Lump Sum – Bon Iver
Lump Sum is the second song off of Bon Iver’s debut For Emma Forever Ago. This song has a few different interesting things going on, first of the song is tuned to Open D, which means when you strum all of the strings it makes a D chord, but the song isn’t in the key of D, the song is in the key of A. The other really interesting thing you’ll notice right off the bat is the rhythm of the song, it has this very forward leaning, self propulsive thing going on, very cool, I found it easy to catch but kind of hard actually figure out what was going on.
Here’s the chord sheet.
Flume – Bon Iver
It’s the start of a new school year. For teacher’s this is really “New Year’s” not that little holiday we have at the beginning of January. And so in the spirit of New Year’s I’ve made a resolution, brevity is the new watchword, no more blog posts that run on and on, just the facts.
Here we go.
Flume, by Bon Iver. I heard this song like I mentioned in a previous post on a Peter Gabriel record. I’d heard the name before but I figured it was just another bearded folky, not an artist who would soon preoccupy so much of my music listening time.
The song is in the key of C(albeit the guitar is ever so slightly detuned,) in 4/4 time, and the trickiest chord is an F chord. It uses a very basic bass/strum rhythm, nothing too hard or strange about the song, except for the structure. Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver has the strangest concept of song structure. Which is perhaps where part of his genius lies, the composition can appear random but it would seem he is completely intentional. For instance look at how he transitions from the chorus into the musical interludes. As you’re wrapping up the last bar of the chorus you’re also hitting the first bar of the intro again.
Strange.
He’s also great for learning new words. I have no idea what a flume has to do with gluey feathers, but sometimes the image a word conjures is more important than the word itself.
I Will Follow by U2
The Edge is one of my all-time favourite guitarists. The way he focuses everything he plays, there isn’t a note out of place, not a single sound that doesn’t elevate the song to the next level, or that distracts from the whole of the song. Especially in the band’s later material. But I thought I would start at the beginning, before “The Edge” became the sonic architect that he is. In fact those abilities were hinted at right from the start, but at the beginning U2 really was just another punk band. I think a lot of people seem to forget that. In my research for this post, I found a lot of information about Edge’s style, his gear, and especially his delay, in fact I even found what appears to be a thesis on this very subject(www.amnesta.net/edge_delay) Songs, and sounds dissected down to their very core. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact I found a lot of the info very helpful. But the thing with guitar tabs, and song transcription is that what the guitarist does from night to night, performance to performance, varies. There are so many subtleties that affect the musician, and if we attempt to transcribe everything note for note, and then learn that, I feel that what we end up with is really just a robotic reproduction of one particular moment in time. ( Of course there are always exceptions, but the music that captures my imagination most, seems to always have that possibility for spontaneous creation built in.) I really feel that a song can be so much more than that reproduction. A song can transcend that, and become something new every time it’s played. So I’ve always found the trick to reading guitar tablature is in the sifting, it’s how we weigh what’s on the page, and figure out what the meat is, forget the rest, and add our own seasoning so to speak.
So let’s get started. The first thing you want to do, is you want to tune your guitar down a 1/2 step, so the notes are low to high Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb. On the original recording of the song that’s what the band is tuned to, although I did find live videos where the band was playing it in standard tuning. Then set yourself up with a subtle delay , an analog sounding delay would be best, with one or two repeats that are quieter than the initial attack. Delay like this really fattens up the little two or three note guitar parts, it also adds a lot of dimension to a one guitar band.
Now the bones of this song is based around two main parts. In the tab I’ve included, they are labeled as “Part A” and “Part B”. Part A is pretty straightforward it occurs in the intro, and between verses, etc. It consists of alternating between 5ths, and 4ths. It’s pretty much all downstrokes. Part B comes in during the verses and The edge alternates between the E chord and the D chord (on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings) using either full chords palm muted or arpeggios. This is what I was talking about earlier, in every version I saw of this song, he played that part differently, so what you have to do is get the song in your bones, play it a bunch of times, and then feel it out, figure out what works for you. If The Edge does it different depending on circumstances, I’m sure we’re allowed a little creative license as well. Remember use your ears, less is always more.
