maninashed
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Post by maninashed on Oct 15, 2013 10:19:26 GMT
I was searching for TAB for 'Just as the Tide was Flowing' and found this link The tab is for the melody only and it occurred to me that it might make the basis for my own fingerstyle instrumental arrangement. Just one problem, I've never arranged anything before and don't really know where to begin. I can play easy to moderate fingerstyle arrangements and I can read TAB but not music and I know about basic techniques - alternating bass, picking patterns - that sort of thing, however my knowledge of music theory is pretty sketchy (but this might be good way to learn more). The Tab is in standard tuning. So, can it be done? Would this make the basis for an arrangement, or even different arrangements in different styles? And where to start? I'd be grateful for any help you can offer and I'd welcome different ideas. Thanks!
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davewhite
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Post by davewhite on Oct 15, 2013 11:18:43 GMT
Decide what tuning you want to use and then what key and then learn the melody by heart and explore where you can find it in different registers and using different strings and positions up the fretboard. When you have the melody add other notes that work for you to support the melody where necessary - don't feel you have to do it for every note of the melody.
Most importantly have fun.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 15, 2013 11:42:25 GMT
In standard tuning I tend to start with a melody, usually though not exclusively, on the top three strings, add a nice simple bassline and then fill in the middle with whatever is available that sounds good and is easily fingerable! This approach helps avoid picking pattern and chord cliches and can give anything from a stark and sparse arrangement up to something much more complex.
The tune you link to should work out OK - it's in the key of G, so lots of nice easy bass notes available to you. You might try the approach I mention above, or you could try different ways of chording the tune and evolve your arrangement from that. It might go as a flatpicked/chord strum thing looked at like that, or as a more fingerstyle thing too.
If nothing seems to be happening for you, try transposing it into a different key so that eg the tune begins on the open third string (then in key of C) or second fret third string (key of D, maybe better still - you could drop 6th string to D then for some nice rich root notes).
If you don't know how to transpose the tune - in my example above, I suggested starting on eg. 2nd fret 3rd string to move the tune into key of D. This suggested note is 7 frets higher than the one in the printed version, so just move everything that follows it another 7 frets up and there you are - this puts most of the notes onto the next higher string and places the tune a bit more accessibly for fingerstyle I reckon.
Most trad tunes appear in lots of variants, so don't feel you have to stick rigidly to the timing, twiddly bits and even melody as printed in your link. Have trawl through Youtube where you'll find lots of different approaches to this tune - might give you a feel for the tempo and style you want your arrangement to have.
You MUST have the tune absolutely straight in your head (from repeated listenings to a recording - the midi file on the linked page would do fine) so you can hum it unaccompanied before you begin play it.
Hope that's helpful!
Keith
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maninashed
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Post by maninashed on Oct 15, 2013 17:32:14 GMT
Excellent! Thanks for your suggestions. They both cover similar areas, so, I understand the place to start is to settle on tuning and a key then get the melody down pat before adding bass notes then other notes to support the melody or 'filling in the middle'. I must admit it's the latter that confuses me. I'm OK with the melody and transposing it, I loved Drop D, so that sounds good, and adding simple bass notes but where to go next is a mystery. However, the other thing I get from your replies is do 'what sounds good', I was expecting something much more technical! Oh, and 'have fun'. I like the sound of that, so I can't wait to start experimenting and see what I can come up with. Maybe it will get into the Plucky Duck sometime.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 15, 2013 17:51:27 GMT
Technical? Not from me anyway - I'm entirely self taught on a suck-it-and see basis. Over the years I've "discovered" the theory behind a lot of things, but it tends to get in the way if I think about that first, so I prefer to let instinct and experimentation (plus, I suppose, practical hard-won experience) take over!
Just making a start is the hardest part! Yes, you'll make mistakes (and I certainly do that a lot), but that's nothing to be afraid of - over time the mistakes will lead you towards something you like better.
Quite often you won't need a lot more than a melody and bass line. But, once you have a bass line, it may well imply to you a particular chord based harmony that then gives you something in the middle - not compulsory though. Often simple is good.
Enjoy messing about, let us know if you get totally bogged down, and if you fancy recording and posting a "work in progress" or even a finished product that would be great!
Good luck!
Keith
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Post by scripsit on Oct 16, 2013 1:26:20 GMT
Very useful stuff, Keith and Dave, for someone like me that flounders at turning a tune into a piece.
Do you both use a similar process for writing an original piece? By that I mean, is there usually a tune that comes first, and then you find how to place it? Or do you sometimes have a fragment on the fretboard that can mysteriously be expanded into a complete song?
I noodle sometimes and come across some brief interesting passages, but can't get any further than that. In electric band days that was usually enough: coming up with the killer zeppelin/purple riff, or whoever we wanted to sound like at that stage, and then cycling it through blues chord or other standard changes, inventing a bridge pattern and so forth, but with the emphasis on what the band bits were. It was always the singer's job to compile the actual tune and then we went from there to produce a (usually hackneyed) song with all the parts.
If I get a fingerstyle bit in (say) DADGAD that sounds promising and is apparently something to do with a D chord, do I then start experimenting with transitions to G, Bm and so on, or would you recommend trying to develop the tune that is coming out of the first bit and then worry about what the chords are underlying it? I understand there is not going to be any single way of doing it, but I'd be interested in hearing from the people on the forum who do write their own stuff.
