6,176

(11 replies, posted in Songwriting)

This has been helpful, and I appreciate everyone's advice.  Thank you very much. 

- Zurf

Paul Simon is extremely prolific and is surely in the running. 

James Taylor has had hundreds of songs on albums, let alone just written.  That's amazing too.  He's up there, I'm sure.

Barry Manilow, if you include jingles, is probably in that running as well.  He wrote advertising jingles early in his career, and probably wrote hundreds of those before even releasing a record.  And then he's been releasing a record every year or two for the past thirty years, and writing with and for others.  He's got to be in the running.

Willie Nelson has been writing songs for close to fifty years.  He's been known to write as many as three a week, once even three in a day!  He's got to be in the running as well.

While James Brown's accomplishment is surely admirable, I suspect it doesn't get him a crown.

- Zurf

If you have the chords for the song, and know a few finger pick patterns, not really.  From that point it's giong to be practice, practice, practice to be able to finger the chords quickly and fit the patterns or make up new ones to fit the melody of the song. 

I would recommend practicing each chord change a lot of times until its mostly smooth, then start playing the song through with a very simple pattern until you can change the chords while playing the simple pattern.  Then start adding in singing.  And then practice adding in more complex patterns to suit your style.  It could take a while.  Don't be discouraged!  Take it as a "stretch goal" and continue to work on speeding up chord changes and making your fingerpick patterns smooth.  I can't tell you how many thousand times I worked on just two or three fingerpick patterns until my fingers do them automatically.  I'd sit there in front of the TV with my electric (unplugged) just going over them again and again and again.  Same with chord changes. 

It's all a matter of practice and staying enthusiastic now.

- Zurf

6,179

(11 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Music first?

Lyrics first?


Do you find it easier to put a tune to lyrics, or easier to have a concept and find the words to fulfill the concept when you already have a tune in mind.  Obviously, it is an iterative process with both the tune and the words being refined, but where do YOU start?

I have a new song concept in mind, and thought I'd give it a go when I'm not stoned on pain killers and anesthesia.  I don't know what I'm doing, so figured I'd ask for how others go about it. 

I know this has been addressed before, so sorry for asking a repeat question.  I throw myself upon the kindness and generosity of Chordians when I ask you to repeat yourselves. 

- Zurf

6,180

(23 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

What a great couple at a great venue.  Oh man, that is going to be just so cool - and to share it with your daughter too.  How cool is that? 

My daughter did the same thing as yours, getting interested in her old man's music.  Her lullabies have long been John McCutcheon, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffett, etc.  She asks me to sing her the same song night after night until she memorizes it.  I didn't know that was what she was doing until one time when she was four.  She had been in the shower for a long time and I went to check on her.  She was just fine, but when I heard this darling little four year old blonde girl who had never known hunger or a cold, damp night without a warm dry bed singing "Looks like nothing's going to change, everything still remains the same, I can't do what ten people tell me to, so I guess I'll remain unchanged..."    Well, it just cracked me up.   

- Zurf

6,181

(10 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

bud_wiser wrote:

Sorry doc, Edge's name is Dave Evans tongue

So long as we've confirmed that it isn't Dale Evans, but that would be wierd.

The irony of Woolworths identifying the worst clothes is almost too much to bear.

- Zurf

6,183

(2 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Cool.  Keep up the good work.  I usually say that I play AT guitar.  Kind of in the same boat as you - I have a hard time getting to the barre chords, and they still sound muddy at least half the time.  I'm learning how to apply the right amount of pressure, thanks to the wonderful advice of Chordians. 

- Zurf

badeye wrote:

I usually play at the nut with fifths and sevenths depending on the song. Acoustic guitar is a blast.

...Badeye cool

Well, I'm real similar in that I'm usually the nut playing.  big_smile

- Zurf

The style is neither good nor bad.  It is yours.  If I wanted to hear the song done exactly the same way as it was done on an album, I'll just play the album. 

- Zurf

If I may be cynical, I suggest that what it requires to be a hit is to be the brainchild or "find" of a Music Row mucketymuck.  There are so many incredibly talented musicians playing bars that are better than what we hear on the radio.

- Zurf

6,187

(8 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Clifton Chenier is the King of the Bayou.
That must mean that CJ is the prince.

- Zurf

6,188

(8 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Does anyone have a good source for Zydeco / Cajun chords and lyrics?  There's got to be some out there somewhere, but I can't find them.  It seems like just about everything Zydeco is C, A, D, G in one order or another. 

I was listening to some Geno Delafose earlier and really wanted to try and find the lyrics to Promised Land, but could only come up with tabs to a Grateful Dead song (which may be the same song, but the tabs had no lyrics, just the cool riffs).  Anyway, I found all sorts of studies and important sounding histories and other full-of-themselves studies condescending to how great the music is, a few reviews, but no actual chords or lyrics.

