wasn’t so sure I could play with a capo at the 8th fret. Since, I don’t have a partner, they recommend Ryan’s guitar part. Musicnotes.Com if you’re interested.or the Jan. 2015 issue of Acoustic Magazine.

Boy, this could get confusing, the high E is also tuned to D.

The sheet music for this song is below. It says guitar/piano /vocal. Is the guitar part only the chords above measures? The tied measures are both piano parts? The vocal is the melody notes, and of course the verse in top measures. https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0108489

She’s wearing rags and feathers from the Salvation Army counters. Another one of my favorites and if you’re in session two you might add this song to the session.Just in case I didn’t give you enough hints it’s Suzanne by Leonard Cohen

“Dogs and Sailors keep off the grass”. Well, they probably removed all those signs, if they had any, since the naval base closed. The song,”Sailing to Philadelphia” by Mark Knopfler. This song really looked interesting, but Mr Knopfler’s choice of chords, F#m11, and not the way Steve taught it and E add 9 soon dampened my enthusiasm . Maybe, the only thing that I will walk away with from this song is how to spell Philadelphia.

“Wonderful Tonight”, another song you can work on fairly early. Again “Musicnotes” for the sheet music and you might google “six string fingerpicking” Wonderful Tonight YouTube video to help.

Until I picked up the guitar I had totally under estimated the members of the Beatles Band. When I set down a little while ago to learn the song “ Here comes the Sun” by George Harrison. I was blown away. After I played the intro I was lost for words. I thought to myself how did they do it.I would love to have just a fraction of their talent. I heard that when George Harrison met John Lennon for the first time, Lennon had a guitar with only 4 strings and he didn’t know it was supposed to have 6. Stories like the time they drove across town to meet a guy who knew a B7 chord. The Dictionary’s got it wrong when they defined the word talent, they wasted about 40 words, they could have managed with just two. The Beatles. Great song, capo at the 4 fret. A song you can start working on pretty early in your fingerstyle journey. You can find the song tab at musicnotes.com

Pink Floyd’s 1973 album “The Dark Side of the Moon” had on its far side a song called “Money” The Ka- Ching helped make the song interesting along with its odd meter. The first part of the song is in 7/4 and it changes to 4/4 just before the solo.I think that 7/4 is usually played as a measure of 3/4 plus a measure of 4/4. This song screwed kids up for 30 years as far as astronomy goes. I guess in the scheme of things it didn’t’ matter, because the history books of the time weren’t much better. Not so sure things have improved. I was surprised to hear the other day that half of Americans believe astrology is a science.

“ We used to drive In a yellow camino listening to howling wolf, he liked to stop in Lake Charles”. I am here in the Southwest heat, but at least I am dry with a roof over my head. I should really stop complaining. My heart goes out to those in Lake Charles and all the folks that were in the path of “Laura”.