Brings to mind the same sort of enjoyable melancholy as Jim Croce's "Salon and Saloon" or Clapton's "Promises." Well done.
- Zurf
6,752 2007-09-20 18:07:28
Re: Does learning get easier (and faster) as you progress (8 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Check back in a year. I'll let you know then.
- Zurf
6,753 2007-09-20 18:06:24
Re: CHORDS (12 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
G, G7, D, D7, Dsus4, A, A7, Am, C, C7, Bm (the cheater way), E, Em, E7. And every once in a great while when the stars are aligned just right and my index finger is unusually firm: F, F#m.
Enough for most Country songs.
- Big D
6,754 2007-09-20 18:03:24
Re: Embarrassing Moments (43 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Walked backwards into a wall full of expensive photography merchanidise, knocking several shelves akimbo when a particularly attractive customer came in and asked for my boss. I was trying to get to the hallway entrance without taking my eyes off her. Fortunately, I broke nothing by my pride.
- Big D
6,755 2007-09-20 14:43:17
Re: Jim Croce (29 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
I didn't know that David. Thanks for mentioning. I listened to "Don't Mess Around with Jim", "Roller Derby Queen", and "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown" this morning in my car. Now I know why.
- Zurf
6,756 2007-09-20 14:40:08
Re: THE LOOKS (1 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Doc - On that baby thing, not only was there A suit, but a series of them. And the attorney who was bringing a lot of them became a Presidential candidate and remains a Senator. A sad state of affairs.
On the celebrity thing, I used to be a photographer's assistant (also a photographer, but it ends up I made a better assistant) and met many models. They'd come in off the street in sweatpants and sloppy t-shirts, sipping a coffee, hair a mess, looking like real people. Then the makeup artist and hair artist would have their way, some good lighting and nifty filter work, some neat tricks in the darkroom and you've got a supermodel. Hard work for everyone - not trying to make it sound easy.
The thing that surprised me is how many of the women looked better to my eyes in their sweats and sloppy t-shirts than with all the makeup. But once the film was developed and the prints made - WOW!!! There is an art to the makeup, and the hair, and the photography and the darkroom work. All of it working together to make an attractive photograph, but in person the woman doesn't look near as good with the amount of makeup, etc., required.
That said, I guarantee you some of the women you see in print that you think, "Eh, nothing special", you wouldn't be able to keep your eyes off if you saw her at the grocery store. And vice versa. Some of the women who make your eyes pop in a magazine wouldn't even turn your head on the street. The features that make a photograph work don't always look so good in person, and vice versa. Plus there is surely a lot of skill to proper positioning and body control on the part of the model and a lot of work on the part of the makeup/hair artists, and then also the work of the photographer/assistant in proper lighting, props, composition, etc. Then the darkroom guys get their whack at it.
- Zurf
6,757 2007-09-20 14:26:41
Re: what would you do with $500.00 (5 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)
Assuming I had to purchase a guitar with it, a Blue Ridge Gospel edition. Either that, or a Taylor 100e to have an A/E in the toolkit.
- Zurf
6,758 2007-09-19 20:36:15
Re: vocal nodules (21 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Best of luck Ken. I don't know about your singing, but you seem to be a man devoted to his shouting. :~)
- Zurf
6,759 2007-09-19 20:35:02
Re: FUNNY FACTS 10 (8 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Eagle Eye - Come now. ALL drunks think they can sing, or don't care if they can't. While there are many good reasons to visit Nashville, you've just given me a good reason not to. :~)
- Zurf
6,760 2007-09-19 20:30:01
Re: beginner acustic (5 replies, posted in Acoustic)
WeaserP wrote:
Pick other songs?
Or maybe if you notice a mistake in a song sheet of a song you're playing, when you play it - just play it "right."
I think most of our songwriters on these forums can attest to not singing songs the same way all too often even when they're the one who wrote it and knows it best.
- Zurf
6,761 2007-09-19 16:37:18
Re: Another untitled gospel song form last rebel.... (13 replies, posted in Songwriting)
Very nice song LR. I've been wanting to play more Country Gospel but am having a hard time coming up with songs I can play. As you said, they're a fair bit more difficult than regular Country tunes. Some of the chords I think were designed to demonstrate that they cannot be played but with Divine Intervention. This one's going into my book.
- Zurf
6,762 2007-09-19 16:27:53
Re: FUNNY FACTS 10 (8 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
I am pleased to report that I have never been subjected to an evening of Karaoke. Seems like anything from someone with a really distinctive voice would be slaughtered in such a context. Patsy Cline being the most distinctive from the list above. When I sing Crazy, I use Willie Nelson's version as a guide. No one can do Miss Patsy's justice but Miss Patsy (and possibly Leanne Rhimes).
