Neil Young covers.. easy songs

[superblonde]

I merged my different song cover posts into one single NY progress thread, this might make it easier if anyone wants to follow along the progress. Or even join in 😀 Ultimately I will play and sing all the below NY songs as a mini setlist and post the complete video, at least thats the goal.. these progress vids are gonna be pretty marginal playing and singing, hopefully they get better with a lot of practice..

Cinnamon Girl cover – Neil Young
First I’m posting my in-progress vocal only cover then I’ll do the guitar next (doubt I’ll play all the harmonics and stuff tho). I’ve been attempting vocals on this song over 1 year now. Neil Young’s voice is just hiiiiiiigh. First the verse was impossible, then I got that, but the bridge was impossible (it goes up, “^^Pa send me.. ..baby loves to ^^dance”), now I might finally be getting somewhere in his own octave.. what do you guys think. Oh yea, this is actually a hard song to record as well, because there are so many P’s and S’s in the lyrics, that it plays havoc with the microphone so it’s also good practice on vocally holding back the air to reduce pop’s and sssss’s (or changing vowels).

Neil Young Cinnamon Girl (vocal only cover 20161118) vocal isolated track panned right

In working on this song this week I noticed in his live versions that he repeats the bridge twice, so he gets two guitar solo’s (then outro solo). I dig it! More guitar solo’s is more better. 😀

Does everyone remember this cover version too, hubba, hubba! what a heart breaker.
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs – Cinnamon Girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoZEkk2VI_Y

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Sean]

Good control! Thanks for sharing. I respect your ambition to improve and use the forum as a way to improve your craft. It takes guts to put stuff out there.
Also any time you want to record “Heart of gold ” I’ll definitely listen, its a favorite of mine.

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[superblonde]

Sure I’ll check out Heart of Gold, starting this week. I’d like to do a total of six Neil Young songs, can you help me pick more? I want to do Harvest Moon so, that makes 3 on my list so far. Need 3 more. They dont have to be the hits, they can be any of his songs which are interesting from a songwriting perspective. Maybe even one he gave to another performer and hasn’t performed himself. [Edit. I’ll prob look at Southern Man too]

Previously I didnt really get into his material because of his vocal range which I thought I had no hope of matching. But if I can manage to gain just another note up in my normal vocals (F#4 I think) I might be able to cover his range and that will make his material in the universe of “its possible”.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[rorygfan]

superblonde wrote:

In working on this song this week I noticed in his live versions that he repeats the bridge twice, so he gets two guitar solo’s (then outro solo). I dig it!

wow, sounding good!
That is a common thing for Rory Gallagher’s stuff 2 solo’s.  Not sure if interests you but this is a good album of lis stuff live with 2 solos…

[rorygfan]

superblonde wrote:

I’d like to do a total of six Neil Young songs, can you help me pick more? I want to do Harvest Moon so, that makes 3 on my list so far. Need 3 more. he

old man, my theme song ha…

welfare mothers, lol.

Rockin on the free world,

 

[Sonic]

Yes, sounds good!

One of Neil’s most enduring songs. So good. Hard to believe that it is almost 50 years old. Looking forward to your cover of the guitar part.

How about ‘Ramada Inn’. Some may find it “long and repetitive”, but not me. Will give you plenty of opportunity to show your soloing skills 🙂

Or maybe ‘I’m The Ocean’. Just one chord progression and the signature riff over and over. But also so good. And please make a tutorial or a GP file for the riff. I haven’t found a decent one so far. Just one and the same tab over all the places and I can’t get it to work.

And then of course ‘Powderfinger’ and ‘Down By The River’ and…

🙂

By the way, when did you start playing in general, and more specifically when did you start MM?

Would you give me a hint how to decode your cryptic (for me) forum signature? Maxwell’s euation!?


[Top Gun]

Hot damn that was very good I’m impressed. Right about the time when Pearl Jam was red hot Neil Young did an album with them as his backing band and it wasn’t a half bad album. The single for it was called Downtown and it was a real rocker. You should look into that also. And good luck to you. The pictures of you and your band playing where was that? Seeing those palm trees made me hate you a little bit. Just kidding.

