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Post by vikingblues on Dec 31, 2015 8:44:22 GMT
It is quite possible there is a thread about this sort of thing somewhere on the forum, but if so I can't find it. It's not a subject with an obvious set of words to use in the search function. Some time ago I heard about a technique some novel writers use, where they have to write at least a set number of words every day. The basic idea being to exercise the mental muscles and develop the skill through use. Rather than sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike while in the meantime doing useful things like organising the sock drawer. I'm having a go at something vaguely similar with "tune" writing on the guitar. Tune may be too positive a word for what results with me but it'll do as a general description. To qualify the end piece needs to be finger-style and at least 1:30 in length and there has to be at least one finished a week (ending Sunday night). Including being recorded for evaluation - and recorded as a reminder to me of how it's played due to the fact that my use of tabs for the notes does not include indications of the length of notes (I'm useless at doing that). I started at the beginning of December and am surprised to find that I've managed as far as this, particularly with Christmas festivities getting in the way. Even managed two in one week and having done one already this week may well manage two with the holiday weekend. But I haven't yet hit the wall of not feeling like having a go -that will be a tester. It's easy at the moment because I'm enjoying it - partly down to having three acoustic guitars that I equally enjoy playing for this sort of music. So I'm wondering has anyone tried this sort of route and did they develop techniques for keeping things going when it got tricky? To some extent putting this thread here is an attempt to keep things going so I don't lose face. What I don't want to do though is to sicken myself of the process and I'm not sure how easy it will be to judge whether to call it all off at some stage to avoid that happening ... maybe I should have some set holidays or regular planned breaks? Maybe I'm over-thinking things again? Mark
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Post by solidtop on Jan 1, 2016 21:32:25 GMT
Sounds like an interesting challenge. I usually try and write fingerstyle. I get a nice little melody going but I end up writing a tune that could still be played with a plectrum if you felt the need but is still a "picky" tune. I've done a couple of strummers but it kind of depends on what I recently learned. It usually ends up in G or Em so discipline is needed to write in another key next time.
Your idea sounds cool. If you struggle with writing tab, there is software called tap pro which is free and you can write it in time and play it back to remind you how it should sound. That way you don't have to do 2 things to keep record of what you done. What do you use to inspire you?
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Post by Andy P on Jan 2, 2016 11:49:59 GMT
It's a technique similar to that used by many novelists, i.e. working office hours. I saw a documentary on Richard Thompson where when he's in song-writing mode he goes into the music room at the same time each morning and stays there for a set number of hours.
For amateurs like us and especially procrastinators like me it's got to be a balance between some kind of discipline and maintaining enjoyment and not feeling like it's a chore. I've been trying it with song-writing but I need to try harder.
Let us know how it goes.
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 2, 2016 20:06:37 GMT
Sounds like an interesting challenge. I usually try and write fingerstyle. I get a nice little melody going but I end up writing a tune that could still be played with a plectrum if you felt the need but is still a "picky" tune. I've done a couple of strummers but it kind of depends on what I recently learned. It usually ends up in G or Em so discipline is needed to write in another key next time. Your idea sounds cool. If you struggle with writing tab, there is software called tap pro which is free and you can write it in time and play it back to remind you how it should sound. That way you don't have to do 2 things to keep record of what you done. What do you use to inspire you? I find it very difficult to work with a melody initially. My usual starting point is a chord or partial chord and I either try to get a melodic progression of notes moving from that either to reach a target chord or to somewhere that I can drop a chord / partial chord in. It's all a bit trial and error and making it up as I go along. I prefer to use open tunings for these writing attempts, mainly because my chord knowledge is poor in these tunings other than knowing some shapes that work. I find in standard tuning that knowing what chords are and how they relate to each other makes any attempt at composition result in something very generic and safe if not dull. Plus the resonances I can get from un-fretted strings in open tunings gives a fuller sound that helps beef up my sparse composition and slow tempos. For "inspiration" it's either things I stumble on when I'm noodling away and improvising (I love that more than any other type of playing) or it's little fragment take my interest in other peoples compositions - which I think plagiarise ... ahem ... borrow and adapt. For example one of my most recent "tune a week" took some suggestions from Dave Whites "Little Lucy". Sorry Dave! "Loosely"Very loosley based. To be fair it doesn't really have much that makes it a stolen "tune" (I hope) and it doesn't