For instance Keith, in your tune 'Orsino' you begin with a very seductive intro passage built around an F chord (the D shape shoved up the neck). I'm quite happy fiddling around with the intro for ages because it's a lovely progression. Was this the beginning of the entire tune, or did you come up with the intro to fit the verse later?
Kym
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 16, 2013 8:43:29 GMT
Kym, sometimes (and possibly most usually) I have a tune in my head first, and eventually it finds where it wants to be on the guitar, and sometimes I come across a fragment on the fretboard that sparks something off.
I also tend to have a collection of "bits" in my head that are waiting to be developed - maybe I've tried a few times and given up with them, but hung onto them in case they come in handy at some point later. Sometimes a couple of them will somehow fit together to make almost a piece.
Sometimes the basis of a piece will come together in just a few minutes, sometimes it might take hours, days, weeks or even years - I try not to force things (which is another way of saying that if at first I don't succeed I give up - at least for a while!) and tend to somehow know when something seems to be working and is worth sticking at, and when it is better to leave it for now. I'm sure I forget lots of my fragments i mean to return to, but I hope that's a kind of filter system to weed out some of the dross!
I tend to like things that are basically simple, though sometime make a conscious effort to put something unexpected in - with varying degrees of success. With "Orsino" the beginning of the intro (in key of C)was something I'd had knocking around for ages and going nowhere, the second half of the intro I'd also had for ages, though separately and is a bit of a keychange cliche from C to key of G that I'd stumbled on and (over)use when joining together worship songs in different keys. The rest of the tune was again two separate entities for a long time until the inspiration of having Andy's Orsino on loan somehow put them together and a bit of fiddling about with timing/phrasing for variation finished it off.
Once a piece is underway I usually have an idea of the structure I'm aiming for - usually corny things that work, like AABB for trad type tunes or AABABA as in countless popsongs, ABABCAB etc plus or minus the odd variation.
Melody is king though - I don't tend to think of chord progressions and evolve melodies out of them, I usually have the melodic idea and then decide how to harmonise it, beginning with a hopefully interesting bassline. The latter sometimes suggests particular chords that I may use to fill out the middle, or I might just try grabbing what's available easily - open strings or easily reached fretted notes. There's also a lot more scope than many people like to admit for using runs across the strings, often thought to be solely the preserve of altered tunings - it's not always as accessible in standard, but I like to look for opportunities wherever possible. Sometimes playing a portion higher up the neck than is absolutely necessary opens up other possibilites too.
Most of my "completed" stuff tends to evolve a little with playing, so I tend not to record them right away, but live with them for a while. I don't write anything down for tunes in standard tuning but rely on (increasingly failing) memory and a recording to remind me of the piece. The exception to that is with DADGAD tunes - the few I have done I tend to scribble TAB for as the bits come, as my memory for things in this tuning is zero!
All sounds a bit random I know, but someone once said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. (or something like that!) Hope there might be something there of interest though!
All the best with whatever compositions you have on the go at present Kym!
Keith
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davewhite
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Post by davewhite on Oct 16, 2013 11:14:14 GMT
Kym, Pretty much what Keith said. A lot of it is musical "osmosis" - you accumulate riffs, chord and melodic sequences and ideas from listening to music, playing other people's arrangements and from guitar workshops/courses and they "pop out" from time to time. With my own pieces it can be a mixture of chordal runs/riffs that I develop into melodies or melodies that then become "chordal" but the melody/tune is the king and you need to have it established even when you are just hinting at it with chordal progressions. A lot of my pieces seem to "emerge" from new instruments I've made but I thing they are just helping the music "emerge" from me Unlike Keith I tend to go from idea to finished piece pretty quickly - usually the same day or within a few days. I always say I'll go back to them but I very rarely do although some get a few tweaks occasionally. As an example "An Féa Caol" that I just posted at the Plucky Duck was put together while "noodling" watching the build up and game of England v Poland. In the afternoon I remembered playing the guitar Capoed at 2 and liking it so just went a bit higher to Capo 5 and liked it a lot more. Then I was playing minor modal tunes like Mark Thomson's arrangement of "Roslin Castle" and liked that a lot too so noodled around those D minor (or Bb minor in this case) ideas and out it came. It's probably a mishmash of things like "The Seven Gypsies" and "Rise up My Love" but with a slightly different flavour. It came out with an A and B part and bridge and it was then just messing around to see how to mix them up and then record it on the Zoom H4n before I forgot it all again. I do find the Zoom handy as a "notebook" to record riffs and ideas to come back to later. Only twice have I deliberately sat down to write a tune from scratch with no "noodly" bits to start with and they were both Waltz tunes I'm really proud of - "Arthur's Waltz" for my dad and "The Lorne Sausage Waltz" for a fried Scottish breakfast If you have the "riff" experience you are doing fine - just pretend to be the singer now for a bit
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Post by scripsit on Oct 16, 2013 12:52:04 GMT
Gentlemen, thanks very much for the practical advice. I'll take these suggestions on board for the next time a nice twiddly bit rears its head.
Although, something else to incorporate in addition to managing the Bensusan type of more-than-four-fret stretches, #@%# celtic triplets, artificial harmonics ...
Can take up a lot of time and effort, this particular interest. Good thing it's mostly good fun.
Kym
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