Geno Delafose, C.J. Chenier, etc. 

Let me know if you know of anything like that. 

Thanks,
Zurf

It wierds me out a little when there are tribute bands for bands that are still touring.  I'm just saying. 

- Zurf

6,190

(10 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

John Denver = John Duselldorf  (not really rock, but it's the only one I know without Googling)

- Zurf

6,191

(17 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Same as always - MacArthur Park.  Hideous waste of a wonderful classical piece.  I can no longer listen to the classical piece without putting those awful lyrics in (in my head - I wouldn't subject others to my singing them). 

Honky Tonk Bedonkadonk.  Just about as stupid of a song as there has ever been written for Country music, and that's saying something.  Flat out dopey.  And it went way up the charts and stayed there, too.  Go figure.

- Zurf

6,192

(15 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Out of that list: Country.  I generally play what I call Sissified 70's Folk/Pop - John Denver, James Taylor, Jim Croce, etc., so forth.  From the list, Country.  I play a fair bit of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, a little Alan Jackson. 

- Zurf

Sir, I am jealous of your scenery.  What a terrific looking office! 

Well done.   

- Zurf

6,194

(7 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

In the early 80's I was in college and had already been working for some while.  It doesn't seem so long ago.  Red Hot Chili Peppers are among the "newer" music in my library.  Take no offense, please.  I had assumed you were younger than I and was teasing a bit.  One of the fun things about these forums is the differences in perspective from age, culture, and location we each bring. 

- Zurf

I like Father & Son too.  It's in my play list.  I thought it was brilliant when I was young.  I think it moreso now that I have kids of my own.

As far as turns of phrases go, I like Jimmy Buffett.  Yeah, yeah, he's not taken very seriously in the music world.  So what?  I like his way of saying what he says.  The line in Margaritaville where he admits that he has no idea where the tattoo came from, or in He Went to Paris with the summation of the main characters' life - "Some of it's magic, and some it's tragic, but I've had a good life all the way." 

Amazing Grace I also agree with.  No one should muck around with it. 

Another song not to be mucked around with because it is the epitome of what it was attempting to be is "Magic Carpet Ride." 

Not much revelation here, I'm sorry to say.  Just participating to participate.

6,196

(7 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

First, there is no "really old" Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

Second, it is good stuff!

Third, here's a couple 'old' bands and a current band to try
- Earth, Wind and Fire
- George Clinton and the Philadelphia Funkadelics  (Thank You Fulettin Me Be Mice Elf)
- Mingo Fishtrap (a Houston band, but you can find them on line)

Zurf

6,197

(11 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Finger pick mostly, but some strumming with a pick.  Just starting to figure out a little flatpicking for an instrumental verse on "Fast Train to Georgia". 

Acoustic almost always, though I have an SG knockoff by Ibanez that sounds good.  I'm just not a lead player yet.  I'll need a LOT of work on scales and arpeggios before I feel confident to play lead.

I play in standard tuning.  I hate barre chords, but that hatred has waned to a general distaste with practice.

My acoustics (one classical, one folk) are both Yamaha, so I kind of like Yamaha guitars.  Were I to have my pick of guitars (sorry for the pun), it would be Blue Ridge.  I love the bass sustain of those guitars.  Wonderful bass sustain that lets you go and play around with the treble strings fingerpicking while not working real hard at keeping the bass notes in the foreground.  I love those Blue Ridge guitars.  I don't have any bad things to say about Breedlove either.

- Zurf

I believe Convoy was C.W. McCall.   I call those "talking country" songs.  Freddy Fender did some.  In fact, a LOT of folks did those talking country songs in the 70's.  They'd sing a verse, the chorus twice, then they'd have a talking verse that ALWAYS seemed to start with "Darlin', now you know I love you..." and then would go on to explain that even though the singer loved Darlin' why he slept with half the women in the trailer park and was still pursuing the other half and generally saying completely ridiculous, inflammatory, and unreasonable things in a low, steady, calm, reasonable sounding voice (with lap steel guitar and brushed drum backup).  Man, that was some crap.  No wonder I went for the sissified folk/pop in the 70's. 

Jerry Reed did do trucker songs, and did perhaps the most famous (other than Convoy) as the opening theme song for the movie "Smokey and the Bandit" - later released as a single named "East Bound and Down." 

- Zurf

6,199

(4 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Well, I have been thinking about having new windows installed.  Perhaps I shall have an opportunity to complete the songs after all.

- Zurf

6,200

(11 replies, posted in Acoustic)

the jazz maverick wrote:

folsom prison blues all night long for me... with optional 3h  15min instrumental.

THUMBS UP!!  That made me laugh right out loud.   What makes it funnier is that I have no idea whether you're joking.

- Zurf