get near the quality of Daves piece. All these tunes I'm doing will benefit from later polishing and editing I suspect - a week is not long when a full time job and real life gets in the way. I will have a look at that software - thanks for the suggestion. My own tunes have some very odd timings of notes in them. I seem to avoid the usual practice of having lots of runs of notes of quavers, crotchets etc as usually seen in guitar arrangements. That maybe goes back to my love of improvising and being more free form and taking liberties with the rules. My working life is chock-a-block full of rules so I like my music life to be as free of them as possible. It's a technique similar to that used by many novelists, i.e. working office hours. I saw a documentary on Richard Thompson where when he's in song-writing mode he goes into the music room at the same time each morning and stays there for a set number of hours. For amateurs like us and especially procrastinators like me it's got to be a balance between some kind of discipline and maintaining enjoyment and not feeling like it's a chore. I've been trying it with song-writing but I need to try harder. Let us know how it goes. If it's good enough for Richard Thompson it should be good enough for me but yes - the test will come when I don't feel like writing. So far that's not been the case and I'm averaging more than one a week because I get a kick out of it. But if it becomes a chore it'll be a quandary for me as to how long to keep trying. I want to keep music making fun (to balance lack of fun in my professional life ). I couldn't do this exercise with song writing though because words / lyrics are so much more difficult to access for me than musical notes! Mark
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Post by andyhowell on Jan 3, 2016 8:54:23 GMT
Try this.
Every now and then start at a different place and make a deliberate attempt to play something different. Experiment with a different tuning. Used dropped D. Or drop the high E to D. If you play in Dadgad make a point of starting your tune in G
If you have a 1.30 tune then can you add complimentary piece to fill it out?
I write both tunes and songs and go through phases of each. For me, a successful tune always comes from the melody. May have an idea for a song but it only gets going once a tune or rhythm have appeared. Then I will go back to the lyrics and when they are finished realise the tune has to change a little. But tunes on their own are lovely. For tunes:
Concentrate on feel and drama rather than on speed/technique. Give the tune room to breath. Let the open strings ring. Find the scale runs that make sense to you and your tuning!
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 3, 2016 12:40:12 GMT
Good advice Andy - thanks. So far I've been employing DADGAD, Csus2, and Open G. There are certainly plenty of other tunings to go,and I'm also quite keen on the idea of trying to add some spider-capo'd tune writing attempts to this project. I will have to work on the idea of making tunes the starting point as an exercise in itself. At the moment trying to think of a tune leaves me in the same state that a blank piece of paper does when I need to write a letter - my mind goes as blank as the paper! Or if anything like a tune might luckily and occasionally result it will sound trite and derivative. If I hear an accompaniment of various instruments that lacks a lead line / melody I can hear melodies arriving in my head - but trying to hear one cold and on it's own is eluding me at the moment. But part of the reason for this process I'm trying is to see if it helps these skills to start to build. I take your point about fleshing things out from 1:30 time length and my intention, if this all works out, is to build up to much longer pieces in any case, but that takes more skill than I feel I have now. I'm also keeping them short at present so I can be more confident of achieving my targets. Feel and drama and letting the music breathe is tricky isn't it and I find it immensely irritating that I can bring these qualities to an improvisation so much better than I can to a composition. Those scale runs you mention seem to appear much more readily in improv mode. I have said in the past and still believe it to be true that the physical and logical process of the composition process and writing things down hinders my creative enhancement of the music. As does reading the music when I play - so even if I video'd a successful improv then wrote it down and then played it again there would still be something missing in feel. I play music with most feeling to it when I am hardly using any logical thought whatsoever - a pure improvisation with barely and thought processes is a wonderful musical place to visit for me - It's like the mind can float free and totally untroubled. Of course much of this inability of mine in composition comes from a lack of technical knowledge and theory of music - but I know from (bitter) experience that if I try to acquire that knowledge I will find myself bogged down, confused and disillusioned by the whole process! To illustrate that lack of technical knowledge I would mention your suggestion of starting a DADGAD tune in G. Which would leave me scrabbling about trying to work out what is in G on the fretboard when in DADGAD - even thinking where a G chord might be leaves me needing to work out where it is. You'll see I'm pretty much a hopeless case, but hopefully I can end up a slightly less hopeless case! Mark
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Post by solidtop on Jan 9, 2016 22:23:04 GMT
thanks for the info, BEFORE if forget, the software is called power tab editor.