The last part of the song has been labeled Part C, this is the bridge, and it is really simple. Using harmonics at the 12th, 7th, 5th, and then 7th fret again on beat one of every measure. Harmonics are a pretty cool trick, basically the way you get a harmonic is you lightly touch the string of a guitar over a certain fret after it’s been plucked, and you get that high shimmery sound. That’s pretty much all there is.
Here’s the TAB. I Will Follow.
Here’s a link to a cool old video of the band doing the song.
Bring Berkeley Home Benefit Concert
My wife Loni and I will be performing at this benefit concert next weekend. It’s to help support our friends James and Cammy, as they walk through the adventure of overseas adoption. Their story is completely inspiring, this is a couple who has really put their money where their mouth is, and in the process of living by their convictions, fallen helplessly in love with this child. I want to encourage you to come on out and support them, stand by them, be a part of something bigger.
Here’s a link to read more about their story, and to get the info on the concert. http://jamesandcammy.blogspot.com/
And this is a photo of their daughter.
Hope to see you there.
…one life, but we’re not the same, we get to carry each other, carry each other…
Conor
Illustrated Bible Stories For Children…
My favourite Canadian band is The Weakerthans. And my favourite thing about them is probably the poetry set to music, the lyrics are amazing. But musically I really connect with them as well. Jason Tait is probably one of my favourite drummers to watch and listen to, and Stephen Carroll plays some of the coolest guitar parts.
I’ve been on a bit of a kick lately, listening to their 4 albums over and over, chronologically, alphabetically, backwards, forwards, I may have a problem.
The first song off of their debut album “Fallow”, really stood out as a cool guitar thing. So I thought it would be a great song to figure out and put on the blog. The song is really a poem set to a very simple melody, with an unadorned guitar accompaniment. This song doesn’t even use chords really. Since a chord typically needs at least three notes (a triad). The guitar in this song plays what are called diads. A diad is two notes played at the same time. Diads are used all the time in music, and are sometimes referred to as intervals of 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc. It just depend on what notes you are playing. The most common interval or diad used is the “5th”, to explain what I mean by this, an “A5″ would be an A note and an E note, or a “C5″ would be a C note and a G note. 5ths are also known as power chords. In this song we are using intervals of 3rds to build our diads, so when the chord sheet says play an A chord, you need to play an A note and a C# note. (see the chord diagrams on the lead sheet for suggested fingering.)
Once you get the fingerings sorted out, it is a pretty simple song. Just a series of ascending and descending thirds, played on the beat.
Here’s a link to hear the song.
Enjoy.
Conor
Copperline by James Taylor
This week I decided to tackle one of my favourite James Taylor songs, “Copperline”. I first heard this song while watching the dvd from Eric Clapton’s first Crossroads guitar festival. This performance blew me away, I’d been aware of James Taylor for as long as I can remember but he was never really a favourite until I saw this. His performance was so casual, and he came across as such a humble, normal guy. Traits that always up my respect level for an artist.
The strangest thing about this song is the idosyncratic way in which james Taylor approaches playing the guitar, other than that it’s just a great folk song, about going back to the place you grew up. He almost exclusively uses his fingers, but rarely settles into a traditional pattern. In fact it seems often that as long as the chords fall where he wants them to, in time with the rest of the band, it doesn’t matter how he gets there.
In this particular song he’s almost using a banjo technique called frailing for the verses, and in the chorus and bridge, what he plays becomes a lot more free and loose. So for todays post we’re going to focus on this idea of frailing.
The song is capo’d at the second fret, which puts us in the key of E.
To begin with, the signature guitar sound of the song comes from making a Dsus2 chord, and hammering onto the second fret of the 5th string, (which makes a Dsus2/B chord). The frailing part works this way, use your thumb for the bass notes and those bass notes land on every beat of the measure. In between your bass notes your index finger flicks down the treble strings and then catches them on the way back up. I suggest starting slowly and spend some time on the Dsus2 chord without worrying about changing the chord, the feel is a little strange at first if you’ve never used this technique before.
