leoroberts
C.O.G.
Posts: 24,567
My main instrument is: probably needing new strings
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Post by leoroberts on Oct 3, 2014 7:15:52 GMT
think it was extensive practice of that competition entry that caused that. You practiced? Tantamount to cheating, if you ask me...
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brianr2
C.O.G.
Posts: 3,058
My main instrument is: Brook Lyn guitar
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Post by brianr2 on Oct 3, 2014 7:38:04 GMT
vikingblues, I agree about the complexity of the "ports". I find them especially fascinating for the reasons you mention: their subtlety and uniqueness. It took me ages to get anything half decent but it remains a bit hit and miss and I am still working on them. It does help to listen to his playing but the apparent ease and fluidity can be a bit dispiriting! I also agree about the stretches. There is a particularly evil one for me in "If Thou Were Myn Own Thing"`: 6th fret on 1, 2nd (barre) on 6 , while covering 4 on 1. I adore this tune but this love truly hurts with my stubby fingers and creaking joints. I fear that many arrangers take stretches for granted that some of us struggle with and thus don't look for alternatives. Brian
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 3, 2014 12:42:03 GMT
this is a problem with Tabs. I have Rob's book which I bought really for the 40 tunes. There are one of two that I want to learn but I shall probably try and arrange for myself with the odd glance at the tab.
Some stretches can be difficult but you will always find a work-around. For years I played a Simpson arrangement in Dropped D. I had a nasty fall on my left arm and had a few months off playing. While there is nothing wrong with this arm now I just cannot make that stretch anymore! I suspect it is just a practice thing but I haven't the patience, time or inclination to deal with it.
This is one of my favourite tunes.I solved the problem by transposing it to DADGAD and giving myself a much easier run around. C sus 4 sus 9 is very similar to DADGAD (the bottom four strings have common intervals). However, this tuning is more compact and doesn't involve the stretch. I find it very easy to transpose from DADGAD to this tuning.
At the end of the day you just want something to sound nice. I often find I get a better result if I simplify an arrangement a little. I've given up worrying about complexity!
Back to Rob's book I am interested in his sections on Open G and Open D two tunings I use sparingly and feel are a bit boring! I shall have to explore a little more.
Open G is a very compact and compressed sound — I almost always prefer to add a suspended 4th these days. Dropped D works for some unusual blues (thing Blind Blake's Police Dog Blues) and I've used it for singing when I want a bit of variation from Dropped D — this is a great tuning for a three chord wonder!
I shall explore the tunes in these two tunings but I wouldn't mind better I transpose them to another tuning!
ach to their own I guess.
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Post by vikingblues on Oct 4, 2014 19:32:22 GMT
think it was extensive practice of that competition entry that caused that. You practiced? Tantamount to cheating, if you ask me... You know what they like to say - practice makes prefect! vikingblues, I agree about the complexity of the "ports". I find them especially fascinating for the reasons you mention: their subtlety and uniqueness. It took me ages to get anything half decent but it remains a bit hit and miss and I am still working on them. It does help to listen to his playing but the apparent ease and fluidity can be a bit dispiriting! I also agree about the stretches. There is a particularly evil one for me in "If Thou Were Myn Own Thing"`: 6th fret on 1, 2nd (barre) on 6 , while covering 4 on 1. I adore this tune but this love truly hurts with my stubby fingers and creaking joints. I fear that many arrangers take stretches for granted that some of us struggle with and thus don't look for alternatives. Brian I'm glad I'm not on my own with difficulties with the Ports Brian. I made that post on this thread on Thursday night and after breakfast on Friday while I was applying medication to my right hand thumb I put the MacKillop CD on in the background and let it play through a few of the Ports. Not giving it my whole attention but trying to get something of the feel of the way they're played. After doing that I went back to the book - open at "Port Atholl" - which wasn't one of the ones I'd heard on the CD. I started trying to play it again - and for the first time one of these Port pieces started to sound like something when I played it. It rather took me by surprise and shows the power of suggestion in Rob MacKillops playing. Anyway I had to go to work then. Had another wee go last night and thought "it" would probably be gone again, but I could still hear promise. So I've worked on it today and got an initial draft ... far from good, there's extra pauses where my fingers are slow going to notes. The overall timing is not quite right, but I'm trying to make it as free in tempo as possible and at the moment I'm deliberately not tapping my foot. There's a couple of instances of C natural which sound odd to me, but the TAB and notation say that's what it should be. I have 16 bits of post it note stuck to the TAB where I've changed the fingering - nearly all those damn 2nd fret, 5th fret combos! :guitar1:Port Atholl - Draft 1It's the TW73 I'm playing of course. this is a problem with Tabs. I have Rob's book which I bought really for the 40 tunes. There are one of two that I want to learn but I shall probably try and arrange for myself with the odd glance at the tab. Some stretches can be difficult but you will always find a work-around. For years I played a Simpson arrangement in Dropped D. I had a nasty fall on my left arm and had a few months off playing. While there is nothing wrong with this arm now I just cannot make that stretch anymore! I suspect it is just a practice thing but I haven't the patience, time or inclination to deal with it. This is one of my favourite tunes.I solved the problem by transposing it to DADGAD and giving myself a much easier run around. C sus 4 sus 9 is very similar to DADGAD (the bottom four strings have common intervals). However, this tuning is more compact and doesn't involve the stretch. I find it very easy to transpose from DADGAD to this tuning. At the end of the day you just want something to sound nice. I often find I get a better result if I simplify an