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As requested, I dutifully sat down the other day and wrote a Part 2 for my
tune/lesson Capo Lane, which was one of the very first recordings I posted here at GfB&B. It was originally a simple ditty I wrote to explain how tabs work, then it became a proper lesson. I've had a lot of nice feedback about it over the years, simple as it is, and now I've added to it.
The movie starts with the ending half of
part 1, then I do part 2, then I go back to part 1 again and fade.
I wasn't sure what would come out of fingers, but I sort of knew it would start on the vi chord, the relative minor of G. This doesn't mean it's in the key of Em or anything, we're still in G, but working around the vi chord ("six chord") of G, which is Em.
I usually hear some sort of bass line heading off somewhere when I compose these little pieces, This one was no different. I heard a descending line going down in semitones, à la Stairway to Heaven, so I headed down, then heard it going back up ... so I went back up ... then down again. Before I knew it, I had a whole thing going on with this down then up then down again bass line. The higher melody notes are pretty much arpeggios of chords which I wrote in the tab. The lines meander around, looking for a place to rest until finally winding its way to the V chord -- D -- which, of course, is the best route home to the I chord, the G which starts off part 1 again.
The phrasing is all in keeping with part 1, but there are few little twists in there that tend to trip the fingers up if you're not careful. The downloadable version has the overhead shot which makes it dead easy to see the proper fingerings (there's even a half speed movie included in the download), but apart from those couple of speedbumps, it's all two finger stuff going on, sometimes no fingers! On the left hand I mean.
The thumb handles all the bass notes, and I suggest you get this down first. They are, of course, the lowest notes in the tab. Try and get it to flow nicely, then add those top notes. If your wrist is slightly bent, your right hand fingers will fall into place logically. Just watch the video if you have trouble, but there's no trickery involved. The pattern of 'bass note ---> three top notes' is almost uninterrupted. There are just two spots there where I grab two stings at once and play a double stop. I did that just to vary the timing and grab the ear. Build it all up slowly and when it flows nicely, speed it up.
Again, I'll reiterate that the chord names in the tab below dare there just to show you the structure of the tune. If you were to get someone to play along with you, he or she could strum through those chords while you play this part.
EmM7 isn't a mistake, it's an E minor major 7th chord, which means a minor chord with the 7 (from the major scale) added. In this case, it's the bass note. That Em/C# seemed like the best way to name this chord, even though I think (and hear) that it's more of an A7 add 9 over C# ... !!! Enough of the theory stuff, I know! Never was my forte either.
The trick, as always, is to take the notes, the positions, the fingerings, the timings and turn them all into MUSIC. So
go back to part 1, remind your fingers of how
it goes, then tag this on the end, then go back to part 1 again and repeat to taste. Enjoy playing and listening to it, that's the main thing.
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