After you’ve got that rhyhm sorted out, this is where it gets even a little more strange. On the third beat of the measure he pulls his finger off the B note on the 5th string, and hammers onto the second fret of the first string which is still ringing out from when you strummed it the 1/2 beat before, and effectively turns the Dsus2 into a straight D major. Now you’ve got one hand (strumming hand) doing one thing, and the other (fretting hand) doing something just slightly later, it takes some time to get used to it, but if you go slow, it shouldn’t be too tricky.
Once you come out of the verse, the feel in the chorus is a little different. This is where the frailing stops and what he starts to play becomes a combination of fingerpicking and casual strumming, whatever works to get the job done. If you get yourself familiar with the song, however you decide to play the chorus should come out sounding just fine. The bridge is also very similar, the music kind of stops and hangs, as he sings the lyrics.
Here’s the chord sheet. Copperline.
Later.
The Intro to John Mayer’s “Say”
So my wife and I had the chance to see John Mayer a couple of summers ago just outside of San Francisco. The highlight of the evening for me was when he played his song “Say” from the movie “The Bucket List.” He’s got loads of great songs, and he is an amazing guitarist, but this song really stood out that evening.
So I thought I would try and figure out the intro to this song. Like I said it’s a pretty simple song, just some basic chords, and acoustic guitar should really do you just fine around the campfire. But for today I’ve settled for the intro, which turned out to be the trickiest part.
There are loads of versions of people playing this on youtube, and a bunch of different tabbed versions available, but none of them sounded quite right to me, and they used some very strange, counter-intuitive fingerings. But you know I’m not even sure that on the recording it’s actually a guitar, maybe it is, maybe it’s a couple of guitars, I’m not sure, and maybe that’s why some of the fingerings people have figured out are so strange. When we saw him perform the song, the intro was played by his guitarist Robbie McIntosh on some tiny instrument, perhaps a ukulele or something but I haven’t been able to figure that out either.
So here’s what I came up with, capo at the 10th fret, and we’re using chord shapes based around C, F, and G shaped chords. Of course with the capo at the 10th fret that puts us into the key of Bb.
For starters, this intro is fingerstyle so you’ve got to use the fingers on your right hand, and with your fretting hand (your left hand) you’ve got to use a light touch that dampens the strings so as to keep sustain to a minimum and will help you get that rhythmic feel that really makes this song groove.
For the first three chords in this four chord progression you’re using the top 4 strings, and on the last chord which is the G shaped chord you only use the D,G, and B string. And each chord gets a full bar, the progression goes like this Bb (or C), Eb (or F), Bb (or C), F (or G).
The first chord would be what I call your C shaped chord, you could use an Am7 because we aren’t actually using the bottom two strings so it doesn’t really matter. But the harmony of the song implies that this is the C chord (or Bb). So that’s why I say use a C chord. The second chord is what I call your F-shaped chord it’s actually the shape of an Fsus2, drop your middle finger off of the 3rd string and leave that string open, barring the top 2 strings with your first finger. And that last chord is very loosely based around the G chord, it only requires one finger on the third fret of the second string.
The finger roll starts with your thumb plucking the 4th string, then index and middle finger grab the top two strings, then index finger grabs the third string, and then you repeat that twice for each bar. In the first and third bar you leave out the “and” beat of the third beat which gives the riff the funky feel, and adds a lot of movement to this simple chord change.
That’s about it. From what I can tell, if it is a guitar that plays this part this is pretty close to what’s going on. If you’ve got any questions I’d love to hear from you.
Bon Iver’s Re: Stacks
So I discovered Bon Iver (Justin Vernon’s Nom de Guerre) a little while ago, via Peter Gabriel actually. Which is funny because I listen to a lot of music similar to Bon Iver already, but had never stumbled across him until Peter Gabriel recorded his song “Flume”.
