Lesson a week 13: I Crush Everything
Whoa, I almost didn't get this posted by the end of the week. It's been a little hectic around here, but I'm glad I still get the lesson up before week's end. I'm running out of hard drive space quickly. I'll probably just buy another one soon, but as usual, I need the money for other things. Either way, this week's lesson is one of the hardest ones yet, but that's mostly because there are just a lot of things to explain. Once you get some of these patterns under your fingers, you'll see that's it's not as hard as it sounds. Next week will be "I'm Your Moon"
Lesson a Week 13: I Crush Everything
Guitar Technique: Fingerpicking
Lesson a Week 13: I Crush Everything
Guitar Technique: Fingerpicking
Comments
As for explaining it better I think you do a good job. But I don't have a good enough ear to listen and say "oh, he's doing this". I need to see what fingers are hitting what strings; that's why tab works better for me.
Cause I don't like it that much. I'll keep going at it, but it's hard, and my fingers are fat.
edit: Wow, I feel dumb and more confused. I've been making the chord, but picking the wrong strings. Or at least, picking the strings in the wrong order. This might make things easier or more tough....
Here is playthrough from a couple of days ago... sausage being made, rough, lots of mistakes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTb72JN5dec
A couple of practice sessions later, I'm getting it much smoother... it's falling into place. I'll make a more polished video of the part the next time I get some quiet time.
CoolJammer, I worked through just the first part of a book on Travis picking (Hanson's _Art of Contemporary Travis Picking_) and suddenly much that was mysterious about fingerpicking has become clear. The main thing about Travis picking is it gives you a pattern you use with the right hand that alternates the bass strings with the thumb. Most of the most basic patterns seem to only use the thumb, index, and middle fingers, so they really are pretty simple. Practice these patterns and your right hand will do them on autopilot without having to think much about it, and you can then concentrate on the left hand chord changes. Suddenly the song sounds really complicated but it's really kind of a stunt -- you don't have to consciously think about most of those notes! (If Coulton did, he'd be unable to sing along... he'd probably start drooling).
The one I'd like to work on next is "Summer's Over" -- that has a lot of movement. I think JoCo may have overlaid a second guitar part on some of it. The tab on this one is somewhat confusing to me too.
A while back, I started to work out what was actually being picked for Summer's Over (not that I have any hope of playing it any time soon). I know what you mean about sounding like two overlaid guitars -- I originally thought the same thing. But I actually think it can all be done on one. First thing to note, is that I'm convinced the capo is on the 7th fret, which I deduced from what the lowest bass note that was being played (and specifically a note which isn't being played in the bass even though you would expect it to be).
The rhythmic trick (which is why the tab is hard to read) is this weird 2-against-3 rhythm. When I was pretending to play it, I think I was actually using four fingers. The two lower (pitched) strings are generally waltzing along with an "oom-pah-pah" triple rhythm (alternating bass and a second note for the pah-pah's), meanwhile the higher two strings (which sound overlaid) are alternating back and forth between two higher notes in a plain duple rhythm (1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and...). You can practice these two parts individually as if they were two separate guitar parts, and then combine them later. When you combine them, they sound something like:
1 (2-and-3) 2 (2-and-3) 3 (2-and-3) 4 (2-and3)
I actually started to put this into a notation editor at one point, so if you'd like to see the actual notes (for the beginning) I can provide it.
Good work on the Summers Over tab Caleb. it definately is just one guitar.
When I listen to the original, everything up until "Nights get cold" sounds like it is one guitar doing a fairly simple picking pattern. When he hits that point, to me it suddenly sounds like there may be another part coming in, which drops out again with the "As they go down" part. Maybe I'm imagining it, but for the rest of his time I can pretty well visualize "ok, thumb doing this, right hand pattern goes like this" but for those bits suddenly it would require an extra finger playing double-time on one of the strings he's already using for bass notes. I'm not an expert at finger-picking yet by any means, but if he's really doing that all with his right hand I'd like to figure out how!
I'll have to listen a little more closely, maybe to a slowed-down version, and see what I can work out... it would be better if there was a live version to work against.