any way, i found myself using a frank turner tune as inspiration. There is a video where he talks about moving the standard chords up the neck and seeing if there are an other places they work as one of his songs does this with a C chord. I took that C chord and ran with it and came up with quite a nice tune based up around the 8th fret area. It needs refining but it's nice to do something that's not in the comfort zone.
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 9, 2016 22:45:30 GMT
thanks for the info, BEFORE if forget, the software is called power tab editor. any way, i found myself using a frank turner tune as inspiration. There is a video where he talks about moving the standard chords up the neck and seeing if there are an other places they work as one of his songs does this with a C chord. I took that C chord and ran with it and came up with quite a nice tune based up around the 8th fret area. It needs refining but it's nice to do something that's not in the comfort zone. C is a great chord shape to use in several different places, especially if you finger the shape as x32013 - move this up 2 frets for a D (ish - it has a nice suspended 4th, the open G string, in it) - or 3 frets (first finger then at fret 4)for the easiest Eb you'll find (the open G is a "proper" part of this chord). Keep on moving another two frets up from Eb so first finger is at fret 6 - this is a nice F chord with an added G in it. Two more frets up so first finger now at fret 8 you have a G chord. Two more frets up again so first finger is at fret 10 and you have an A7 chord. In all these you have a potential alternating bass by moving third finger from 5th string to same fret 6th string. Also worth trying out leaving the E string open on any of these or hammered on/off, esp if playing fingerstyle. Have fun! Keith
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Post by delb0y on Jan 10, 2016 10:59:26 GMT
I really struggle with melodies and I admire anyone who can come up with them. I'm very much a three chord man - with the occasional extra one thrown in - and trying to find new melodies that fit upon these old workhorses isn't easy. I mean, it wouldn't be easy for a melodic genius, but for one such as me that struggles it means I always fall back on standard melodies numbers 1, 2, and 3... I think this is why I like lyrics - they can take some of the strain. In fact "Let The Lyrics Take The Strain" is a great idea for a lyric...
Anyway, the point of that paragraph was just to say kudos to you for being able to come up with all these melodies. Well done.
As regards the methodology - I write fiction, too, and I've always adhered to a couple of other maxims as well. #1 Allow yourself to write badly - basically just get something down. Don't sit there trying to get every sentence perfect - that's what the rewrite is for - just get the story down. It's always surprising how one looks back after a few weeks and can't actually distinguish the work from the struggling days where you were "allowing yourself to write badly" from the days when you were in the flow. Although, maybe the reason for this is all my work is of bad standard. Hah. Maxim # 2 is more pertinent here - it is don't wait for inspiration, instead start writing and that will create the inspiration. It's hard, but when you do it, when you make yourself write (or play) when you don't feel like it, and you feel uninspired, this weird thing happens, after x amount of minutes, maybe 10, maybe 30, you suddenly enter this zone of inspiration. You don't even realise until it's happened - it's like falling asleep - but it does happen. You just have to give it that chance.
