I think I've mentioned before, but I freaking love the internet.
I have a song to play, it's a big deal, in front of people, I don't want to mess it up. I've been cobbling together chords from various guitar and uke tabs to come up with something that works, that I can play, without having to train a bunch of new chord shapes into my hands in the few short weeks I have had to rehearse. I finally came up with a version that was working pretty well, but it had that damn B minor that I have had a hard time hitting since forever, doesn't matter the song. I would work it over and over these past couple weeks, with the two chords before and the one after, trying to train it in, but it's still been hit or miss. I was starting to freak out. I don't want to biff it, either in the performance or at the rehearsal/run through and have them take away the opportunity.
So finally, rather than looking up chord finders for the 3rd time, I just put the words into google - "substitution for b minor guitar chord" and low and behold, some person who is now my eternal hero has totally saved my ass by giving me a very workable alternative that my fingers are hitting consistently within minutes of learning it. THANK YOU INTERNET! THANK YOU PERSON! Not only that, this posting is from two years ago. So it's like, THANK YOU PERSON FROM TWO YEARS IN THE PAST!!! Time travel-ish?? hrmm. VERY COOL EITHER WAY! :D
It's stuff like this that reminds me again and again, just TRY putting in your exact question to the search box. Sometimes I try to get all fancy and try to figure out how the internet thinks so I can put in some magic, contorted combination of words to get what I want, when so often I only have to ask it exactly as I normally would, and BINGO! Done.
And I still have two more days before the run-through. My calluses are getting good again. By Saturday I will be golden.
WHAT THE HECK, FRIDAY IS CHRISTMAS?!!! And right now is my brother's birthday? eeks.
PS Made $15 in tips cooking today. But I am freaking tired, feet, back, neck. But I had fun. We were wearing red and green aprons, Barista was wearing green, I got cashier to put on a red apron so we were all xmas. I don't know how many people noticed other than the ones I told, but it was still fun. Also I will start working Saturdays again this week in the new place, so that will be nice to have that back. Whew.
3 comments:
Yay for finding stuff on the internets! Search engines have gotten way better at plain language. Though I still find it's useful to be able to think of alternate search strings sometimes.
With the Bm chord, and other barre chords, you might try practicing them on an electric. It takes much less force to get the strings all down so you can focus on technique until you get it down. Also, Bm is the same shape as an F chord, moved over a string, so if you can do F reliably then moving over to Bm gets easier... Just some thoughts... and good luck with the rehearsals and performance!!
Thanks for tips! Yeah, I need to get motivated to learn more chords, including the barre chords. I have been able to hobble by on so few for so long - if I'm writing the song I just don't use chords I can't play! :) - but I know I need to push to get further. So you say the Bm is the same shape as the F - how do you make your F, cuz I don't think it's sounding right based on the way I do my F...
well, not *exactly* the same as an F, since it's on different strings.
But if you do an F like this:
-1
-1
--2
---4
---3
you can do a Bm by moving everything up a string (and a fret):
--1
---2
----4
----3
so the shape of how you have your fingers is the same, though they change strings as you go up a fret.
in both cases, the barre version is the same, but with the 1 finger all the way across the neck. Practicing the barre and the chord shape separately might help too--then you can focus on getting the barre right separately from getting the fingering right. That's the part where the softer string tension on an electric really made a difference when I was learning how to do them. My nylon-string acoustic has a massive neck which made it quite hard to get things right.
Barre chords make a number of things much easier, such as transposing and minor chords, though (for me at least) they do have a slightly different sound from open chords because they ring less. This makes muting for rhythm easier, and on the electric I usually have the gain up enough that it doesn't make too much difference, but it might matter for acoustic folk styles. Which is why there's capos, alternate tunings, etc.
Post a Comment