Cafe acoustic gig
When I was told there was going to be a chill gig in the cafe I wanted to do it because I didn’t take all of my gig opportunities last year and sorta regretted it so it wont be a big exiting thing but could still be fun. I asked Maia if she wanted to do this song from a movie A Monster In Paris its originally french but chances are she’s gonna do the English one.The song is called La Seine and is sung by Vanessa Paradis & Sean Lennon (Yoko Ono and John Lennons son)
I have known how to play the majority of this song for a few months as it is a song I really like. The fast rhythm with the strumming pattern and a really simple but nice lot of chords really that really give a nice french kind of feel (Even with English words.)The chords are not too tricky and the verse and chorus is pretty much the same the only thing I struggle with in this song is the bridge of the song I have just learned today which is really quick chords one after the other. I look forward to seeing how rehearsals go. Im also learning some other ways to play the verses as it can feel pretty repetitive from the instrumental side of the song. I wish to replace some of the verses chords with barre chords to had some range to the sound like I would normally play D minor at the bottom of the fret board but I could be playing it barring the 5th fret to play the same chord just with a few different notes.
The video is what I use to listen to the song and play along with it
Me and Maia was able to get a few practice runs of the song in the hallways of the practice rooms on Wednesday and in all honesty it doesn’t sound so bad even on first attempt. It shows when 2 people practice their lyrics, guitar parts or whatever you are doing then rehearsals will be fine. I was thinking about doing backing vocals but i still don’t have the confidence to sing in front of an audience, but I will treat rehearsing the song as I am doing vocals just to get me used to singing more and more.
13:40
Timing and rhythm for guitar the timing was spot on all the way through I cant hear it speed up or slow down which is great I felt like I had good rhythmic control. With the rhythm I stick to the normal strumming pattern which is no problem for me but every so often I will add this kind of like quadruple quick strum in between the chord change F to A I think thats pretty cool it gets rid of the repetitive strumming feel for a while as well although it.
Note accuracy for me was pretty great but aside from the chords theres only the intro before the vocals and an improvised part to bring us back to the chorus after the bridge and I just missed one note for that part. Thinking of the notes in the chords the was two times where I tried to turn the normal D Minor and B into like D Minor 7 and same idea for the B and it resulted in my net getting all the notes of the chords to ring out which isn’t great I was successful on one of the attempts and it was a nice to touch and it took the repetitive feel out again.
Chord transitions where smooth, hitting almost every chord accurately with the right pressure to make all the strings ring out. due to the quick transitions I was able to play the song comfortably. Although I was not able to get every single chord to ring out perfectly as some transitions not many but some were slow and sloppy and resulted in a few muted notes which is not good but can be fixed with practicing the song a little more.
Tone and sound was matched as well as possible as the original instruments with strings was acoustic guitar and classical as I used a electric acoustic to match the tone and it sounds pretty similar.
With technique I had good and bad moments, I started with the intro a few notes plucked and then a quick switch to a open D minor chord and the very first transition was weak and I was not able to get all the notes to ring out which doesn’t look very good to the audience. There were more moments where My chord technique and transitions where perfect which is great but the first mistake i feel left a bad impression I knew the start was weak due to past practice sessions I know I should have sat down before the gig and targeted the weak parts of the song thats on me I now know not to pass up that opportunity in future gigs and practice sessions beforehand. I also noticed for some reason in the gig I stray from the original but I didn’t seem to make the same mistake while practicing so maybe the pressure of the audience or maybe it was hard to maintain in the moment for some reason not too sure how to fix this problem ill just have to watch out for it in future.
I feel for this performance there was little to no dynamics I hear and feel the same when watching it back the only difference I am aware of is instead of using the same chords for the chorus (because the same is mostly the same 4 chord sequence which is repetitive as it is) I started using barre chords to get a break from hearing the same thing for 2 minutes straight. I cant think of many ways to fix it and its bound to sound a little repetitive if theres only one guitar and singer.