arrangement a little. I've given up worrying about complexity! Back to Rob's book I am interested in his sections on Open G and Open D two tunings I use sparingly and feel are a bit boring! I shall have to explore a little more. Open G is a very compact and compressed sound — I almost always prefer to add a suspended 4th these days. Dropped D works for some unusual blues (thing Blind Blake's Police Dog Blues) and I've used it for singing when I want a bit of variation from Dropped D — this is a great tuning for a three chord wonder! I shall explore the tunes in these two tunings but I wouldn't mind better I transpose them to another tuning! ach to their own I guess. That idea of transposing to Csus4sus9 for easier stretches sounds interesting Andy - though I would need to change strings with having the C on the 6th - I'm not far at the moment from the 6th string being too loose with a low D at the moment. Short scale instrument - the TW73. There are some very good tunes in the MacKillop book. Some seem to click very quickly, but there are some I struggle with (like these Ports). Early on I did listen to a few tracks of the CD while reading the music at the same time - which clearly demonstrated how rough a guide the printed notation and TAB is to what can be played. I really like the approach of a player being able to mould a piece and apply variation. The lack of either of those became such a major bugbear for me when I did classical lessons. The exposure to the DADGAD section of Rob MacKillops book was also good in giving me a framework for a DADGAD improv routine I could do in a guitar shop in addition to the Open G routine that I managed to develop from Martin Simpsons book. It occurs to me I've not used the Spider Capo for a while ... now there's some altered tunings that can bring something new to the playing .... and get the brain hurting! Mark
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 6, 2014 11:30:39 GMT
The world of open tunings is indeed a strange one. I've recently being writing a song and have almost finished it. I can sing it with a simple cowboy chord accompaniment but I've struggled to find a way of integrating it into one of my favourite tunings without changing the melody substantially — that thing about the song not being finished until it is sung. Last night i retuned to a G sus 4 (DGCGCG) and bingo there it was! As this is not a tuning I use a lot I suspect there is going to be a lot of trial and error before getting this right!
Sometimes, I think I hold have adopted the Pierre Bensusan approach of just sticking with one tuning. This might work for instrumentals but I'm not sure it does work for song accompaniments!
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Post by vikingblues on Oct 27, 2014 20:34:19 GMT
The world of open tunings is indeed a strange one - absolutely. I seem to have got into the trial and error routine - unfortunately with error being the senior partner! Thought it was about time I tried a DADGAD composition. So I spent over an hour getting a minutes worth of "music". :irony: I think because I have been playing so much 17th century lute arrangements for guitar recently something of that has come over in this piece. I have made a bit of a tactical error in that I've done a fair bit of the piece using the lowest three strings. The TW73 doesn't really have enough sustain on these to sound right, and the TW45 doesn't have a rich enough or deep enough sound in the bass registers for fingerstyle to work on just these three strings. This is the TW73 version:- "Waiting for L Day"This is the TW45 version:- TW45 version on Box.comI'm reckoning this sort of arrangement would work much better on the Lowden. Now less than 60 days till I get to start playing it. Leaving it in the case all this time is driving me bloody mad! I'm finding this composition thing very tricky. I'm also not very good at judging how to write something that I can play easily enough for it to sound flowing. Real nursery rhyme standard I'm doing compared to the wonderful self penned guitar pieces I here played on the forum here. Gotta start at the bottom of course. Mark
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 28, 2014 13:41:28 GMT
I'm finding this composition thing very tricky. I'm also not very good at judging how to write something that I can play easily enough for it to sound flowing. Real nursery rhyme standard I'm doing compared to the wonderful self penned guitar pieces I here played on the forum here. Gotta start at the bottom of course. Mark As ever the trick is to keep it simple. I wouldn't worry about anything else except whether you think it is nice! Keep playing it and the tune will evolve to some extent anyway! Recording this on the Lowden will probably give you greater depth to the tone and more resonance — in other words there will be a lot more going on. However, arrangements and recording techniques will play their part. One of the things that changes with the playing is the arrangement; it will develop over time. With songs I like to have an end point — these songs change a bit in the singing and the performing but essentially I find it important to know when to stop. With tunes I find they keep evolving and I don't mind that. Lots of things can impact on a tune. Capo at a different fret and you can often feel a difference and sometimes you hit on the magic key by accident. I don't want to worry you at this stage but I also sometimes transcribe the tune to a different tuning and sometimes that then clicks! As you were hinting, fluidity is probably more important that technical difficulty in terms of a piece of music that you just really like! I've been playing a lot in a G sus 4 tuning recently (something I haven't worried about too much in the past). Capo-ing at the 3rd fret (Bb) I've been playing around with slow blues and laments and discovered this tuning to be expressive for both. I doodling I realised that I had the basics of a slow haunting air. This tune sounds better (to me) with a lot of space in it and a lot of opportunity for the strings to really ring out. While not technically fast there is real technical skill it getting clarity and fluidity! I've got to the point where I am happy with this simple tune but determined to really make a good recording of it! By recording you are entering another variable into the equation. The piece I have just been talking about is now ready for recording but I know that once I start I won't be happy! it's all a big compromise. The great thing about open tunings (for me) are their almost endless possibilities. Keep playing!