[superblonde]

For a near 50 yr old song that is a fan favorite and classic (wow, 1969!), Ive sure found that there’s an equal number of tab or how-to’s for this song which contradict each other even on the basics like, whether the first chord is a D shape or the first chord is a partial D shape, or whether the second chord is Am shape or A7 shape. (I say shape because of the alternate tuning) And none of them have the middle “one note” solo correct if it is not really one note. The final solo if found in a tab I suppose cant be trusted either. Doing a truly correct lead guitar cover could take a while.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

2+ hrs later here’s what I came up with for the outro lead solo of the album version.
Maybe one of you guys could play thru it and see if it sounds right.. (not concerned with rhythm being notated 100%.. just the notes)

Or if you dont want to play thru it and just want to listen then here is what GP6 exports to wav for my tab. Compare to album version..

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

Attachments:

1. 

   Cinnamon-Girl-superblonde-transcription-20161120.png
   

[Sonic]

You probably already know this one?

Cinnamon Girl

Adrian is a knowledgeable guy with many excellent transcriptions and tutorials. But this one might be somewhat simplistic with respect to the solo parts. Also, the demo that he plays in the video appears to me as not having all the nuances of the original recording.

Besides that, the solo parts in the later live recordings of Neil Young seem to be more complex than on the original recording. I doubt that the (very beautiful) version on WELD is a “one-note solo”.

Sorry, can’t help you with your question. My ears and my playing are not good enough yet…

[superblonde]

Ah thanks for the link, didnt know that one and it is an interesting transcription too (slight different than others of course). I bet you’re not giving your ears enough credit.. if you listen to a solo you love and have listened to many times, then hear it played live, and it doesn’t match the album track in a proper way, you just somehow “know”.

I’m comparing the live performances too, I like doing that. It’s one big benefit of covering older classics. First I try to get the album version down at least at slower tempo while comparing to a few live versions. Then I switch over to trying to copy the live version at normal tempo, because to me that is the “real version”.. Since the album track might be a copy-paste-overdub job especially these days, while the live version can’t be faked, it is the real performance. In Neil Young’s case it might be reversed.. the album take is relatively straight forward and in his live versions, he goes nuts 😀

When my local guitar instructor taught me Cinnamon Girl (I didnt last more than a month paying him..) he was so enthusiastic about the song and Neil Young, how it had the perfect tone in the solo, even tho he said it was only one note, but it was “the perfect note for the song, like magic! And the perfect biting tone that just cuts thru!” .. and now if it turns out that Neil Young was actually playing two strings and not one note, :-/ LOL that is just nuts.

It is a pretty good song to learn as a first lead guitar song. Because of the tuning too, the rhythm part is easy. If you like Neil Young I would recommend learning it. It could probably take a month or two, that is how long it took me, just the basic easy version.

Here’s a rockin cover.. mine will be better! 😀

Dave Grohl plays Cinnamon Girl July 4, 2015

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

I know I complain about tabs all the time tho this is a good simple example (including the one from link above) of conflicting tabs, this is the important turnaround part at the end of each verse, that really makes the song rock.

first tab.. goes -3-5-7-

second tab.. goes -3-5-5-

third tab.. goes -3-5-0-

fourth tab.. also goes -3-5-0-

The way I learned it, and sounds right to me, is, a walk up:

A)-0-3-5--  ....    
D)-0-3-5--  ....   

Tho I can’t say for sure that is the way I was taught locally, cause that instructor had a bad habit of never writing anything down from the paid lessons 🙁

Edit.. lots of listening, and slowdown, couldnt figure it out because of all the distortion and thru other instruments .. finally stepped thru two live videos, frame by frame, it looks like it is -3-5-0- version, the fourth tab.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

Attachments:

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   cinnamon-compare-1.png
   

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   cinnamon-compare-2.png
   

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   cinnamon-compare-3.png
   

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   cinnamon-compare-4.png
   

[superblonde]

Ok this is it! Best I’ve got for now. Maybe next iteration I’ll try playing the bass part 😀 The outro solo rendition is about as fast as I can play it without messing up, I think it sounds okay at least.

(Thanks to ROTM for suggesting using Reaper for the progress vids. It has made it much much faster for me to throw together a quick slideshow or simple video with synced up audio. I recommend it too.)

Neil Young Cinnamon Girl – guitar+vocal cover 20161123 – gtr+vox panned right

Top Gun wrote:

The pictures of you and your band playing where was that?

Right on the beach facing the water.. the view while playing was phenomenal. Southern california, you know, where everyone spends tons of time outdoors because everyone’s super expensive real estate is so tiny and close built. ;-D I would have posted some videos of that show but our playing was just really not up to any standard that day. Sure was fun tho.

Sonic wrote:

By the way, when did you start playing in general, and more specifically when did you start MM?