Cheers Derek
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 10, 2016 16:30:12 GMT
thanks for the info, BEFORE if forget, the software is called power tab editor. any way, i found myself using a frank turner tune as inspiration. There is a video where he talks about moving the standard chords up the neck and seeing if there are an other places they work as one of his songs does this with a C chord. I took that C chord and ran with it and came up with quite a nice tune based up around the 8th fret area. It needs refining but it's nice to do something that's not in the comfort zone. C is a great chord shape to use in several different places, especially if you finger the shape as x32013 - move this up 2 frets for a D (ish - it has a nice suspended 4th, the open G string, in it) - or 3 frets (first finger then at fret 4)for the easiest Eb you'll find (the open G is a "proper" part of this chord). Keep on moving another two frets up from Eb so first finger is at fret 6 - this is a nice F chord with an added G in it. Two more frets up so first finger now at fret 8 you have a G chord. Two more frets up again so first finger is at fret 10 and you have an A7 chord. In all these you have a potential alternating bass by moving third finger from 5th string to same fret 6th string. Also worth trying out leaving the E string open on any of these or hammered on/off, esp if playing fingerstyle. Have fun! Keith Have fun indeed solidtop. Moving chord shapes around while leaving open strings going is a great recipe for new chord voicing and flavours and avoids some of those over-trodden chord progressions. One of the main reasons I enjoy open / altered tunings is that with them having open strings that all suit a particular key there's a lot of two or three string chord shapes that can be moved to a large number of places on the fretboard with some really resonant lovely sounds. Open G is particularly good for this as an example, and avoiding use of the 6th (lowest note) string in these. Take the Am shape chord and the A major shape chord on strings 2,3, and 4 - those strings are still tuned the same as in standard tuning. The Am shape along with open strings 5 and 1 will work at:- x - 0 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 0 x - 0 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 0 The A shape then at:- x - 0 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 0 x - 0 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 0 The Am shape then at:- x - 0 - 9 - 9 - 8 - 0 As Open G is D - G - D - G - B - D then any note that is played on the 4th string will also work in the same pattern but the 1st string played at this fret instead of open:- x - 0 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 2 x - 0 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 4 x - 0 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 x - 0 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 7 x - 0 - 9 - 9 - 8 - 9 also any note that is played on the 3rd string can also be played an octave lower on the 5th string:- x - 2 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 0 x - 4 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 0 x - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 0 x - 7 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 0 x - 9 - 9 - 9 - 8 - 0 In addition - and this is great for sounds both those Am and A shapes on the 2nd,3rd and 4th strings will also work with the third string left open along with the 5th and the 1st strings:- x - 0 - 2 - 0 - 1 - 0 x - 0 - 4 - 0 - 3 - 0 x - 0 - 5 - 0 - 5 - 0 x - 0 - 7 - 0 - 7 - 0 x - 0 - 9 - 0 - 8 - 0 AND also:- x - 0 - 10- 0 -10- 0 Applying any note that plays on the 4th string will work on the 1st string again:- x - 0 - 2 - 0 - 1 - 2 x - 0 - 4 - 0 - 3 - 4 x - 0 - 5 - 0 - 5 - 5 x - 0 - 7 - 0 - 7 - 7 x - 0 - 9 - 0 - 8 - 9 x - 0 - 10- 0 -10- 10 Open G tends to just get taught as to how Keith Richards uses it - but there's so much more beauty to it than that. I really struggle with melodies and I admire anyone who can come up with them. I'm very much a three chord man - with the occasional extra one thrown in - and trying to find new melodies that fit upon these old workhorses isn't easy. I mean, it wouldn't be easy for a melodic genius, but for one such as me that struggles it means I always fall back on standard melodies numbers 1, 2, and 3... I think this is why I like lyrics - they can take some of the strain. In fact "Let The Lyrics Take The Strain" is a great idea for a lyric... Anyway, the point of that paragraph was just to say kudos to you for being able to come up with all these melodies. Well done. As regards the methodology - I write fiction, too, and I've always adhered to a couple of other maxims as well. #1 Allow yourself to write badly - basically just get something down. Don't sit there trying to get every sentence perfect - that's what