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Post by vikingblues on Oct 31, 2014 12:23:09 GMT
I appreciate the posts you're making on this thread Andy. Thank you for taking the time - there's always something interesting to think about in what you've said. I'm certainly interested to find what this "tune" will sound like on the Lowden and I have been manfully resisting temptations to break it out of it's case ... not easy, but managing so far. It will certainly give more resonance to those lower notes in particular. Also it will give depth which helps - the TW45 rings more on the lower notes than the TW73 but it's lower notes do sound rather insubstantial. I am trying with these few "compositions" I have attempted so far to keep notes about them that are adequate enough to revisit them and maybe develop them over time. I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of revisiting of things I've played over this last year on the Lowden. I'm also aware in that regard I will have to be more active in what I try to do with my playing technique. First to avoid the wonderful amplification of mistakes that goes hand in hand with the amplification of well played notes on such a guitar. Second I think I will have to be more active in shaping the sound for tonal variation - perversely a lower quality guitar which has it's peaks and troughs in sounds of notes in different registers and different areas of the fret-board adds variation to the sound all by itself. I won't be able to rely on that for creating variation / interest any more. Your goals of clarity and fluidity are great choices. Two qualities that I usually find that are possessed by guitarists I like to listen to and I'm hoping the Lowden will allow me to improve these in my own playing. There's a lot of technique involved and maybe even more technique is needed if it isn't fast music because each note is so exposed. I am in awe of the way that a guitarist like, for example, Mark Thompson can play something so slowly and still maintain my interest as a listener - such a wonderful technique and ability to gently shape the sound of the notes and the phrasing. I really must get around to Gsus4. Of all the tunings I've tried so far I've got on best with open G and it's a very close relative. The recording aspect adds a huge variable as you say. I'm very aware that, at best, I'm using a pretty cheap microphone, a pretty cheap interface and also inexpensive DAW software. However that's going to have to stay that way as funds are not there for quite some time. I'm also reluctant to change the interface as it took me some struggles with a few interfaces to get one that worked properly with a computer. Maybe not a problem with Win7 - I was on Vista when I had the troubles and the new machine has been so much better for music recording. Thanks again for your help. I am encouraged by it. Mark
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 31, 2014 12:37:11 GMT
The recording aspect adds a huge variable as you say. I'm very aware that, at best, I'm using a pretty cheap microphone, a pretty cheap interface and also inexpensive DAW software. However that's going to have to stay that way as funds are not there for quite some time. I'm also reluctant to change the interface as it took me some struggles with a few interfaces to get one that worked properly with a computer. Maybe not a problem with Win7 - I was on Vista when I had the troubles and the new machine has been so much better for music recording. Thanks again for your help. I am encouraged by it. Mark Recording is a useful tool to improvement whatever the quality of the equipment you are using. The most important thing is not hoover cook the put signal. I have some recordings of instrumentals that I regularly update. From time to time I re-record them and am always surprised by the results. Tunes change over time without you really noticing. There are a number of things that are important to me in terms of my own technique: Avoiding string buzz! Making sure that fingers don't slip of the fretboard! Getting on even tone across the strings — this is a big one for me because i use a thumb pick — it's very easy to thump on the bass strings too hard. This can sound great to me but a recording offers a more honest perspective! I might have mentioned this before but recording seems to favour playing more quietly. Not only will the tone be more balanced but it is fuller and better defined some how! Rehearsal before recording is important — make sure you know that tune even when you have written it yourself! I find rehearsing over a few days with recording in mind gives me a very different sounding tune !!! Hope that makes sense!