Would you give me a hint how to decode your cryptic (for me) forum signature? Maxwell’s euation!?

I started the basic course in 2014 but only put in an average of under 1 hr a day because I didnt think I’d get anywhere, finally it sunk in in 2015 so then I probably spent an average of 3 hrs a day maybe (some days no playing, other days 6 hrs practice, mostly practicing show setlist 4x per week which, with a 3 hr setlist, took about 4 hrs per day to run thru as minimum). This past year I really have not played much more than 1 hr per day because of some obstacles tho I’ve been able to do a lot more vocal practice (like up to 4 hrs a day the past few months). I should have buckled down the first year and thrown in a lot of time up front but I wasn’t prioritizing my playing because I didnt think I’d really get anywhere. 😮 Just follow whatever Doug says and you will get good..

The signature basically says that the force from electricity is in opposite direction to the force of magnetism, which means they are intrinsically linked and travel as one wave. “whoa like the universe is one, man!” ( Maxwell–Faraday equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday%27s_law_of_induction#Maxwell.E2.80.93Faraday_equation ) There’s many ways to write it in different symbols depending on what geometric shape is the best context. But basically I added it cause I’m a science nerd 😀 I’ve been looking for a decal of this to put on my guitar, right above the decal of the hot girl.

Ok so far as the next Neil Young songs the titles thrown out so far, are..

Downtown
Down By The River
Powderfinger
Ramada Inn
Rockin in the free world
Old man
welfare mothers
Heart of gold
Harvest Moon
Southern man
I’m The Ocean

..others?

On one of those I forget which, I think I heard he gets up to G4 vocally.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[rightonthemark]

you could do hey hey my my (into the black) and/or my my hey hey (out of the blue)

rock and roll ain't pretty; that's why they picked us to play it.

[superblonde]

So far I’ve picked these for my mini-setlist-tribute of Neil Young.

Cinnamon Girl – done – Tuning double drop D, key D
Heart of Gold – the #1 hit, so, of course – key E
Harvest Moon – the other huge songwriters favorite – Tuning drop D, key D?
I’m the Ocean – it looks pretty easy, as said, just chords and 1 turnaround riff or so – Key E
Southern Man – good pinky practice too – Key Dm
Rockin in the Free World – probably also similar in difficulty to the above but I’ll have to compare the live solo’s – Key Em

that makes 6. not going overboard on the solos. I wonder how he chooses his setlist himself because he has so much material, both acoustic and electric and super fuzz.

Into the black- I don’t know, I’m scared of that one, I don’t think I could do it justice. Even the super fuzz guitar tone of it too. I’m not chasing perfect 100% tone copy like some real tribute guys do, but I would like to get in the ballpark of the sound.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[rorygfan]

superblonde wrote:

that makes 6. not going overboard on the solos. I wonder how he chooses his setlist himself because he has so much material, both acoustic and electric and super fuzz.

he has a bunch, lots of famous airplay ones everybody knows too.  Including more you might like:
cowgirl in the sand, cortez the killer, like a hurricane, sugar mountain, needle and damage done- (nice acoustic thing to learn)

[superblonde]

By request!
First the vocal cover, and as I work on the guitar part I’ll post a guitar+vocal cover. There is a great backing track I found online as well – maybe straight from the original album.

Always give the fans what they want 😀 but not in the way they were expecting ;-D
The johnny cash version was sooo much more comfortable to sing, I had to go for it first.

I’ll continue with the Neil Young version next. Clenching up for those hi vocals.. ahem.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Sean]

Good start. Only issue was that I heard more Cash than Superblonde! Who did the backing track? I liked the guitar. Thanks for posting-your the man!

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[superblonde]

Hmm.. when I set the levels it is always a conundrum. The right channel has my audio isolated 100%. The left channel has a slight mix of album track and me (didnt find a backing track for this version – its the album track). I always wonder how to best adjust my level on the left side so that I dont dominate the track yet it is still obvious that I’m there. Since I almost always work with headphones I dont take time to listen thru speakers.

I like the guitars in the johnny cash version, especially the solo (the turnarounds could sound a bit less country-chromatic tho, I’d prefer that). The slide that the guitar does just immediately before each verse starts, sounds super cool to me. The harmonica in the original Neil Young track I wont be able to touch.. it is a very important part of the song tho. By the way.. recognize the guitar tone and lick style in the johnny cash version?

Unearthed is a box set by Johnny Cash, released two months after his death in 2003. It was produced by Rick Rubin and released by American Recordings.

