The Official What Are You Listening To Right Now Thread...

[Mr. Natural]

8 hours ago, RBSinTo said:

"At last" by Etta James.

Currently learning the music.

Tough sledding.

Will undoubtedly have to get slings for my fingers after playing some of the jazz chords.

RBSinTo

Etta James, "At Last" - classic make out music!

[Retired]

Unfortunately, nothing. However I did play 3 of my guitars today. Several songs on the Casino, Riviera, and the Gibson Gold Top. They all sound very good. The Gibson is better than ever after doing a setup on it.  Just sounds so great and has great sustain now. 

[Whitefang]

"Right now" I'm listening to the noise from the TV set in the other room.  I'm here on this site through my desktop PC.  Never got into putting a disc or music from another source while on the computer.  Wrecks my concentration.  But last night I treated myself to----

Mussorgsky's PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION,  by The Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by MAX STEINER  followed by.......

Beethoven's SYMPHONY No. 7 in Amajor by the VIENNA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA conducted by LEONARD BERNSTEIN.

Whitefang  

[Mr. Natural]

ZZ Top, Deguello

[ghost_of_fl]

On 4/13/2021 at 12:03 PM, RBSinTo said:

"At last" by Etta James.

Currently learning the music.

Tough sledding.

Will undoubtedly have to get slings for my fingers after playing some of the jazz chords.

A lot of the sheet music I've used where there was no strong guitar part in the song, they tend to give you the piano chords.  The problem is, we can play a maximum of 6 notes at a time and there are no bass notes on a guitar.   So some of those voicings get a little crazy where they're telling you to play the chord with the bass note.   Are you playing it as a solo guitar piece?

[jdgm]

Jim Hall Trio live in San Francisco 1986, a 2CD set.

It's from a FM radio broadcast so has a lot of compression but still really good.

Edited April 15, 2021 by jdgm

[RBSinTo]

4 hours ago, ghost_of_fl said:

A lot of the sheet music I've used where there was no strong guitar part in the song, they tend to give you the piano chords.  The problem is, we can play a maximum of 6 notes at a time and there are no bass notes on a guitar.   So some of those voicings get a little crazy where they're telling you to play the chord with the bass note.   Are you playing it as a solo guitar piece?

The sheet music I purchased is piano music with guitar chords shown. My musical knowledge is limited, so in answer to your question, I'm simply trying to play along using the chords. And yes, some of the chords are complicated. But that's what makes it challenging for a hacker like me.

RBSinTo

[Sgt. Pepper]

1 hour ago, jdgm said:

Jim Hall Trio live in San Francisco 1986, a 2CD set.

It's from a FM radio broadcast so has a lot of compression but still really good.

Yeah I have realized most radio broadcast recordings do not sound that good.

[mihcmac]

3 hours ago, RBSinTo said:

The sheet music I purchased is piano music with guitar chords shown. My musical knowledge is limited, so in answer to your question, I'm simply trying to play along using the chords. And yes, some of the chords are complicated. But that's what makes it challenging for a hacker like me.

RBSinTo

Sometimes the when a score is written out for sheet music they just apply chords from a standard chord chart, that are not what the original players used, but a translation. If you write down the chords and study them you may find a pattern that is a combination of open and bar chords. Look for the simplest way to play the song and you may be a lot closer to the way it was actually played.

[RBSinTo]

11 hours ago, mihcmac said:

Sometimes the when a score is written out for sheet music they just apply chords from a standard chord chart, that are not what the original players used, but a translation. If you write down the chords and study them you may find a pattern that is a combination of open and bar chords. Look for the simplest way to play the song and you may be a lot closer to the way it was actually played.

mihcmac,

Whenever I get music, I double-check any chords I'm unfamiliar with to make sure they sound correct and are correctly labelled (as often the ones shown are not).

And if I'm still not satisfied, I speak to our Grandchildrens' music teacher, who is a professional musician, and composer, and he verifies or gives me alternate fingerings.

When I like a song, I'm not looking for the easiest way to play it, but rather the correct way.

Often the music found on the internet, for example, has been "sanitized" so that the difficult chords have been replaced by simpler ones, so the music sounds close, but not completely correct. For some songs, I have multiple versions, and despite the degree of difficulty, will learn the the that is closest to the original.

Interestingly, I have a friend who is a much better musician than I am (both in ability and musical theory knowledge), who believes that I should basically stick to playing songs with only a few simple chords, rather than going to all the trouble of learning the "exotic" chords necessary to play more complicated songs. I disagree, and continue to learn tougher songs.

RBSinTo

[Sgt. Pepper]

22 hours ago, Mr. Natural said:

ZZ Top, Deguello

Love Manic Mechanic.

