dirkv wrote
Hey everyone,
I was just wondering which songs you guys have learnt to play recently.
Well there's ... errr what's the title? "The Coconut Song?" You know it "You put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up". It's by Harry Nillson. Didn't take me long as it has exactly one chord (C7). (though rendering the line "doctor, is there nothing I can take" in increasingly crazed fashion, as the song requires, is an interesting exercise).
A little more challenging were "He Said, She Said" and "Thanksgiving" by Loudon Wainwright. The former was difficult for me because it requires a lot of fastish rhythmic work with the pick. I am quite good at dropping picks and so tend to steer clear of pieces that require a lot of strumming and where I can't just take over with fingers if I drop the pick. Having worked at this piece I am not as good at dropping picks as I once was. (This is the song that got me the title of "X-rated Bob" at TJs)
The second Wainwright piece caused me some physical pain because it's ALL in first position and I'm not used to constantly playing in that position and having to deal with the string tension there. So that's another little challenge crossed off. The other difficulty that I had with it was timing the vocal to fit in with the guitar part. Some of the lines have words and phrases that force you into varying the timing in order to make the words fit. Not insurmountable, but it interested me to find that playing the piece was fairly simple, singing it was fairly simple, but singing it and playing it at the same time was rather more of a challenge.
I am working on Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" (which must surely be the best motor bike song) but to get that right I have to up my fingerpicking speed and be able to sustain it. It's coming together.
Finally I amended by arrangement of the Bee Gee's "New York Mining Disaster 1942" to get more movement in the bass.
