When I was on site in March I had a crack at the old classic "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John/Bernie Taupin. I based it on Naudo's version. I think my dad played that song a lot when I was a kid, I have always felt a bit of a connection with it.
It is similar in playing style to other Naudo classics like "Without You" and "Whiter Shade of Pale". Lots of different chords in different inversions on the fretboard so you can hit the melody high notes. It's not difficult to play other than remembering which chord is next, and what crazy shaped chord you need to hit so that you can work the melody line and (slightly walking) bassline together. It's nearly at production stage, here is the bulk of it, bit rough around the edges but they all are for the first six months!
I usually have more than one song on the go, but never more than three. This is so I'm not stuck in a rut on one song, and I can bounce between songs. Staying away from a song for a week can sometimes be more beneficial than struggling with it for a week. Your brain gets time to do some background processing on it.
When I bought my "Muso Hat" a few months back, one of the guys I work with who was there when I was comping hats online said "That one is very Bruno Mars." After a puzzled look, he brought me somewhat into the present day for a moment, and made me decide I needed a modern day tune. After my earlier debacle with a modern day tune I was nervous (I learnt a very catchy Aussie rock tune that was getting massive airplay, and by the time I had it down, the tune was gone. I still play it, but it is more lost than my 70's and 80's classics I reckon.)
However the Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars song "Uptown Funk" he gave thumbs up to was still getting airplay after 6 months, still catchy, and Kel Valleau had already made a GREAT arrangement of it. So I figured I would just copy that. I don't have to reinvent the wheel every song!
I'm a big fan of Kel's work, over the years he has developed some good tapping techniques - nah not that rubbishy fretboard tapping, I'm talking soundboard and body tapping. He bass drum thumps with his wrist, and snare drum taps with his fingers. Recently I noticed he's gone to an electronic pad to tap for snare, all good, but for now I was just going to keep it "simple". No wrist thump (not worked on that yet) just my standard percussive flick.
Now this one is quite hard. Progress is slow. It requires a lot of accuracy and clean individual notes plucked between percussive flicks. My normal flicks are only one per bar, some of this is four per bar. And single notes, I can't hide flicked notes in rhythm. And the bassline is syncopated. Look it's all great techniques to pick up, and will be one catchy tune, but wow! Here is where I'm at so far, very rough, a lot of work to go.
As part of my kids education they need to listen to certain music so as to be "well rounded", appreciating at least the music I appreciate... At least my oldest daughter so far. I have a list of classic rock/pop albums that she needs to get through, one is Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" from 1977. I relistened to it, remembered it fondly, and decided to have a crack at "The Chain". People had asked me in the past if I knew any Lindsey Buckingham style songs, seeing as I'm a fingerpicker, he's a fingerpicker, and my reply was always "He's already made them complicated enough as it is, imagine trying to put a bass and melody on that!"
Well I'm finally up for it, but wow, it is proving difficult. I'm liking the results I'm getting, but my ear is so bad I can't pick the melody. Not helped by the fact there is a lot of harmonies. Another problem there is I want to keep the melody down where I can reach it while attempting to do the fingerstyle riffs. Let's just say that it is an improvisation.
I've modelled it more along the lines of the Dance 1997 recording rather than the original recording, including playing it in D rather than E (complete with Drop D Tuning.)
Again, not amazing but I think you can see where I'm going. Still work to be done.
There you go! JAW is still around, working on stuff, just slowly! Enjoy!
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