Jabber-song-y

Check out this song written in gibberish to sound like English. I think he's nailed Bob Dylan, and it's actually a pretty catchy tune. Well done.



Here's a link to more info:
linked to this from the Marginal Revolution blog.

Guitar Tab Tablature for "Got To Be Real" by Cheryl Lynn

Got to be Real
By Cheryl Lynn

My best guess at transcription by Shane Milburn

There’s bass transcriptions and chord charts out there for this, but haven’t seen this funky part transcribed anywhere. Wanted to post as it gave me some trouble to figure out. It’s kindof buried in the mix in the recording and none of the sheet music I’ve found seems to show what’s going on.

Move it up 2 frets when song goes up a full step key change halfway through. I’m not much of a funk guitar player, but this seems to me close to what’s going on w/ the guitar. It may make more sense to somebody who’s more familiar with the genre.

Ebmaj9....D7........... Gm7
|---------------------|-----------------------|
|--3-3-1--4---3---1---|---1--3-3-1---3--1-----|
|--3-3-2--5---3---2---|---2--3-3-2---3—-2-----|
|---------------------|-----------------------|
|---------------------|-----------------------|
|---------------------|-----------------------|
................................What you feel…

Here’s how I think I’m going to voice the chords when/if I play those. Again, move up a full step when song changes key halfway through

Ebmaj9....... D7........ Gm7
|---------------------|-3--------------------|
|------------(6)------|-3--------------------|
|--7----------5-------|-3--------------------|
|--5----------4-------|-3--------------------|
|--6----------5-------|-5--------------------|
|---------------------|-3--------------------|

Playing the (6) note on the D7 chords above with the pinky just kindof sounds cool when chording, but I don’t think it has anything to do with anything in the recording.

New Song - rough version - and make the best

Here's a song I've had sitting on my PC for several weeks. It's really pretty rough, but I think the general idea of the song comes through. It's really just a slow strum that I just hummed along to for the longest time - and it might have not even had lyrics, but I put a reference to a verse by Marcus Aurelius near the end.

Here's the song: ...and make the best

Steve Morse guitar solo

Steve Morse is an incredible songwriter and guitarist. I'm not even going to qualify how good he is. When I was growing up, and after going through my guitar hero stages including Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Nuno Bettencort, and maybe a few others I came upon Steve Morse and just latched on.

Comparing musicians is always difficult, but there's such an intense musicality and originality in what Morse does that separates him from the others. He does it with quality songwriting, accessible melodies, hooks, all within what to me seems almost impossible technique. While he can shred, he's different in that he doesn't use raw energy to drive his playing, but he still brings a ton of heart - it's just a different vibe - not the knock-your-head-off-with-overpowering-screaming-solos vibe, but a more finessed WOW-that-is-the-coolest-thing-ever vibe. He's considerably more refined in comparison, meticulous without being cold, and has headed far down the road less traveled in his playing. And this does nothing to take away from the other players mentioned above - but they do a different thing.

Here's a video I found of Steve Morse on YouTube. Perhaps my favorite guitarist. While the sound quality isn't the best, I found this to be highly entertaining and a good sample of what Steve Morse albums sound like. Hope you enjoy.

Ay Oh - probably final update

I just put up what may be a final version of the tune. Main changes from previous versions include
- quite a bit of drum edits - lots of new beats in different sections that change the mood considerably
- delay on harmonics
- cut out 16 bars early in the song to shorten it and reduce repetitiveness
- maybe a tad of EQ on some tracks
- removed some acoustic guitar parts that just weren't working for me.
- thinned out the song in a place or two that had multiple layers of the same thing going on.

Links are the same as previous:
Click HERE to hear the song.
If you want to download the MP3 click HERE.

On to something else before I burn out on this one. Getting close.

Ay Oh - revised mix on new song

Made some revisions to the "Ay Oh" song this weekend. Getting closer to final. I APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENTS IF YOU LISTEN - IT HELPS ME ADJUST THE MIX. :D
- Added a couple brand new parts to hopefully better address the repetitiveness comments. Let me know if you still feel it's too repetitive. It is loop based, but I don't want it to feel overly repetitive.
- Added what I think is a pretty cool section starting at about 3:40. Kindof a cool funk groove thing going for a while and then
- breaks into an Allman brothers inspired 4 guitar harmony thing after that. I was grinning ear-to-ear when I started hearing this part.
- rerecorded acoustic guitars and added some parts.
- changed mp3 converter to get much better conversion. I'm not real good with my software, but I just found out Acid would render to mp3 and it sound considerably better now imho.
- haven't messed with any variations on drums yet, but I'm hearing some hand claps that might be some of final touches.
- also hearing some harmonized vox and a vocal variation in one part, but I'm not a good singer so this will be harder for me.

Here are song links from Unsigned Band Web to the newly posted mp3:
Click HERE to hear the song.
If you want to download the MP3 click HERE.

Dreams - Acoustic version - Sammy Hagar

"Dreams" is one of my favorite Van Halen songs, and here's an acoustic performance by Sammy Hagar that I thought was a very cool take on the song. I've never heard this song done acoustically before.