the rewrite is for - just get the story down. It's always surprising how one looks back after a few weeks and can't actually distinguish the work from the struggling days where you were "allowing yourself to write badly" from the days when you were in the flow. Although, maybe the reason for this is all my work is of bad standard. Hah. Maxim # 2 is more pertinent here - it is don't wait for inspiration, instead start writing and that will create the inspiration. It's hard, but when you do it, when you make yourself write (or play) when you don't feel like it, and you feel uninspired, this weird thing happens, after x amount of minutes, maybe 10, maybe 30, you suddenly enter this zone of inspiration. You don't even realise until it's happened - it's like falling asleep - but it does happen. You just have to give it that chance. Cheers Derek Thanks Derek! I know exactly what you mean about the basic chords making it difficult to get a new melody. If you can write lyrics I agree that it's a great way of taking the strain off the melody requirement. Changes in chord voicing can help suggest new melody notes perhaps and I find that those are easier to find in open and altered tuning. Though I hesitate to say that my "compositions" are that rich in memorable catchy melodies - a lot of the musical lines in my pieces are just accidents of chord fragments and little clusters of a few notes that might make a melodic line sound. I found what you said about methodology very interesting. I do know someone that writes fiction and what you say chimes with what I've heard them say. It's interesting when I sit down to try to compose just anything with no ideas - a bit of messing around with partial chords usually ensues and I'll hear something that sounds like a decent musical line could spin off it. Before very long something starts to piece itself together but I've no idea where it's going or what it might sound like. Sometimes the original idea ends up adjusted a bit to fit in better with what happened later. It is similar that way to a good improvisation - I enjoy the voyage of discovery. I'm enjoying it all despite the target setting - which is what matters most. 6 weeks now gone and 8 recorded compositions done. A start has been made to the opening of this coming weeks effort. This is the most recent result - "Floods"I like the way my Tanglewood TW133 sounds on this. I hope that I can keep the momentum going. I also have the mandolin to work at and I've signed up for the song writing course mentioned in the shoutbox here. Add a full time job which is now in its most hectic time of year and I'm maybe spreading myself a bit thin. BUT - as long as it stays fun .... Mark
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 10, 2016 17:13:22 GMT
Although many of the best songs and instrumental pieces have a pretty simple harmonic structure, attempting to draw out interesting melodies from the starting point of simple chord progressions requires a very special talent if the results are not to be predictable and samey (guilty!).
I prefer to go with thinking up the bare melody first and then harmonising it afterwards. Doesn't have to be a complete piece in melody, just a line or so is enough to begin, then once that is harmonised the rest can grow from there, though again, melody first.
By harmoniseI mean deciding what other notes are going to underpin/embellish the melody. This can be simply putting chords to the melody, though I tend to think in terms of bass notes and basslines first, which focusses the chord possibilities more manageably. Then deciding which inversions work best together and with how many notes can make a big difference to the final result, as can the usual guitaristic twiddles to which particular shapes lend themselves.
It's certainly still very possible to come up with samey and predictable pieces this way too (as I do regularly!), but if you are used to thinking in terms only of chord progressions (a common guitarist tendency) this melody first approach might lead you along some interestingly different paths.
Keith
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Post by andyhowell on Jan 13, 2016 8:06:16 GMT
Good points from Keith.
I try and focus on melody more than blistering technique — I have long given up worrying about that. Listening to recording helps. I often find too many stray notes! Play a reasonably simple melody well and when you listen to the recording it sounds complex — well it does to me.
Also, tunes are not songs — verse, chorus, verse, chorus and so on. You can take a theme and vary it a lot more often. I've got a few like that which I think may have disappeared form the web but I'll try and re-record them soon.
If playing in, say, dropped D or DADGAD start in another key — i.e G. If you have a short tune — say 1.30 then put two short tunes together as a kind of medley (I do this a lot).
