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Joined:
August 2008
Posts: 121
Location: Maine | I'd like to hear from others on their various methods of learning a new song with their Ovation. Do you listen to the CD and then fill in with your chords? How many read music and go by the original sheet music? How many follow the exact chords as was used in the original recording. It would be an interesting learning experience to know if anyone has a fast and easy way of getting a song down. Any secretes to share? :cool: |
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Joined:
September 2006
Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | I have no profound insights, also I am still a 'beginner'...
Saying that, I get my tabs, and chords online. I use Ultimate Guitar with a quarter million listings.
I also go to YouTube and watch other people screw-up songs, then see how the original artist played it, then play it the way I want. (or my ability allows :rolleyes: )
I don't read music, and don't like reading TAB. But tab is useful to figure out intros and such. |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 5331
Location: Cicero, NY | "It would be an interesting learning experience to know if anyone has a fast and easy way of getting a song down. Any secretes to share?"
Find someone who really knows the song (preferably well) and play along with them until you can go home and work on it yourself. I've never learned more or faster than playing with someone better than me. (And finding someone better than me is pretty easy.) Bottom line - find jammers in your neighborhood. It just don't come easier than that. |
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Joined:
October 2007
Posts: 2711
Location: Vernon CT | Another Good Tab site is Chordie.com. What is nice is it has a "feature " that allows you to change the Key if you want.
I like to start with Chordie and then hopefully improve on it. Maybe the Chordie Tab has an E and you listen to the song and it should be an E7 as an example. |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4075
Location: Utah | I do the internet search thing first. The tabs and chords are generally only barely in the ballpark, but it is a start. Sometimes I'll buy the sheet music, but frequently that isn't all that close either.
Then depending on the situation, it is either "good enough" or it isn't. Sometimes just getting the chords is enough, and then I use strumming or fingerpicking that is similar enough. Mostly when the band does a song, I like to get it as close to the original as possible. Which means hours of wearing headphones and trying to figure out the exact chords or the precise lead guitar or background instrumentals.
If there is a shortcut, I'd sure like to know what it is! |
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Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 2985
Location: Sydney, Australia | If you're learning something tricky, i.e. something that is going to stretch your limits there is a program called Amazing Slow Downer. You import the song from an mp3 format and then can play it at a range of speeds without the pitch changing. You can program it to play only certain sections over and over at the same speed or in slightly increasing speeds each increment. I think it costs around $30 and is available in Mac and PC format. I still use the tab alongside it, but you could use it to work out what the original artist actually played. |
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Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I guess I do it this way:
Listen to the song.
Sing the song.
Find the chords on a tab site.
Figure out the rhythm.
Play the chords with the rhythm.
Sing the song with chords and rhythm.
Write down the song with chords and rhythm in tab.
Figure out any solos or interesting riffs. Write them down. Adapt song to my style (limitations)
Practice, maybe with the record.
Perform it.
Learn a new one. |
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Joined:
May 2005
Posts: 486
Location: North Carolina | If I like a song, I listen to it several times. I decide on a key and see how it lays out on the guitar. I might move it a half tone in either direction to make it work on the guitar. Maybe an alternate tuning appropriate?
I look for a signature riff or any element that is closely identified with the song and must be included. Now I start to sing and play. Do I like the chord structure? Maybe I want to change a few to add some drama, or to reduce it. Is it interesting to the listener? If not, why not? Do I want to vary the dynamics, do I want to rearrange the format, do I want to add something, or do I want to cut the whole thing short and make it part of a medley?
Arranging a song is almost as complex as writing it. |
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Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12759
Location: Boise, Idaho | Strumming chords is pretty easy. If I like the song, I play the cd, or nowadays I find it on YouTube, and sing it until I get the chords to match. I hardly play anything that just strums chords, though, so I usually have to find a good tab for the fingerstyle stuff I like. If there's a Powertab, I download that and play it to see if it sounds correct. If so, I print it off and practice off the tab. It's not easy or quick. It usually takes me a month to a year to learn a song note for note and memorize it. |
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Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | Depends on the song and what I am learning it for.
If its just a four-chord strummer, what's to learn? Just play it by ear.
If its a trickier song that has several leads that I want to play accurately, I usually just listen and play back the CD over and over until I get it. Sometimes I'll pull up an internet tab to see how someone else played it too.
The hardest part for me is songs with complex chord forms that are buried inside of a complex arrangement making them hard to discern. For those, the Holy Grail is finding a youtube video of the original artist playing it where you can see how he does it. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15678
Location: SoCal | If it's got more than my three chords I pass on it an try to find another song..... |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | I use a combination of Amazing Slow Downer, YouTube and tabs. But tabs are notoriously innaccurate.
Amazing Slow Downer is... well... amazing. Not only can you slow down an MP3 without changing pitch, you can also change the key without changing the tempo. So when you hear a song you like but its too high (or low) you can hear what the original performer would've sounded like a semitone (or two) down. |
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Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 4832
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Follow the artist who plays the song you like.
Every show, every town.
Be in front of the stage and stare at his hands.
(they really like that)
When he finally plays the song, watch really, really close and remember everything he does.
Move on to next song. |
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Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 4832
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Originally posted by Wagonmaster:
Any secretes to share? I think the plural is actually secretions. and the answer is, no.
BTW: welcome, wagon. |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Listen to lots of music and pick the songs you like and want to play. Make sure they are in a style and structure that you can take them on. Then go throught the steps above to get teh chords sorted out. |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | As an accompanist, we have to learn new music every week, so only some of it is ever truly memorized. Some music is handed to us in 12 page format. I despise handling sheet music on a stand and so if I have time, I'll rewrite it to no more than two pages, just bars and chord inscriptions. During the summer, we dispense with mid-week rehearsals, so we pretty much play what gets handed to us Sunday morning. On occasion (twice last weekend) the music is a piano score only without guitar chords which is o.k. for the piano and bass, but useless to me. In this case, the piano takes the accompaniment and I noodle in and around the vocals. Once I know the key and modulation points, I hear where the tune is going and provide a lead line or counter-melody for the vocal lines. I wasn't real comfortable with this "ear" technique until Matt Smith reassured me that it was, in fact, o.k. and something he did in session work. It can be a bit unnerving going into a song you've never heard before, let alone played, but after a while, you realize there just aren't all that many different music formats and progressions, plus single note lead lines and counter melodies are more forgiving because there are more possibilities to hit correct notes within the chord structure. With practice comes confidence. |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | I keep setting the needle back on the part of the record I need to learn. In extreme situations I set the speed to 16 rpm instead of 33 1/3 rpm |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Yeah I used to do that too, 30 years ago...... |
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new music