More guitar for beginners - 6 chords in the Ay Oh song

Based on web searches, it looks like one of the most popular posts I've put up the one for good guitar songs for beginners from a while back.

In the spirit of learning to play guitar I wanted to post the chords used in the song I worked on over last weekend and posted in the previous post.

There are only 6 common chords for this entire song: Em, D, C, Am7, G and A

Really the only odd voicing used is playing the D chord form using the low strings instead of the more normal high strings. This is done to support the bass line which walks upward on the low E string from open string to the 2nd fret (F#) to 3rd fret (G) to the 5th fret (A).


-Em--D---C---Am7----Em

-x----x----0----0------x-----
-0----3----1----1------0-----
-0----2----0----0------0-----
-2----0----2----2------2-----
-2----0----3----0------2-----
-0----2----0----0------0-----

Play 2 bars of Em (8 beats), 2 bars of D (8 beats), 1 bar of C (4 beats), 1 bar of Am (4 beats), and 2 bars of Em.

The second time through play the same progression except when you get to the last 2 bars where the Em is there's some quick chord changes where the Em is: play 2 bars of Em, G, A, G, If you listen in the song you'll hear it.

-Em--G---A---G---- repeat

-x----x----x----x----
-x----x----x----x----
-x----x----2----x----
-2----0----2----0----
-2----2----0----2----
-0----3----x----3----

After you've learned the chords you can click HERE and play along, or click HERE to download.

I didn't do a very good job of recording the acoustic guitar part in this song, but you can hear it jangling along in parts to hear the rhythm of the strum, or just play it however you like. I may rerecord it better in the near future taking care to do a better job with mic placement.

Ay Oh - new song I worked on this weeked

Hi all, Just wanted to post a rough mix of the song I was working on this week. It's primarily an instrumental made using loops I recorded in Ableton Live. Everything on there is me except for the drum loop. I moved the loops into Acid and created this rough mix there.

I spent alot of time this weekend working on this, but am excited about how it came out. It's sortof a guitar symphony but I think it ended up having a cool vibe. I've called it "Ay Oh" after the high degree of creativity given the lyrics at this point.

Here aret he links from Unsigned Band Web:
Click HERE to hear the song.
If you want to download the MP3 click HERE.

If you listen I'd love to hear your thoughts. Hope you enjoy it.

Good guitar songs for beginners

I recently had a couple people ask me about some good guitar songs to learn for beginners, and it got me to thinking about what I'd recommend. I did some websearching.

I got to thinking the first guitar song should have only a handful of chords, and the chords utilized should be common and form a foundation for future songs. Probably a I-IV-V chord combination that's found in hundreds of songs would be included

Some of the most common chords guitarists will play include G, C, D (this is a I-IV-V) chord combination in key of G. The Em is the natural "minor" chord when playing in this key.

Here are the chords and the most common voicings

-G---C---D---Em-------D7

-3---0---2---0--------2------------
-0---1---3---0--------1-------------
-0---0---2---0--------2-------------
-0---2---0---2--------0-------------
-2---3---x---2--------0-------------
-3---0---x---0--------x-------------

... and here's a couple different ways that I like to play those chords. The don't have the same names, but usually they can substitute in many songs and still work fine, and sometimes are easier to play, and I find often sound smoother/firmer.

-G---Cadd9---D---Em

-3---3-------2---3--------------------
-3---3-------3---0---------------------
-0---0-------2---0---------------------
-0---2-------0---2---------------------
-2---3-------0---2---------------------
-3---0-------2---0---------------------


After looking around, here's some starter guitar songs that I'd recommend.

Try out:
Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl

Yes, the entire set of the chords in the song is G, C, D, Em, and D7

Another using most of the same chords
Poison - Every Rose Has it's Thorn

The next song I'd recommend introduces the "F" chord.... one of the more difficult chords to learn when starting.

Steve Mille - Take the Money and Run

Here's a couple different ways to appraoch the F chord. It also has an E chord. (the F5 and E5 versions shown are version of the E and F chords that just use 3 strings and a reduced voicing of notes in the chord - the person doing the transcriptins recommends them for some of the quicker chord changes in the song)

-F----E-------F5--E5----F(barre chord version)

-1----0-------x---x-----1--
-1----0-------x---x-----1---
-2----1-------x---x-----2---
-3----2-------3---2-----3----
-x----2-------3---2-----3----
-x----0-------1---0-----1----

If you want to try the barre chorde version of F, which I recommend cause it'll sound better, stretch your entire index finger across the first fret and use the remainder of your fingers to finish out the chord. It'll be hard until you get it, so you might try the other versions of the F or F5 shown until you get it.

This song additionally introduces some fast chord changes.


Another tune that won't be too hard is
The Animals House of the Rising Sun

This song introduces the Am chord, but otherwise utilizes much of what you've built on above. Additionally this song introduces a little bit of pick control. You can strum the chords and the song will sound fine, but the way it's recorded the individual notes of the song are picked separately. The pick control is something good to introduce here.

... Anyhow, that's my 2 cents on the matter.

EDIT: JUNE 9, 2009 Go here for a song to learn 6 basic chords to play along to with a song recorded over the weekend.