Martin Simpson once gave me a tip. Have some playing sessions where you deliberately start in a very different place — don't just rattle off your usual tunes. Just experiment in that session. You can have another session later that is more conventional. I've found this really does work (even if I don't do it enough!)
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 19, 2016 20:02:04 GMT
Thank you kindly Keith and Andy for your further comments. It's such a complex task to compose that it's very helpful to get other players ideas and notes of their own experience. Agreed Andy that those were good points from Keith. I've been trying to take some of them on board while I continue, despite a very busy time of year, to manage a minimum of one new recording / composition a week. I have had a first stab at a melody first job, and then adding bass notes and a smattering of a few bits of chords. As I'm only utilising index, middle and ring finger of the left hand it is reducing my scope for chords and for employing accidental notes over the chords. I see very clearly in your upload this week of "Roger's Gong" Keith how wonderfully effective your method is. Though I fear I could not even play the piece to bring out those qualities like you do! SO this week has seen a "melody first" piece, and a "searching for notes as I go" piece. They are quite distinctly different. Obviously with it being only attempt #1 on the "melody first" I have to stop myself from ripping too hard into its shortfalls. I'm intending to work on the two types in tandem, and hopefully there will be improvements. As it stands the "melody first" is rather simplistic, very safe, and rather predictable. But then I can see how my usual method will produce pieces that are obscure, difficult to follow, and not listener friendly. Part of my attraction to the searching as I go is the surprise factor - not for any possible audience but for me. I'm also very aware that this is early stages. AT the moment I'm just trying to get used to doing this at all and keeping it short and swift to help keep the momentum going. The aim is to gradually expand into longer pieces and to employ those variations you very sensibly mention Andy. I'm always going to be limited by the skill level of the player I'm composing for - i.e. me .... talk about the blind leading the blind! I do have a bit of a problem with starting in a key that isn't the one of the open tuning. The lack of an effective little finger to utilise for all those stretches that become inevitable. Having the composition in the key of the tuning allows me to utilise those open strings for more voicing and fuller use of chords. Plus a bit of capo to cheat. So this is the weeks "Melody first" attempt:- "Where S'Lair"and this is the weeks "Search as I go" attempt:- "Twilight"Thanks again for the advice and help. Also for the encouragement to keep trying to get better. Mark
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 20, 2016 0:03:32 GMT
I reckon both those tunes have a lot of potential, Mark - there's some lovely moments in each - I hope that you'll return at some stage to develop these pieces.
The thought occurs to me that the two approaches need not be kept totally separate - a "melody first" main theme might well benefit from a less predictable search as you go middle bit before returning to the main theme. The contrast could be effective....
Keith
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 20, 2016 7:33:38 GMT
Excellent idea Keith and I'm glad there are some parts that work for you in each of these tunes. Thank you for taking the time to listen and comment. I'm hoping that all I'm trying to do will all join up and become a more flexible and fluid process. I'm pleasantly surprised so far that it has not yet become a chore, but I'll not get carried away ... it could become that any day soon! 11 pieces in 7 weeks so far. I'm keeping rough TABS of these ideas and keeping recordings, so I am hoping I'll develop the skill sets, and the imagination, to be able to go back and expand things later, build in variations, improve the shaky bits, etc. At the moment I'm in those early stages of making sure I do at least something every week as a priority regardless of other commitments and despite being mentally worn out in the weekday evenings. A week is a very short time so I am aware that these are very much unfinished projects, and I am also aware that there is not enough time to develop even playing them properly before recording. Makes the recording process a bit less agreeable! I'm aware that I have always found editing tricky and less fun and to be often a task that derails a project, whatever the activity. SO I don't want to rush in to that while my enthusiasm seems to be carrying me along meeting my one a week target. Mark One thing I have started to notice is how much better a flawed piece sounds when the rhythm, and more importantly the way the rhythm varies within the phrases, become established, and the piece then starts to sound a lot better and a bit more like real music.
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