Evaluation:For my initial assessment I have chosen to play Valerie – Live on BBC Radio 1 by Amy Winehouse, I feel this will demonstrate my progression on guitar fairly well as the song has complex jazzy chords like Eb major 7 and F minor/F minor 7 in the verses and for the pre chorus some form of Ab I had never seen before and a G major I had never seen before.The chords challenged me as I was not used to them before so I practiced only the fretting hand and going back and forward to the chord shapes and familiarising my self with these new chords. There is also a few licks/fills in between some chord changes at points in the song using the Eb major pentatonic scale shape 1 also occasionally sliding up to the house of blues around the twelfth fret.
What Went Well? :I managed to get a decent result in just a few recordings which doesn’t normally happen. I for the most part played the chords I find complex right and all the strings rang out.I also played the guitar fills and intro to the song pretty well as it was a big challenge to get up to speed with the intro, licks and chords all together.
What Went Wrong? :When I am sliding up to the twelfth fret in the intro and the fills sometimes I get both the strings to ring out well other times only one string will ring out and it makes it sound half as good as what it could sound like.It took me surprisingly longer than expected to pick up the funky strumming in the original performance and even in the video I lose it and resort to something else to match it instead of the original strumming pattern.Another thing is I only play the intro, verse, pre chorus, chorus and basically repeat.
What Can I Do To Improve? :I could practice the licks over and over until it feels as easy as playing a scale and I could practice the strumming pattern and other funky ones like it to get my strumming to a good standard for this song.
Evaluation:I decided the first one wasn’t enough so I also recorded a cover of Mr Clean by The Jam. Paul Weller as vocalist and guitarist, Bruce Foxton as bassist and Rick Buckler on the drums. This one of the best songs by The Jam by far in my opinion as he expresses his anger about working class men who make it big ass kissing, forget their roots and feel they are above most people purely because of a wage and lifestyle.I feel his message and meaning in the song is relevant today and will be relevant in many years to come.
What Went Well? :This is a song I know very well so its not too hard to get strumming patterns and other timings (not to say I didn’t mess up.)I somehow only needed to record it once as I was happy with my first attempt which is a first for me. Pretty much all of the chords rang out nice and clear, The lead part for the bridge and the solo I think I missed like three notes and mistimed two which is great.
What Went Wrong? :At the end of the first verse I play a C chord to introduce the next section of the song and completely mistime the second triple strum which I can’t really get away with because its so blatant😂. One big problem was since it was my first recording towards the end I just started feeling really anxious or paranoid or some overwhelming feeling that i’m going to make a mistake just before it was done and it really distracted me from my playing which could have led me to actually mess it up so I need to find a way to deal with that as it could lead to future problems.
What Can I Do To Improve? : I can do plenty more recordings and practice the songs specific parts that I got wrong to get it spot on.I can also learn more Jam songs with similar styles I know a few already but there is always more to learn and if not then ill move on to The Style Council, Theres loads of new to me jazzy styles to be found in their collection and could benefit my musical genre range and capabilities.