Here's what I think I'm hearing for those measures (without having a guitar to check with). The first pattern 4x, the second and third patterns, each 2x. Then repeat for "Bide their time" (but using a different final chord pattern that I haven't figured out, instead of D7, for "As they go down")
(capo: 7th fret) G7 x4 Am x2 D7 x2 (first time) |--------|--------|--------| |----3---|----1---|----1---| |-0------|-2------|-2------| |---3-3--|---2-2--|---0-0--| |--------|-0------|-0------| |-3------|--------|--------|
(ETA: Fixed the first measure based on actually trying this on a real guitar while playing the mp3)
(*) - Not to be confused with Air on the G string.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENgr0ZPpK1Q
My finger-picking technique is pretty awful; using nails for the first time, only recently having grown them out for the purpose, and found that my ring finger nail grows half as fast. The chorus walkdown part is also not quite right at all. I have started practicing it as Dave tabbed it out, but I'm not playing it that way in this clip.
Current plan is to get a good (well, passable) recording of the guitar part when I next get quiet time to record, and hand it off to Joe who is gonna sing along with it. I might try to come up with a bass part or harmony vox... we'll see. (Still have to try some more tweaks to the Creepy Doll mix too... so little to do, so much time!)
;' )
In terms of fingerpicking, I have no idea if this is correct technique, but what I've tried is on the first two notes of each beat (played simultaneously), I "pinch" with my thumb and middle fingers, followed by alternating index-ring-index for the "2-&-3" part. I hope that made sense.
Dave, I'd love to see a lesson for Summer's Over. I really wish I got more quiet time to work on things like this... it sounds like after I've (just about) mastered "I Crush Everything," "Summer's Over" shouldn't be that hard. But lately it's all I can manage to just keep the kids watered and fed and beaten to sleep every night...
I've continued to practice this guitar part every night and it is pretty smooth now (better than in this video), so I should be ready to record the guitar part this weekend, if circumstances allow. I've been practicing playing it blindfolded to make sure I break the habit of looking at my hands. (That works with this one because it is all in first position). Playing-while-singing is sometimes still a little hard for me when the guitar part is taxing. I'm still not entirely sure how JoCo does it so smoothly without actually either drooling or crashing his CPU...
Not sure how to get rid of that slight rhythmic squeak I'm getting from my fingernails on the strings. 3 in 1 oil?
I'll get it uploaded soon
(Leave the squeak... I like the squeak! ;' ) )
Also, having read some how-to sites... apparently my mic placement for the acoustic is all wrong -- there's a lot of weird low-frequency noise. And I probably shouldn't be compressing it at all; the compressor is doing strange things to the audio. Not to mention reflections from my studio room. Joe, I might try to upload some different versions -- you can see what sounds best.
Here's how it sounds just now...
http://joecovenant.bandcamp.com/track/i-crush-everything-demo
I don't think it needs *much* done to it to be honest ! ;' )
Paul ??
You do have some pops -- maybe a high-pass EQ would help.
Guitars too loud? Maybe they could use just a little more reverb? (I know "more reverb" is usually a bad thing).
Somehow I've tweaked my ears to the point from where lower-bitrate MP3 just sounds painful to me. The audio I get out of playing the track right from the bandcamp page sounds awful -- horrible aliasing noise on the guitars, same as YouTube video. The 320 version sounds _much_ better.
So... maybe it's OK as is. I think I've been listening to crappy (bit-rate) compression and fretting that the awful sound was coming from crappy (volume) compression. I don't think it is.
But... there is this irritating low-frequency resonance that is due, I think, to having my mic too close to the soundhole. It could probably be fixed by EQ, and it probably would be fine to just take the compression off the guitars entirely (that might work better than just reducing their volume).
There's a bad edit at about 1:31, and maybe a couple others I could tweak a little. Let me upload new uncompressed WAVs for the final version and see if that sounds better.
Speaking of bit rate -- Caleb, do you have the final mix of "My Monkey" in FLAC?
Bandcamp wants everything uncompressed and does its own compression. I'm gonna have to re-export some of my parts. I think I'm going to wind up paying JoCo _again_ for all his tracks to get them in FLAC form.
Dammit, I'm still at work... it just passed midnight... got slammed by a whole bunch of new bug reports. Grrr...