Putting Taylor To Bed

Well, I hate to admit it, but I've got to the point where I don't enjoy playing "Taylor" by Jack Johnson anymore! I just don't seem to be able to 'feel' it, so I figured I'd record as far as I've got with it, post it here and put it to bed for now.

Here's the intro and start of the verse. Pretty much from there on out it just repeats...



It ain't great, but it is what it is...

Taylor Intro... Work In Progress

I've had a few people ask if I can post demos of my playing. I've been working on the acoustic course stuff during most of my free time, so the short answer is... NO! For now, though, here's where I've got to with the intro from Jack Johnson's "Taylor".

I have 3 days before I have to perform my rough version live in front of class to show my 'progress', then another two weeks before I get to do the whole song! Nooooo!!!!

I have most of the right notes in there and can play it slowly okay, but my timing 'at speed' is still all over the place, which I guess means that I've not grooved all the basic licks right yet.

Taylor...

I started learning "Taylor" by Jack Johnson in earnest last night. I spent about an hour on it before Valentine's Day dinner beckoned. My approach was to split the intro into bite-size chunks and practice each chunk independently before even attempting to put the whole thing together.

"Taylor" is a prime example of a song that's impossible to play at speed whilst 'thinking' about what your fingers are doing. Instead, you have to teach your fingers what they're supposed to do through repetition and then just let them do their own thing.

It's kind of like learning to type. To start with you have to think about where every key that you need to hit is. After a while, though, your fingers remember patterns and locations all by themselves. There are actually two levels of (sub) consciousness going on. On one level, you start to type what you're thinking, your fingers doing their own thing. On a whole other level, when you come to put in stuff like user names and passwords, because you're so used to that exact pattern, you can enter the keystrokes at high speed. The former would be what's going on when you're improvising. The latter would be the equivalent of learning licks. There is, of course, a crossover when your mental lick-library gets so huge that the line between improvising and riffing becomes blurred.

Back to the song! I'm definitely not there yet, but the patterns in the intro are starting to make a lot more sense. What I have to do is to stop thinking in terms of what notes to play, but instead focus on how they're played. There are a lot of hammer-ons of open strings where you don't actually pick the string first. In theory that simplifies things as far as the right hand goes, but my right hand is so used to working with the left, as opposed to ignoring it, that I tend to pick when I shouldn't, which slows things down. Maybe I should just sit on my right hand and try to play the intro just using the left.

I haven't spent much time on central part of the song yet, but it's just 4 chords and a relatively simple strumming pattern. I may actually take the opportunity to change the way the song's played to put my own stamp on it and make it more interesting as I won't be attempting to sing over it and I don’t have a drummer to help create the right rhythm.

I have 4 weeks to get it down. That sounds like a long time, but I'm not confident that I'm going to make it, yet. I just listened to the original version again and it sounds nothing like what I've been playing. As with most stuff by JJ, the songs are deceptively simple. The key to getting the right sound is to make sure you nail the rhythm, which is no mean feat.

Guitar class again, tomorrow. Last one before the half-term break. No firm networking plans. I just plan on going along and seeing what happens!

Suggestions, Anyone?

Not that anyone's reading this blog yet, but if there is anyone lurking in the ether then I'm looking for suggestions...

As part of the new guitar course I'm on, I'm supposed to pick a song to try to learn (in part or in its entirety). The idea is that over the 10 weeks of lessons I take time at the end of each practice session to work towards performing something 'real' as opposed to just doing exercises.

Here's the rub, as Ol' Bill used to say... I joined the class mid way through, so I only have limited time to learn a song and I'm short on ideas as to what's achievable.

Having heard me play, "Teach" suggested that I have a crack at "Little Wing". He didn't specify whether that was the Hendrix version, the one by SRV... Derek & the Dominoes... Dolly Parton...

(Okay, so Dolly's not on the list. Just checking if you were listening!)

I've been looking up how to play "Little Wing" on YouTube (as one does these days) and I'm not sure I can actually manage it. The main problem isn't necessarily the song, it's that I have to perform it on the acoustic and the song lends itself more to the electric, what with all the double stops with hammer-ons! I could, of course, 'reimagineer' it, as they say at Disney.

So, last night I got to thinking that maybe I should change tack and choose another song. Right now I'm leaning towards something relatively basic and repetetive (i.e. achievable) but funky sounding like Jack Johnson's "Taylor".

If anyone has suggestions for alternatives then I'd be more than happy to hear them. Remember, nothing that requires the player to be a virtuoso, and nothing that requires an electric guitar.

Thoughts?

In other news, we're off to Amsterdam tomorrow for the first time in a year! The last time we visited what I like to call 'Sin City' was over New Year's, 13 long months ago. We're only there for a few days, but hopefully it'll give us a chance to unwind. I won't get to play guitar at all, but maybe I'll take one of my harmonicas along so that I have some musical release if needs be.