Pretense

I just thought of another way to do it - start him out with just downstrokes at regular intervals (let's say 4ths), have him sing the song that way. Then once he's figured that out, gradually complicate the pattern (up-down, down-down-up, etc)untill you get the desired results. I *think* that's what one of my teachers did to me back when I still had one.

I remember going through a period of randomly googling chords for songs I liked and just jamming them out - maybe that's what did it. I really can't think of anything I did beyond that (probably why I still suck). Playing the song top to bottom a couple of times without singing will prolly help. No clue beyond that, sorry mate. Maybe singing's not his thing? It sure as hell isn't mine.

Didn't Fernandes already do that?

*raises hand* I had that problem when I first started. Even more amusingly, when I started I could fingerpick and sing (or what counts as singing in my case) but not strum and sing. I since got over it, but I still find that I play more accurately when fingerpicking and not strumming - probably because with fingerpicking I'm more focused on the music whereas with strumming I just kinda "go with it" - it's still really difficult for me to maintain a single strumming pattern for more than a minute, I tend to lose focus and start "improvising".

Sorry for all the confusion folks, I was slightly tipsy when I wrote the post and I confused some stuff. I edited the post, hope the threadjack is over.

Umm... whoopsie.

Music Theory by Dummies: This is the C major scale, The notes are in bold, the distances between the notes are in parentheses: C(1)D(1)E(0.5)F(1)G(1)A(1)B(0.5)C Pick a note, let's say 'C'. This is going to be the 1st note, aka "root". Count to three upwards, you get 'E'. This "third" note determines if your chord is major or minor - if the distance between it and the first is a two steps then the chord is major, if it's one step and a half then it's minor. Now, move on ahead to the 5th note from the root, 'G' in this instance and voila! A C major chord. If we were to try this with 'A' for root, we'll get 'A' 'C' and 'E' which will be a minor chord because of the different distances between the root and the third. And that's it, basically. On top of that, you'll get variations like 7ths, 9ths, 4ths, 13ths (pretty obvious, I think) and all that other crap, but for the most part it's all just major and minor, or even just power chords (just the 1st and 5th notes, making them 'neutral') Anyway, using the aforementioned system, find all 7 chords in the scale, then play them in whatever order you like - they'll go well together. Then build a scale out of some other note, and repeat the process. It really helps out to just write out the scales for all 12 notes (shaprs included) and the chords for them on paper - helps build hand stamina too! Almost forgot - in that scale I showed you, you'll get a chord from 'B', 'D' and 'F' which will sound neither major nor minor - it's diminished (half diminished technically, but no one cares) and unless you're keen on making classical or jazz compositions right away, I recommend that you stay away from it for a while. I really shouldn't be allowed to teach people. Look around the article section on the site, there should be something there about chords. Good luck! (edit: a bunch of things)

Howdy, thought I'd join in. Whamola!

I always tend to focus more on the music (primarily because I'm terrible at writing lyrics), so more often than not, I'll start a song from some random riff or progression I come up with (or something I grab from the "riffs" folder). Once I polish what I have, I try to imagine how it should develop and then kinda go on from that. After that, I used to write a melody "on top" of the music, but it rarely came out right. Nowadays, I just finish the music track and then forget about the melody (and the music) "untill I write some lyrics for it". I used to do an exercise where I went to some lyric site, picked an artist and song at random (obviously, not one I know or ever heard of) write music for that and then... erm, throw it somewhere "untill I write some lyrics for it". But the melody lines came out pretty good. The ideal process as far as I'm concerned is: 1. concept 2. musical draft to fit the concept, structure 3. lyrics to fit the structure 4. fiddle with both untill you have a melody 5. rewrite all music around the melody It's a beautiful theory, kinda like communism. And much like communism, I'm dying to try it on actual human beings.

I have a cheap Chinese strat knock-off I named "Firewood". The rest are just "classical", "electric", and so on. So wait, does that mean you always play ahead of the beat?

Wow I'm impressed. How did you define "finished" btw? Just the lyrics? Lyrics/music? Arrangement? One of the many reasons for my failure was my insisting on finishing EVERYTHING before moving onto the next song. I really liked the music on your page btw, the vocals in particular. Is the track you mentioned there? Your arguments are quite convincing. I might even try the next FAWM now.

Hehe, I just a mail from them too. I signed up for FAWM this february. Finished the music for one song and that was pretty much it. No time. The original month-long session is a good idea, but I think this is a bit much. Did you try FAWM before? If so, how'd you fare?

That warning means nothing, just tell it to continue. It's just XP whining that the drivers weren't designed with only it in mind. But it's generally a good idea to check the company's website for updates (just google the company name, and when you've found their website look for "downloads" or "support" or something similar. Or just find a search box and look for +"your model" +driver.

Sounds incredibly similar to my j-station. Though I'm betting the cabinet makes a difference. edit: replied to the wrong post, sorry

I will. I'm thinking of putting it up here minus the vocals, see if it's worth the effort.

I looked the terms up in wiki, and I seem to match "derivative" pretty much word for word. Guess now it's onto harrassing unsuspecting librarians and last remaining relatives. Thanks again, you've helped me a lot.

Right, sorry. The full poem is here and the bit I used is: "I died in Hell (they called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight and I was hobbling back; and then a shell burst slick upon the duckboards; so I fell into the bottomless mud, and lost the light" Sassoon died in '67 so the lifetime+70 years thing should still apply, right? Though I'll ask at the library, thanks for that. As for the use, they're the only lyrics in the track. They're sung once over a verse which then repeats and follows into an instrumental bit, (which was written before, though I'm guessing it doesen't matter). So is it a"derivative work"? Thanks again

Kevin Gilbert (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp_pczrUug4/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahSuN9tMKuA) Both a lyrical favourite and a hero. Guy could do any genre and make it sound good and with tons of emotion. Plus, you know, accidentally killed himself while jacking it, gotta love that. Neal Morse (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yz2WgX1hp0/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8ArciKdZo) Guy wrote absolute gibberish (note the link) and it was GOOD. Of course about 6 years ago Jesus told him to leave Spock's Beard and he's been writing him love songs ever since. But at least his music is still great. Peter Gabriel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W35wtfcByIY/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdD6L4cKKU8) The inspiration for both of the above. Again, gibberish and lots of it, but the kind that, erm, makes sense? Anyway, any guy who sticks a recipe for scrambled eggs in a song is a lyrical genius by my standards. Lennon, McCartney, Mercury, May What's there to say, really? Joe Jackson He alternates between profound, emotional, cliche and incredibly stupid, in some instances during the same song, so he's a bit of a hit and miss, but he really nails a lot of stuff sometimes. I like the structure of his writing, it's very... I dunno, conversational? I'm getting carried away I think.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for the topic, but I couldn't find anything that fit better so here goes: A while ago I had a WWI phase and read up a bunch on it and of course the battle of Passchendaele came up and of course that bit from Siegfried Sassoon's poem came up with it. Now I fell in love with that bit. I read the whole poem front to back, I dug up a bunch of Sassoon's other stuff (fascinating guy, btw) but in my head, nothing compared to those half-and-a-four lines. And what do you do with unattainable love? Exactly that, you get some chloroform and you bide your time. *cough* Basically what I'm trying to say here is that this one time I got really drunk and put a piece of a poem that came up in my head to music and now I have no idea what can I do with it given the whole copyright thing. Forget selling it, am I allowed to put the song on myspace? Do I have to contact someone? What do I do? hALP1!