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Post by PistolPete on Nov 8, 2023 10:12:07 GMT
I've been working on a few soul numbers for my covers set recently & I find that just playing the guitar part never sounds like the 'song' as often the recognisable hooks are played on bass/keys/horns. I quite enjoy the intellectual challenge of working out what the most important aspects of a song are, and the technical challenge of playing as many of them on guitar at the same time.
I wondered if anyone has any tips on how they approach playing things on the guitar that aren't really meant for it?
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Nov 8, 2023 10:39:15 GMT
I like making solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements of all sorts of things, especially older songs from the around the 1930s, but also anything that has an interesting tune plus the occasional "interesting" chord change can make a good basis - obviously the melody is the most imprtant bit. So loads of more recent songs can work well - Beatles songs often work well solo fingerstyle.
If it's eg an old song like A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square or If you love me, really love me, I'll listen repeatedly to as many versions of it as i can find until the structure, melody and underlying harmony are fixed in my mind - often nicking bits from different versions.
Then I tend to work out the basic chords in what seems like an accessible key for playing, then see where the melody sits - obviously easiest if it comes on strings 1,2,3. if it doesn't then I'll change the key to one where the melody does sit on the top strings well. Excursions higher up the fret board can work if there are suitable accessible bass notes. So I then try to find a decent bassline - often v simple at first, but can be made more interesting as the arrangement progresses. I try to have chord fingerings, or at least partial ones fretted beneath the melody, so while the the tune sits on top, and the bass at the bottom, there are usually some easily accessible notes in between melody and bass to fill out the arrangement with harmony and stuff. Some tunes work really well with notes of the chord with fingers taken on or off to access the melody and to make a more interesting bassline than just root/fifth. Other tunes may need more non-chord fingerings to suggest the subtleties of mor complex harmonies - I tend to mess around till I find something within easy reach that flows.
If there's a key change in the piece that can complicate things as both keys need to be playable - but it really does make for an interesting exercise!
I think the real answer is that I don't really know how to explain what I do, but there are loads of examples on my Youtube channel of the end results.
Sorry, this is probably not much help - and I bet you can do it pretty well already, Pete!
Keith
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Post by martinrowe on Nov 8, 2023 11:46:43 GMT
I don't know if this helps Pete but I'll throw this in to the pot. There's a programme on Radio 4 on Friday Nights at 7.15 hosted by Cerys Matthews and one other? and a couple of different musician guests each week. Someone picks a tune and then the next person chooses another which has been influenced by the previous track. People make all sorts of musical connections and the 5 tunes can e.g. be a Beatles song, followed by something by Chopin, followed by a Bulgarian folk song. The links are all musical i.e. 'those three notes at the beginning of that Motown track are the same ones used by Mozart in this Symphony' or 'that rhythm in that work song is the same one used in this old English Folk Song. etc, etc. I find it fascinating. Last week ended with this track and the closing comment was 'if you want to study arranging then have a go at analysing this, it has contrary motion, two lead singers amongst a lot of other things'. Apparently it was changed from four four to three four to spice it up a bit. It surprised me. Kite
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