[Karloff]

Lake Marie by John Prine

[mihcmac]

4 hours ago, RBSinTo said:

mihcmac,

Whenever I get music, I double-check any chords I'm unfamiliar with to make sure they sound correct and are correctly labelled (as often the ones shown are not).

And if I'm still not satisfied, I speak to our Grandchildrens' music teacher, who is a professional musician, and composer, and he verifies or gives me alternate fingerings.

When I like a song, I'm not looking for the easiest way to play it, but rather the correct way.

Often the music found on the internet, for example, has been "sanitized" so that the difficult chords have been replaced by simpler ones, so the music sounds close, but not completely correct. For some songs, I have multiple versions, and despite the degree of difficulty, will learn the the that is closest to the original.

Interestingly, I have a friend who is a much better musician than I am (both in ability and musical theory knowledge), who believes that I should basically stick to playing songs with only a few simple chords, rather than going to all the trouble of learning the "exotic" chords necessary to play more complicated songs. I disagree, and continue to learn tougher songs.

RBSinTo

When I got my first Beatles complete song booking in the early 70's I found it very difficult to follow some of the complex chords. Over the years I replaced it and found that in each era edition the chords started morphing. My current book is a 99 edition that was heavily edited by them showing what they actually used. The 99 edition is the simplest to understand, so far. Having this translation has kind of opened the door for me to their playing style and simplified their songs.

[RBSinTo]

5 minutes ago, mihcmac said:

When I got my first Beatles complete song booking in the early 70's I found it very difficult to follow some of the complex chords. Over the years I replaced it and found that in each era edition the chords started morphing. My current book is a 99 edition that was heavily edited by them showing what they actually used. The 99 edition is the simplest to understand, so far. Having this translation has kind of opened the door for me to their playing style and simplified their songs.

Some of the chords in the books are complex because often they are non-barred versions. When I first began playing, I made the concious decision to learn how to play barred chords, which has made playing considerably easier.

A friend who plays old time rock and roll does it without barring, and has had to learn (unnecessarily in my opinion) a ton of non-barred shapes to do what I do easily by barring.

Also, as the Beatles maturred, their music moved on from "three magic chord" compositions, and became more complex.

The odd augmented chord in their earlier compositions evolved into a plethora of more complex and sophisticated ones in latter songs.

RBSinTo

[Sgt. Pepper]

23 minutes ago, mihcmac said:

When I got my first Beatles complete song booking in the early 70's I found it very difficult to follow some of the complex chords. Over the years I replaced it and found that in each era edition the chords started morphing. My current book is a 99 edition that was heavily edited by them showing what they actually used. The 99 edition is the simplest to understand, so far. Having this translation has kind of opened the door for me to their playing style and simplified their songs.

Yeah those guys for musicians with no formal training used a heap ton of chords.

[mihcmac]

22 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Yeah those guys for musicians with no formal training used a heap ton of chords.

Yep they were heavily influenced by Skiffle which uses modified chord combinations similar to jazz.

If you notice the chords used and the way they are applied in the song you can play this song without hardly moving you hand position.

Note that they also used tons of modified or simplified bar chords in other songs that allowed you to stay in a relatively close hand position.

Edited April 16, 2021 by mihcmac

[Mr. Natural]

9 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Love Manic Mechanic.

There are only a couple of cuts on that album that I'm not fond of.  Deguello is maybe my favorite ZZ Top LP.

[mihcmac]

or.   Satanic Mechanic

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

15 hours ago, Mr. Natural said:

There are only a couple of cuts on that album that I'm not fond of.  Deguello is maybe my favorite ZZ Top LP.

Yeah Deguello is really good, the next one was them starting to get silly and then when the spinning furry guitars happened it was a joke and over for me. 

[Sgt. Pepper]

15 hours ago, mihcmac said:

or.   Satanic Mechanic

 

I yelled lines at the movie screen so many times watching that movie. 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Sgt. Pepper

[Mr. Natural]

1 hour ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Yeah Deguello is really good, the next one was them starting to get silly and then when the spinning furry guitars happened it was a joke and over for me. 

I thought El Loco was still pretty good.  The spinning furry guitars appeared in Eliminator.  And, you're right, it has been mostly downhill since.

[Sgt. Pepper]

Just now, Mr. Natural said:

I thought El Loco was still pretty good.  The spinning furry guitars appeared in Eliminator.  And, you're right, it has been mostly downhill since.

Yeah El Loco had some good stuff on it. What were they trying to convey with Tube Snake Boogie and Pearl Necklace?

[Mr. Natural]

1 minute ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Yeah El Loco had some good stuff on it. What were they trying to convey with Tube Snake Boogie and Pearl Necklace?

When I was in high school, we called it tube steak. 

And pearl necklace?  "That's not jewelry she's talkin' 'bout."

[mihcmac]

Bourée

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

I was rocking Robert Palmer - Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley earlier.