So I figured his song “Re: Stacks” would be a great place to start. I’ve decided a big part of this blog, will not only be my experiences teaching the guitar, but my experiences learning the guitar. I find for myself, learning the guitar has always been about the little things that stick to you as you listen to music, the tiny things that grab your attention enough to make you stop and figure them out. This is what makes us as musicians all so unique, it’s our personal, individual experience of something available to everyone.
So as I sat down to learn this song one major thing stood out, he’s using a weird tuning. Great. I hate figuring out weird tunings, thankfully most people use most of the same alternate tunings, unless your talking Joni Mitchell or Nick Drake. But even though the song was likely in a tuning I was already familiar with, I’m still not very good at picking those things up by ear. So what to do first? Well before we get carried away let’s define “alternate tuning.” An alternate tuning is when you tune the strings of a guitar to anything other than what is accepted as standard tuning. Standard being EADGBE. A guitarist would do this to get a different sound out of the guitar. Going into all the different tunings here is beyond the scope of this particular post, suffice it to say even among the common tunings there are a lot of them. So I have to admit the first place I go when trying to figure something out that doesn’t come to me in the first 5 minutes is either youtube or a google search for the tab of the particular song I’m interested in. These really are great tools, and on this one I used both. Of course google will most certainly turn up some incorrect versions of the song and it is really hard to figure out which fingers are on which strings on youtube videos, but both are a great starting point. So google came up with a few different ideas, the first version I found was in standard tuning and capo’d at the 2nd fret, okay this works but it’s just not the real thing, moving on. I found another copy made from a live recording on youtube, open “D” tuning capo’d at the 6th fret. I tried it out it sounded okay, some of the fingerings were a little odd, but it would probably work, and it lined up okay with the videos on youtube. Next step, let’s put the album on and play along a little bit. Close, but no cigar as they say. In fact it seems very close. So at this point it seems I am on my own, so where to go from here? It is very unlikely that Justin Vernon would write and record the song one way and then perform it in a completely different way, especially since the live versions sound so similar to the recorded one. Something that is extremely common is recording something in one key, right at the top of a performers vocal register where it sounds the best, and then for performance sake lowering it by what’s called a half-step, or semi-tone, to make it much more doable night after night. So let’s try that. Bingo. The song is recorded in the key of A, the guitar tuned to an open “D” tuning (D,A,D,F#,A,D), and capo’d at the 7th fret.
I find when trying to figure something like this out by ear, it’s best to just isolate the first chord if you can. And really concentrate on that bass note in the chord, really pay attention to whether or not the note seems sharp or flat, and then go from there. Once you’ve got the first chord’s bass note nailed it becomes much easier to tell what the next chord will be, becaue you have a pretty good idea now of which keys that chord belongs in.
Another trick when dealing with a song in a different tuning is once you’ve worked out the tuning, that tuning is typically the key of the song, so move the capo around and strum the strings open, generally speaking when you hit the right capo position the open strum should fit into the song.
If you’re interested here’s the chord sheet I worked up for this song. Keep in mind, there’s all kinds of hammer-ons and grace notes that I haven’t taken into account. I’ll leave that stuff up to you and your ear.
The Open Road, or My Journey Starting a New Guitar teaching Business In The Cowichan Valley
Starting Sept. 15th I start a new adventure.
I begin my journey as a professional musician. The business is registered, the name has been painfully agonized over, and something I think I can live with for the foreseeable future has been chosen. (In case your wondering I chose to use my own name, it’s been pretty good for the last 30 years, I don’t see it wearing out over the next 30.)
So professional musician, that title is not really what I thought when I first picked up the guitar. By professional I mean I will use the guitar, the thing I’ve probably poured the most thought into over the last 16 years, to make a living. By professional I mean I’m going to teach guitar lessons. I get to share what I’ve learned over the last 16 or so years with others, and that excites me, I’m the luckiest guy in the world.
So if you’re interested, this space is for me to let the world in on the adventure, to share some of the cool things that I learn from students, some of the things I pick up along the way. To share a little bit about how I relate to the guitar, and how I relate to music.
Thanks for stopping by.
Later.