Here is a hint- Listen to my cover again, some part with the lead licks from the album track, then listen to this other song by another band.. don’t look at the title.. close your eyes no cheating 😀 https://youtu.be/Z0AXjUy1_gY I really dig the style of that particular guitarist, and very distinctive playing 😀

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Santa moshed thru the chimney and helped me finalize a mix of my neil young vocal cover.
Just the vocals still, over a backing track. I didnt do the guitar part yet.

one word of warning: 😮 “By Clicking on This Video You May Hear My Dangerous Vocals” so.. if anyone’s cat is driven insane by this audio, or dogs around the neighborhood start howling and the cops show up, it is not my fault!

Heart of Gold Neil Young (Vocal Cover Over Backing Track) Isolated Vocal

I panned my vocal to the right channel and the backing track to the left.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

I’m The Ocean
Ok still a bit of work to do on the cover yet but the previous comment was about, how does this song really go? Wasn’t it?
The tab I saw online [below], I had my doubts at first, but I think it is correct. Play the same measures thru the entire song nonstop (or hire a lead guitarist to fill in the accent notes I guess 😀 ). There are some playing tricks to make the pattern easier that I found so far, or vary it thru the song, for example, instead of playing that last note on 4th fret with the pinky or something, you can also play the same note with the thumb over the neck on the 6th string, then play the next E5. Same note but it will be a different tone.

     Em              G               C              D
  E--0---------0-----3---------------0--------------2--------------
  B--0---0-3---------0---------0-----1-----1---0----3--------------
  G--0---------------0-----2---------0---0----------2-2-2-0--------
  D--2---------------0---0-----------2--------------0---------4----
  A--2---------------2---------------3-----------------------------
  E--0---------------3---------------------------------------------

(tab straight from the site https://hyperrust.org/Music/ but I transcribed it with the same chords and same noodle parts)

Also the way I hear it, in the first verses, I think the chord strum can be split, between emphasizing the low strings and not playing the high strings on the downstrum, and playing the high strings and skipping the low strings on the upstrum. Something like that.

That’s the entire song. Right? Yea all 7 minutes of it. 😮
(Not counting keyboard solos)
It’s like ||: …. :||x400 or something LOL

How on earth I might remember all these lyrics live, without a cheatsheet, remains to be seen, whoa.

I’m pretty sure that anyone playing this song will get pretty good at changing between those 4 chords, fast!

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Sonic]

Thank you for all your contributions, superblonde.

The problem I have with this TAB is that it looks like you are supposed to pick out individual strings and/or to mute unwanted strings carefully. However, judging from the general “drive” of the song, this can’t be true!? In the live footage it looks like Neil is just strumming most of the strings all the time. Yet he reproduces the typical sound. The notes about that song on hyperrust also indicate a strumming approach. Can you confirm this? Am I missing something?

[superblonde]

I am not an expert at all on this but here is my guess, based on the past week watching some neil young live videos and some various how-to lessons. First, when playing live, there are two guitarists always. In the album track there are probably multiple tracks of guitars overlayed to sound fuller and add more accents. In live shows, NY is playing rhythm and the other guy is playing lead. So the tab is wrong in that respect, it should be two parallel tabs, one showing mostly chords, and one showing the lead parts. Probably the lead guy is alternate picking or hybrid picking the accent notes and not focusing on the strum, whereas NY is doing the big strums and letting the other guy fill in. Second thing, NY is strumming all the time, it’s how he probably keeps the beat especially while singing. Yet notice in live videos, look really closely, he isn’t moving his hand much – especially he is not using his pinky after the D chord on this song I believe, which means he is probably going for the thumb idea. Third thing. The tab indicates each chord is strummed all the way, which kind of contradicts the feel and the NY style I believe. I’ll show this in a video later. (But again all this is based on my limited knowledge) Basically when you downstrum you hit the 3 low strings. On the upstrum you hit the 3 high strings. In general. Therefore it allows you to make these accents notes, like (DOWN) Em, (DOWN) Em, (UP) Em7, (DOWN) Em. I think this is a general cowboy-campfire-seranade technique, NY didn’t invent it. Even the accents for the D chord can almost be done 100% like this. It is more of a upstrum at a different angle to only hit the middle string and not continue to hit the low strings. Maybe there is also some movement in the pick hand thumb and index, very slight, to pull back the pick at critical times, to skip the unwanted strings.