6,763 2007-09-18 20:28:41
Re: B chord blues (13 replies, posted in Acoustic)
Transcribe!!! That's my solution.
- Zurf
6,764 2007-09-18 13:53:19
Re: playing to the cows (15 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
My dog likes to come around and sleep near me when I play instead of sleeping in another room. That's as much as I can say about that. When I played trumpet, the dogs we had around then would either run away and bury their heads under something or sit close by and watch as if in a trance.
I think most people took the run away position when I played trumpet.
- Zurf
6,765 2007-09-18 13:49:52
Re: Radio Stations (21 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
We have a million stations and none of them good. I like the singer/songwriter stuff played on radio and that seems to happen only by a beach. I don't know what it is about saltwater that makes people want to listen to good music, but there you have it.
So, I'll be scanning this thread hoping to find stations posted by folks who live by beaches.
- Zurf
6,766 2007-09-17 17:33:15
Re: Wall mounted (12 replies, posted in Acoustic)
I've had both my basses, a violin, and my electric mounted on wall mounts for several years and have not noticed any effects to playability or tunability. I had my Ovation Magnum professionally set up when I had a new pickup installed, and there were no problems with the neck.
Can't say it will never happen. But I can say that my instruments seem to be no worse for wear.
- Zurf
6,767 2007-09-17 01:23:48
Re: playing to the cows (15 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
A groundhog: http://www.avawine.com/uploaded_images/ … 789407.gif
When I think of moles, I think of little burrowing rodents about the size of a big man's thumb. Groundhogs are more the size of a small, fat dog.
- Zurf
6,768 2007-09-17 00:18:37
Topic: String "tension" or size (2 replies, posted in Acoustic)
I put a new set of strings on a new guitar. There were no set-up instructions. I told the guy at the shop the kind of guitar it is and he said it comes factory set up for medium strings. So I put on medium strings. Now the action is pretty high near the soundhole.
I am going to purchase some light strings and put them on, but will my guitar be harmed by having these medium strings on for a day or so? I could remove the strings, but then I can't practice.
- Zurf
6,769 2007-09-16 13:06:19
Re: playing to the cows (15 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
This current effort to learn guitar in which I am meeting with some moderate success is not my first one.
Many years ago, while I was away at my sophomore year of college, my parents moved from the town where I had grown up in Pennsylvania to Michigan. A difference of about 500 miles to the Northwest. There were no mountains, only one river (but no canoes), and worst of all no friends when I went home that summer. Well, their house was beautiful with a wonderful sunny sitting/family room looking out onto a well decorated garden. I enjoyed sitting in that room and attempting to learn guitar. Now, in that garden lived a groundhog. My father had tried everything to rid the garden of that groundhog - traps, poison, even firearms - all to no avail. So my Mom named the groundhog Penny and that was that. Penny had her run of the garden.
When I practiced the guitar that summer, Penny would come to the stoop, stand up and lean against the screen watching and listening to me play. But when I would strike a wrong chord, Penny would run for cover. The first ever rodent music critic I believe.
Later, when I was in a band playing bass, I relayed that story and we named the band "Penny's Troubadours", with our goal merely to be good enough not to scare a groundhog. We never did get any gigs, but I think we were successful in not scaring vermin.
To this day, I have a framed photo of Penny nearby when I practice.
Perhaps I should move up in biomagnitude and set my sites on acting the siren to cows (but I'm thinking beautiful Irish women would be better, eh, Old Doll?).
- Zurf
6,770 2007-09-16 12:54:05
Re: .i need some good trainig. (2 replies, posted in Acoustic)
I have been concentrating on this particular skill - making and changing chords - since I started playing about a year ago. Here's how I did it. I hope it works for you. I'm sure there are many other ways.
First thing I did was to find a song I wanted to play that had only three or four open chords.
Then I looked carefully at the chords and thought about which fingers would go where when I changed between the chords. I would build a chart of chord changes. The chart would look something like this
G - C
C - G
G - D
D - G
Then I picked would write out the chords beside the transition notes. As you get to know the chords, write them from memory and check if you got them correct. That will help you to remember chord shapes.
Once I knew what all the transitions were, and planned how each finger was going to travel from one chord to the next, I would practice each chord change many times. What I did at first was to remove all my fingers from the finger board and make the new chord. Eventually, I learned that I could leave certain fingers on the fingerboard or just slide them from one string to the next. But I think at first learning to make the entire chord quickly was best for me.
I would go through this exercise for each chord change maybe 100 times. I didn't count, I just did it until it was easier than at first. Then I would add strumming. I'd go with just 1/4 note strums while doing the chord changes. When I didn't stumble too much, I started to sing along. Once that was better, I would try to get strumming patterns that were more interesting.
I hope that routine will be useful to you. Best of luck.