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Post by vikingblues on Oct 31, 2014 20:27:47 GMT
It makes a great deal of sense! I like your list of priorities regarding technique and have to admit feeling identification with all of them:- - String buzz I get more of than I should - partly due to a narrow fretboard, but I want to crack playing that because it's kinder to my arthritic fingers. - The even tones is a good one to work at - I'm a thumb pick man too - not choice, but the skin on my thumb prevents using it pick-less. I've found delrin as a material for the pick has helped reduce click and harsher tone and given a much more fleshy sound than other picks I've tried. I'm looking forward to the Lowden helping on a balanced tone (if I'm up to it). - Playing quieter being a help when recording is something I'd been starting to wonder about very recently and I'm glad to see someone voice that idea. I think I do see the beginnings of benefits as I slowly adjust to playing and recording acoustic rather than electric guitar. It is very difficult to stop playing harder especially if I'm at all uncertain about the music or unsure of my ability to play it right. - Rehearsing is something I'll admit I'm bad at - I'm so impatient to keep moving on and exploring more. The trouble of starting playing acoustic later in life - so much to do and maybe so little time to do it. Many thanks, Mark
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Post by andyhowell on Nov 2, 2014 14:31:41 GMT
Legendary producers like Buddy Miller and T Bone Burnett all credit their favourite session men as playing quietly!
When recording it is pretty easy to tell when you haven't been rehearsing properly :-)
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Post by vikingblues on Mar 3, 2015 23:19:04 GMT
Oooooh!! Interesting sounds. I've started playing around with Csus2 tuning. aka Aadd9 as per Martin Simpson in his "Teaches Alternate Tunings" book which is my bible for altered tunings. C G C G C D Even down at C on the bottom string the low tension Newtone Heritage strings keep playing well on the Lowden. The tonal qualities down at that bottom C are rather fine! Having Root 5th Root 5th Root on the bottom five strings seems to give good options for small partial chords and the open D on the top string fits very well with other notes being played. So far it's very much just a case of ranging around the fretboard and trying to get a feel for what patterns and note combinations work best. There is a TAB in the book for Martin Simpsons arrangement of "Raglan Road" - while not attempting to play it properly and study it, I've been skimming through it with approximations to the right notes and timing and so far what I have heard suggests that this is a good tuning to use. Funny - I did try open C a few months back and it didn't really do much for me. The only difference with Csus2 is the top string is D rather than E. Maybe I've improved and maybe open C would work better if I went back to it now? But Csus2 must have something going for it for Martin Simpson to call it one of his particular favourites. Anyway - I've much to do on exploring this tuning. Mark
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Post by scripsit on Mar 4, 2015 7:29:00 GMT
Csus2 seems to lend itself to melancholy tunes.
Martin Simpson's arrangement of 'Boots of Spanish Leather' is lovely in this tuning, although difficult to play because of lots of his signature middle finger whacks. Much easier is his very moody 'I'll Fly Away'.
Al Petteway has 'Broken Mist' and 'Final Passage'.
Best of all is the Tony McManus version of 'The Sleeping Tune'. Not at all complicated unless you want it to sound like he's playing it.
I also like it that you can take the 3rd bass string back to a 'D' and you have Orkney tuning, very quickly, and a whole lot more things to work on.
Kym
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chinanight
Strummer
Posts: 25
My main instrument is: Taylor and National
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Post by chinanight on Mar 4, 2015 9:01:09 GMT
I discovered a lovely tuning on a Kelly Joe Phelps DVD. CGCGCF. He uses it on a tune called "River Rat Jimmy". He capos it at the 5th fret great sound.
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Post by andyhowell on Mar 5, 2015 8:37:37 GMT
Csus2 seems to lend itself to melancholy tunes. Martin Simpson's arrangement of 'Boots of Spanish Leather' is lovely in this tuning, although difficult to play because of lots of his signature middle finger whacks. Much easier is his very moody 'I'll Fly Away'. Al Petteway has 'Broken Mist' and 'Final Passage'. Best of all is the Tony McManus version of 'The Sleeping Tune'. Not at all complicated unless you want it to sound like he's playing it. I also like it that you can take the 3rd bass string back to a 'D' and you have Orkney tuning, very quickly, and a whole lot more things to work on. Kym It can also be a great lively tuning - think of Can-I-D-I-O Droo the 3rd down to F (Csus4sus9) and you have a different sound for a change of one tone on one string - somehow a more neutral tuning for singing over. All this stuff fascinates me!
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