nobozos
Well-known member
So, I've been working with the singer of my old rock band, preparing to launch an acoustic act with me playing guitar, and her singing.
It's been a pretty odd experience for me, because I've had to learn alot of newer stuff that I'm really not that interested in, like Colbie Caillat, and Jack Johnson. I'm a Classic Rocker by nature, so the newer soft acoustic stuff is a little out of my comfort zone.
Anyway:
I've had to learn alot of new songs, but one in particular was giving me trouble, and it's probably the oldest song we play. "Blackbird"
She wants to do the Sarah McLachlan version, of course, but the main structure of the song is the same, just capo'd at the 2nd fret.
Now, Blackbird's "chords" are a little unusual, and they are all over the place. Once you learn the chords, the song's structure changes slightly throughout the song, so it's not memorization of a simple pattern like most songs.
Once you have the chords and structure down, you have to attack the picking pattern. Now, the McLachlan version cheats a little here, where they just kind of strum in between chords. I didn't care for the sound of that, so I decided to learn the McCartney picking pattern, which is different than any other song I've learned. It requires mainly picking with your thumb and middle finger, throwing in your index finger alternately between every chord change, and then holding a specific picking pattern on certian chords.
I've finally got it down, but it took me about 2 weeks to master it by learning a piece of it, walking away, and picking it up later. I probably had about 6 hours of "string time" total devoted to learning that song. My average is about 45 minutes to 1.5 hours to master a new song.
Is this song really as difficult to learn to play correctly as I thought it was, or was it just my Kryptonite?
It's been a pretty odd experience for me, because I've had to learn alot of newer stuff that I'm really not that interested in, like Colbie Caillat, and Jack Johnson. I'm a Classic Rocker by nature, so the newer soft acoustic stuff is a little out of my comfort zone.
Anyway:
I've had to learn alot of new songs, but one in particular was giving me trouble, and it's probably the oldest song we play. "Blackbird"
She wants to do the Sarah McLachlan version, of course, but the main structure of the song is the same, just capo'd at the 2nd fret.
Now, Blackbird's "chords" are a little unusual, and they are all over the place. Once you learn the chords, the song's structure changes slightly throughout the song, so it's not memorization of a simple pattern like most songs.
Once you have the chords and structure down, you have to attack the picking pattern. Now, the McLachlan version cheats a little here, where they just kind of strum in between chords. I didn't care for the sound of that, so I decided to learn the McCartney picking pattern, which is different than any other song I've learned. It requires mainly picking with your thumb and middle finger, throwing in your index finger alternately between every chord change, and then holding a specific picking pattern on certian chords.
I've finally got it down, but it took me about 2 weeks to master it by learning a piece of it, walking away, and picking it up later. I probably had about 6 hours of "string time" total devoted to learning that song. My average is about 45 minutes to 1.5 hours to master a new song.
Is this song really as difficult to learn to play correctly as I thought it was, or was it just my Kryptonite?
). It took me ages to get those fast trills down, the sweeps are annoying too, Petrucci does sweeps so fast. If you know the song Stream Of Consciousness (also by DT), you'll know what I mean. He does like 2 or 3 sweeps in a second >.<