- Zurf
6,771 2007-09-16 12:42:25
Re: a problem with playing barre chords (29 replies, posted in Acoustic)
Is it a strength thing? I saw someone say that what helped her the most with barre chords was using one of those finger and hand exercisers.
I can only occaissionaly get a decent barre chord, but my left hand is already pretty strong from playing bass so I don't get that pain thing.
- Zurf
6,772 2007-09-15 13:50:23
Re: New Trombone Player(Don't Laugh) (12 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Old Doll, sounds like you described either a trumpet or a coronet. A bugle usually has no valves (buttons), or sometimes one. A trumpet and a coronet each have three valves. The only difference so far as I can tell is that a coronet is shorter and deeper than a trumpet. They are bothed keyed in C or Bflat. A similar looking instrument keyed in F that is squat like a coronet but with an enormous bell is a fluglehorn, made famous over here by Chuck Mangione. It has a tremendous mellow tone that works well for ballads and jazz.
- Zurf
6,773 2007-09-15 13:44:41
Re: THE CAT KILLED THE CURIOSITY (1 replies, posted in Acoustic)
I'm afraid that I'm pretty much a ballad guy as a limitation of talent and skill. I'm not able to "rock it" with guitar yet. When I feel the need to "rock out" with an instrument, I put some Stevie Ray Vaughan in my bass trainer and strap on my Ovation Magnum bass. That thing is a mahagony rock machine.
But straight guitar, ballads.
Some of my favorites -
My 20th wedding anniversary coming up this fall and I've been learning a fingerpick arrangement of Randy Travis' "Forever and Ever Amen" for my wife.
Some friends are adopting a child from China and I've put together a Country Waltz arrangement of John McCutcheon's "Happy Adoption Day." It was already in 3/4 time. I put it into Country instead of Folk so that I could get chords I could play, and Country Waltz so that I wouldn't have to do all that fancy picking Mr. McCutcheon plays so smoothly.
My daughters like Loudoun Wainwright III's "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road", which I play in a fingerpick style.
I've done a flamenco influenced fingerpick arrangement on Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night."
To be able to rock out to something on guitar, I've been working on an aggressive fingerpick arrangement of "Crocodile Rock." It's fun feeling like I'm going to break strings, but it still sounds very poor. I need a lot of work on that one.
For easy going strumming songs, I've been working some Jimmy Buffett, just doing a folksy/country strum and not trying to imitate note for note - "Tin Cup Chalice", "Distantly in Love", "A Pirate Looks at Forty". I have also been doing "Never Cared Too Much For Hippies" that Selso posted in the Songwriting forum, and "Country Life" posted there by James McCorcmick. A friend of mine is a Country/Campfire songwriter and has some humorous songs I've been trying to learn to no avail. Same fellow has written a Christian-themed song about an outlaw cowboy coming to Jesus titled "Riding with the Man" that I want to learn. Also Mel McDaniel's "Louisiana Saturday Night", which in the original is arpeggio picking and lends itself nicely to fingerpick, but for some reason I like strumming it. Everybody of a certain age (such as my friends) knows "Take Me Home Country Roads" and so I've learned that in case someone shoves a guitar in front of me at a campfire. It doesn't matter how I play it because everyone sings along to that one. Wille Nelson's "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" is another in that vein.
My current challange is to get good sounding barre chords. After getting a decent sounding barre chord consistently and being able to do them in chord progressions smoothly, my next challange will be to include scales and arpeggios with and without pick. Then after that, which may be a year from now considering how slow my progress, I will start trying to "cover" songs the way people know them from the radio and records.
- Zurf
6,774 2007-09-14 21:37:50
Topic: Hopefully constructive comment (2 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
I am definitely not digging the software upgrade. Any songs in my songbook that don't have the chords in the later verses or choruses simply run off the page with no breaks or structure when viewed on screen. That's not helpful. Rather than making things easier to read, it makes things considerably more difficult.
Not meant to criticize any decisions, as I know new things have to be tried to attempt to have improvement. I'm just putting it out there assuming that user friendliness is a goal of the site (which it clearly is considering how well run it is) and that it may be useful to the administrators to have user comments.
Feel free to ignore.
- Zurf
6,775 2007-09-14 20:54:55
Re: New Trombone Player(Don't Laugh) (12 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Get a copy of "Carmine Caruso musical calisthenics for brass". There is no other set of exercises that will develop your embouchre, breath control, range, and tone so quickly and so well as that.
I have played trumpet, slide trombone, valve trombone, baritone, and tuba in various orchestras and stage bands. My horns haven't been blown for a long time (sigh). I stopped playing when living in close quarters and once out of the habit of practice never started again. I had hair, it was brown, and was forty or fifty pounds lighter last time I played a horn. Anyway, get that book. You won't regret it.
- Zurf