I recently got The Doobie Brothers’ box set, “Long Train Runnin’” and disc 4 is all rarities. There’s a demo by Michael McDonald at the piano, showing how his new song, “Takin’ It To The Streets” goes. It’s freakin’ awesome, and now I’m possessed by that song. So I learned to play it today on the Steinway at work.
I’ll never be able to sing it, though. Almost the entirety of the vocal is above falsetto for me.
What have you learned to play lately?
Currently I’m doing my own chord melody arragement of Blue Bossa, but I’ve known that tune for awhile. Most recent thing I’ve learned well enough that you won’t tell me to stop is Have You Met Miss Jones?
Missed the edit window, but just wanted to add that I’m strickly a livingroom hack who likes to fiddle with fingerstyle jazz guitar
Doxy by Sunny Rollins. I played this song long ago on saxophone and am now playing it on bass. I literally just played through it for the first time five minutes ago, and I think I’ve got it down pretty good.
I ordered an upright bass which I had initially intended to use more or less as a giant cello in my lo-fi folk rock group, but in the 10-week waiting period for it to arrive (it’s custom-made from a little shop in Mystic, CT,) I figured I should get back into jazz which I haven’t played in a while. I’m hoping my dad’s band might let me sit in on one tune if I get good enough at it, so in the meantime I’ve been practicing from the Real Book on electric.
I am learning some new songs for the band - mostly acoustic stuff (we’re considering an unplugged set).
On electric, I figured out a way to play Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet in Open G, so it sounds like a Keith Richards version. Very fun.
I’ve been on a bit of a Who jag lately, so I sat myself down and learned Pictures of Lily last night (pretty easy, actually). Now I just have to talk the other guys in the band into doing it…
Probably the last song I learned to play on an instrument was “San Francisco (Flowers in your Hair),” which a friend of mine and I were doing as a duet. He plays piano; I play flute. That was some months ago, however.
If voice also counts as an instrument though, then the last songs I’ve learned have been the ones a group of us are working on for a charity show. It’s a collection of different things, but while there are some Elvis songs and Broadway show tunes that are good for deeper voices like mine, we’re also trying some Queen. :eek: I don’t, and never will have, Freddie Mercury’s voice, but I can find a place for myself in the backing vocals of “Somebody to Love.”
I think the last two songs I looked up guitar chords for were “Eleanor Rigby” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” The last song I came up with chords for on my own was “A Young Gypsy” (Joan Baez).
The bridge section of Deicide’s “Homage for Satan” had been giving me fits, but I think I’ve got the whole thing nailed down now sans solos.
Yeah, it’s pretty evil sounding, but it’s a very well written piece of rythmic metal played very fast so between the chord progressions and the picking techniques it’s a pretty hard little tune to get right.
It was a long time ago, but most of 2112.
I’m trying to relearn Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 (in E Flat). It’s not terribly hard from a technical standpoint, but it’s been so long since I’ve played classical and controlling the tone, dynamics, and phrasing to my liking has been a bit of a problem, since over the last dozen or so years I’ve played little outside of the rock and blues genre, where generally every note is hit pretty hard.
“Lightly Row” on violin. For my daughter’s Suzuki class
I’m assuming this is on guitar? Are you trying to play this on a classical or on a standard?
I learned how to play most of Soviet Knitch by Regina Spektor on piano. I found some sheet music online for the entire album…most of it is much easier than it sounds, although very very repetitive - learn 4-16 bars and play them over and over, and possibly a different section for the bridge and you have the whole song down.
I’d also like to chime in on how disappointed I am that it’s becoming harder and harder to find sheet music for piano/keyboards, both in stores and online. 10 years ago, all I’d have to do is find a MIDI file and convert it to sheet music, but even those are tough to find these days. I’m a self-taught keyboardist, and although I’m about average in talent, I suck at playing by ear, so I always need something to guide me through new material.
Piano.
Ummm…The Alphabet Song.
Well, whaddayawant…I’m limited by the instrument at hand and what I can get my daughter to sing along with.