This year for regular postings I'm going to work thru one piece to show that digging into one tune that you really like can teach a lot of integrated things about the instrument, with a lot less effort than undirected repetitive drills. That piece will be the guitar part of Blackbird by the Beatles.
I've heard people say it's harder than it looks, which it may be. But I think it can be a gateway to getting comfortable with fingerstyle playing.
This piece in G major travels all over the fret board. It leans on a mid-range drone technique. It relies on simple hand shapes that you'll know inside and out and be able to apply without thinking to other tunes in G major going forward.
We'll be concentrating more on notes than tabs because I think the ascending and descending runs that you can see better in standard music notation make more sense and lead to more effortless internalization of the piece than you can get with tabs.
I'll be working from the arrangement for it in the Fingerstyle Beatles book from Hal Leonard. So bookmark and consider ordering that book that if you want to follow along.
Each week, I'll try to isolate one section or technique. So that gives us quite a few weeks to concentrate on the piece.
The 'anchor' video that' I've posted first is at about 48 bpms. It's strictly the distinctive guitar part without the sung part. You can certainly have a friend sing or play along to supply the song.
I'll put the series of videos in a Playlist on my YouTube channel. All free to access.
The above being said, next week we'll focus on the G major scale. I think this is important for folks who want to go beyond tabs. So I won't make assumptions about basic theory knowledge. We're all in the same boat, looking at the basics that the song is built on.
Scales might sound like a boring place to start. But scales are just the stepping stones of notes that sound right together. You can call it tonal family or root family if that helps lower your guard about this formal sounding aspect of music. I won't dwell on it, but it does help with any piece to hear the related notes in your ear. And to remind your finger muscles where they will be commonly playing.
Maybe I'll post 2 videos to start, just so that the scales one doesn't make people feel we aren't getting started. Second vid will look at an element in the intro.
Here's the link to the anchor video on my YouTube:
Blackbird unit study, anchor video
That's it. Come along. You'll be amazed at your progress!
