The acoustic music discussion thread - The Bear and Badger

nick_md

Always loved this clip of Big Bill, filmed by Pete Seeger I think:

nick_md

Spent the day working on this - pretty easy to pick up the basics as it's same progression as That'll Never Happen No more:

Obvs not nailing it like matey there, but even so I've got a good enough stomp going atm I think. Need to find a buddy with a washboard.

nick_md

At home ill today, taking a break from steel for a bit of sweet, sweet nylon. Trying to get a workmanlike cover of this down:

Using this dude as a starting point:

Decent arrangement I thought, despite the chequered muscle shirt. Never gonna be a good look.

Tbh I'm getting enough enjoyment just fingering the chord progression.

Moot_Geeza

Gotta grab some Morricone scores on cd, now that I'm a lossless wanker. So fucking good.

nick_md

Innit.

In other news, mate at work brought a banjo in today. So. Hyped. Been waiting damn near my whole life to have a bash on a banjo.

nick_md

After a few months hiatus, gonna get back to it I think. Considering proper lessons now at this point, not sure how much I can continue to fumble my way through, getting older, ain't got time to waste another 10 years picking up the odd bit here and there.

In my head all day:

nick_md

Saw this in the shop window down Denmark st.

Pretty much the same as Blind Boy Fuller used to play, man would love to own something like that.

Not much else to report - been out of playing for a while now, picked up earlier in the week after I got the hankering for some rag time blues, still loving Blind Blake, pretty much the only bluesman I listen to atm. Currently trying to nail something someways towards a decent bash at Diddie wa Diddie, keep hearing it's a pretty easy tune but dang finding it hard to nail. Thinking of treating meself to lessons come the new year, need that investment of cash to motivate a little, plus some pointers could damn been on the same plateau for years now.

Anyway, loved this guy's Blind Arthur's Breakdown lately, really gets the Blake sound.

Recommend listening to the original ofc.

Tempy

I dunno I just had a swatch at Diddie wa Diddie and it seems pretty heavy duty fingerpicking to me. Something I've always been terrible at. I am trying to nail the beginning of this, and it is proving tricky. The tab I have found is totally different but his hand placement looks too tough for me.

nick_md

Yeah sure that looks tough enough, like most songs I'd probably a reasonable facsimile of the intro and just fudge it. It's a problem really, I need to sit down and be more patient.

And yeah, Diddie wa Diddie's easy insomuch as it's 3 chords, but it's all the bounce around those three chords that gives it the character. Blake's masterful at syncopation as well, that stumble bass. Grossman's got a good vid in terms of rendition, but these old style 'now watch and play along' lesson vids piss me off - yeah right mate, I'll just watch and play along yeah?

Anyway, Blake used to play outside a Jacksonville hotel in the 30s. Imagine that, the best ever ragtime blues guitarist, for me the greatest guitarist ever, just playing outside a hotel. If I had a time machine I'd be sure to stop off back there with a quart of rye and a few choice doobs.

Kow

I don't think there's anyone to beat the blues fingerpicking of Mississippi John Hurt. He makes it seem easy but it's fucking impossible, sounds like two guitars. We're lucky there's some film of him, they just got him before he kicked the bucket.

nick_md

Ah man that's fantastic! I'll take country blues / ragtime blues over 'howlin' blues any day of the week man, there's a happy sadness in it, tunes that raise a smile but still tinged with that hardship.

I won't argue anyone's favourite bluesman, so many I listen to that sound the best. Still Blake for me though, the term 'band in a box' seems so appropriate. It's akin to the Spector Wall of Sound, his best stuff, and yeah like you say, sounds like two guitars. West Coast Blues was the B side to his first record and whilst not my favourite Blake, remains, for me, a pinnacle of that rag sound; the way he throws in, "play that thing, boy", I imagine the calls from the white folk to the blind coloured guitarist playing on the street, not even realising they're seeing greatness:

Also has one of my top solos breaks in the genre from 1:42.

There's a few bits of footage of some greats kicking around, skip james, big bill etc, really great to see them in action. Never knew Mississippi John Hurt had some video, cheers for that Kow.

nick_md

Had my first ever guitar lesson last night after 16 odd years playing.

What a fucking waste.

I told the guy when I booked that I was playing mainly folksy, bluesy, ragtimey stuff. He had no idea what Diddie Wah Diddie was (wish someone would tell me tbh) despite playing in blues bands for decades, and spent the whole lesson on his electric teaching himself a blues in E then copying the tab from a tab book onto a piece of paper. He expected me just to learn note by note.

I kinda expected him to at least ask me to play for 5 or 10 mins first to see what kind of stuff I play, how I play etc, but nah, nothing. He just wanted to play his own guitar and kept morphing everything he was playing into jazz chords complete with little smile and wink at me. What a nob end.

Now, I know learning an instrument is tricky, but I can play the damn thing, I didn't expect to be learning by rote from tabs, I wanted a mentor to look at my style and develop me. This guy was just noodling away smugly on his electric guitar whilst I struggled to get anything in edge ways over the din.

I think I'll continue to just figure things out by myself tbh.

This guy was top rated in my area.

Kow

I'd imagine a guitar teacher capable of doing anything past intermediate stuff is hard to find. Never had a lesson in my life either, mind you, so I don't know.

Tempy

Sounds like a bad teacher. Most teachers will get you to play from tabs and sheet music though, to get you to learn fundamentals. If you're self taught, you may need to break some habits and there are standardised methods to approach that. My first teacher asked what I could do, I showed him. He took one song I played and made me play it via tab, to learn intricacies and timings that I was handling sloppily. Don't approach learning note by note with any kind of stigma, a good teacher will use it as a solid foundation to build off.

Guitar teachers that can do stuff beyond intermediate stuff are easy enough to find, in my experience. Both of my teachers were multi-instrumentalists with an incredible handle on music theory and practise, I just got waylaid by circumstance.

Kow

Fair enough. I've heard a lot of stories of classes turning into jam sessions for teachers to show off though.

nick_md

Yeah this guy had worked in the studio with some pretty big names and was definitely capable of advanced stuff, but I got the impression the vast majority of his work is electric, I mean, he didn't even bring out an acoustic at all despite me clearly being an acoustic man.

I can read tabs, no problem. I guess I kinda hoped this guy would be some cantankerous old guy rather than the kinda of loud shirt, goatee lead guitarists you see around blues clubs every night.

Maybe I'll look for a different guy, be a bit more specific on my playing. Feel like I'm improving on my own atm regardless.

I mean, I kept mentioning ragtime, country blues and he just continued to do jazz on his electric. Waste of my time.

Yossarian

As this thread's reappeared, I thought some of you may be interested to know that metascrawl has released some music. It's not acoustic, in fact, it's the opposite of acoustic, but here you go:

http://kaiseki-digital.com/album/its-hard-to-talk-to-you-when-youre-hooked-up-to-that-machine

nick_md

Kow wrote:

Fair enough. I've heard a lot of stories of classes turning into jam sessions for teachers to show off though.

That's exactly what happened, although with me on my nylon string classical I couldn't ever hear myself over his scrunchy guitar face fret wanking.

Moot_Geeza

Dumping videos in a discussion thread, apologies. As usual I've not got much input regarding technique or guitar playing, just some songs:

A worldy:

...and a special mention for how much I love the live version of Fake Plastic Trees from the Clueless soundtrack, which doesn't seem to be on Youtube.

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