What song are you working on?

Sounds good Toog. Mellow sound, with some nice little trills and other variations; sorry I don’t know the names of them all, but I hear them. You are getting better and better.

3 Likes

Great to hear your progress @Toogdog. Some realllllly nice moments in there. And most of all, we can FEEL your emotion. Keep up the great work my friend!

3 Likes

Gotta Dream the Impossible Dream, Baby… :point_down:

1 Like

@Luke Okay, this was a long time coming but here is the version with the metronome

since the last recording, I realized the ending tabs were a bit wrong so had to experiment by ear till I fixed em and it matched the original sound.

Playing slowly is way harder but really rewarding.

2 Likes

Re-watching my above video, I realised I pretty much did 1 metronome tick=1 note (except for long notes), whereas these jigs have a rhythm to them,

either way, practicing with it helped me develop more of a consistency - here is a slow version without the metronome:

EDIT: Okay, after having played this song countless times, I think something really does happen when you upload a video for others to review. I realised my very beginning 4 notes (the tu tu - ta ta) have a pause/abruptness to them, whereas if you listen to renditions on youtube they flow seamlessly (listen to the first few seconds) - guess I still have some work ahead of me!

3 Likes

Well done @yuriythebest, I admire your persistence, and you continue to improve. Yes, there is something very different about it all, when you put yourself out there for others to listen to. You know already that I’m just a beginner with little training, so I’m not well placed to dispense advice to others, but I see that you keep your hands still and move your head when playing. It seems to me that would make it all the more difficult. There must be more flexibility and dexterity in moving your hands and arms than your head and neck. Is that how you play all the time?

1 Like

@yuriythebest Perhaps this is too obvious to mention, but just in case I’ll say it anyway.
Can you find a harmonica track to compare yourself against rather than a fiddle? The possibilities for changing between notes smoothly varies a lot between different instruments. The fiddler’s note choice is a combination of which string is played and the position where that string is held down by a finger. The bow can be eased from string to string. Fingers can be moved or changed with some subtlety (I don’t play fiddle, but I do play guitar and am guessing based on that). With your harmonica, unless it’s a bend change, y0u need to move from reed to reed, sometimes changing breath direction, Isn’t there bound to be a different character to the tune? Maybe that difference in character is even a good thing - a thing that makes your version yours?

Just a thought. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I think that is very interesting thoughts. I agree that it would make sense that strings could be slid on to make the transition smoother if that’s the style you want. @PapaCurly already commented that Yurithebeast moves his head a lot more than the harmonica. Maybe that contributes to the staccato style. If you slide the harmonica around on your lips rather than moving your head it might change the style a bit. Perhaps not on this particular tune but on others I find that a style of tongue blocking in parts of the tune will let you kind of curl-roll your tongue from note to note, as you describe on a violin, so the transition is one note, nano second, both notes, next note, kind of. That’s why I believe we need to learn many different approaches to the same instrument so we can “play” with the style, mood and feel of the music.
I would just like to add that @yuriythebest has made gob smacking progress here, he is amazingly tenacious and clearly will be a force to recon with in the future and I can see he is already REALLY playing that thing. Well done Yuri!!

2 Likes

Thanks guys for all the kind words! I was actually a bit weirded out at first by all the compliments since to me it seemed like I was just doing my regular thing - just goes to show that my adage of “initially you are crаp, but with more practice you eventually become less and less crаp, to the point where eventually you are not more crap than everyone else, meaning pretty ‘good’” is turning true here. You also have to understand this comes at a certain cost - I focus mostly on a small set of tunes that I (very slowly) expand. My current medium-term goal is to have a set of around 10 Irish tunes (jigs/reels/etc) and 5 old-timey/bluegrass tunes I can play reliably.

@PapaCurly Regarding the head motion, I’ve actually been told about this before - to me it’s just how I ‘see’ the harmonica (like I’m a printer typing in the notes)- I also think if I were to move my arms more then they’d get tired (maybe that’s just an excuse), also I feel that all of my coordination relies on the harmonica staying in the same place. Just as a challenge to myself, I’ll try to do a tune later where I’ll try not to my my head.

@DavidW Initially that what I did and still do, however I found that with Irish harmonica often it’s wrong/not fully correct, so now with newer tunes I’ll try to rely more on Sheet Music+tabs (there is a thread here about injecting harmonica tabs into ABC notation)

I was able to improve upon the beginning “tuddu tadda” so now it’s more flowing. I think it’s now pretty much as close to an “original” that I can get:

original variant:

1 Like

Oh yes @yuriythebest , that’s come along very nicely. Well done.

PS. Off topic, but one of my favourite Scottish pipers happens for be called Morrisson - Fred Morrison. If you fancy some fine pipe playing on a variety of instruments take a look at https://youtu.be/eQAl7kQpikY

1 Like

@yuriythebest I’m proud of you for trying to work with the metronome. Don’t abandon it!!! Also, thank you for posting the fiddle tune to compare it to.

You’re not quite playing with the metronome yet, but you’re almost there!

If you can upload the chart that would be helpful for us to discuss this further.

I recommend setting your metronome at 215 BPM either as 1:1 (no accents) or 3:4 (one accent every 3 clicks) or 6:8 (one accent every 6 clicks, and a slightly different accent half-way in between.)

At this speed each of the first 2 notes would have 3 clicks per note, and all the 8th notes (assuming this written in 6/8) would have one click per note.

If you do that, then you should be able to really start holding each note for the right amount of time.

Keep working with that metronome bro. You’re on the path!!! :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

2 Likes