Same with the C chord, it works quite well and it’s easy to see how he arrived at those note choices (lot like, a bolt of lightening hit him from the sky). (DOWN) C, (DOWN) C, lift index finger (UP) C*, (DOWN) C. (C* means I dont know what that chord is called after index finger is lifted, C7, I dont know I’d have to look it up)

Whew that’s a lot of words, a video would have been simpler and shorter 😀

I’ve been pondering ways to remember all the lyrics in the many verses.. Recently some local cover bands have been covering Come Together (never used to hear it live.. for some reason it’s making a comeback, coincidentally after I learned it), it also has quite confusing lyrics, and I’ve never seen a cover band get all the verses correctly.. without mixing up at least one line.. Even Lennon’s own live cover, he messed up his own lyrics. So this is a really non trivial problem. Tho it seems simple from the outside. Other songs that I sing, I just kind of go into a zone, one line follows another line, must be by association. Im The Ocean, is gonna need some serious hard work to purposely associate different elements of the lyrics, for memory retention and recall. ..There’s plenty of memory techniques out there, most go back to basic common techniques.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

This is the perfect song for a looper pedal, absolutely perfect, amiright.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

This to me is the more interesting part: Of all the notes he could pick in that area of the neck to play, why did he pick those accent notes. (6 strings x 4 frets would be 24 possibilities right so picking just one of those accent notes correctly is less than 5% probability chance, right?) Sure some might say “Hmm he knew what sounded good” .. or, well, it’s just a note in the chord that he is changing (yet that isnt always true in these notes either). Or maybe he had already memorized this scale from playing since age 10. At least in hindsight it saves some time to reverse engineer the song by knowing it.

So it’s pattern 1 in key of Em. At least I think it is. If you’re gonna play a wrong note accidentally then it should be one of those at least 😀 This helps because if the fingering is off, just hit some open strings. It will still sound good instead of the correct accent note.

Here play along with this. It is a segment from the album track, two repeats of the progression, loop extended. Slowed down to 50% normal speed for practice tempo. Obviously sound quality wont be great but it’s got the exact rhythm to practice the changes to, it is what I am using and probably will keep using to practice for some time..

link https://www.superblonde.info/2016/Im-The-Ocean-Loop-slowdown-50.mp3

I already put 40 mins towards it today 😀 It’s that turnaround, just want to keep playing it over and over. Probably relatively quickly I will start practicing with a 75% slowdown version (which will sound much better too) and then be able to inch my way up to 100% tempo.

Hmm might as well make that loop now too since I have the project open. Here it is –

link https://www.superblonde.info/2016/Im-The-Ocean-Loop-slowdown-75.mp3

either way, rock out, it’s more fun jumping around while playing it 😀 😀

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

Attachments:

1. 

   Im-The-Ocean-Scale.png
   

[superblonde]

My first new progress vid for 2017!
I took the practice loop I made before from the album track, and since the backing measures are always the same, I used it to make a vocal cover as progress. So here it is. I still have to read the lyrics tho, so many verses to keep track of. I’ve got my guitar cover in progress but simply it is hard to play that many measures without flubbing it somewhere (especially while singing) so it will take more time.. and.. who knows what these lyrics mean, hah.

I’m The Ocean Neil Young (Vocal Cover Over Backing Loop 20161224)

I noticed on youtube that my videos get more views from random searches if I make the titles just simply, tersely, “songname artistname blah blah” rather than try to correctly make them pretty like: Artist – “Songname” – Cover by Blah Blah. so, whatev’s.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Progress update, after lots and lots of hours on Im The Ocean, now singing and playing simultaneously at normal tempo which I tapped at 145 BPM. I made my own drum track with my drum pedal (the plan being, to later control the pedal while playing live). I can sing almost all the verses without looking at a lyric sheet, I go into some zombie singing state and the words just come out (unless the pitches are really hard then I have to deliberately concentrate)..

I think this is pretty sloppy playing but also, the rhythm I’m playing, is not yet correct, it is simplified.. the correct rhythm as done by NY is more syncopated (maybe not the right word, but it has a rest in each chord) which makes it more interesting, vs I am just constant strum-strum. It’s much harder to sing while playing the syncopated rhythm.. so, more work to be done.

About that question of how to actually play the song correctly, listening very closely to the album track, listen separately to left then right channel, there are two guitars, the rhythm guitar (probably NY’s, when played live) is just doing the main strum on the chord, maybe just 1 & 3 beats, the other guitar (lead guitarist) is doing only the accent notes and no strumming. So, they are not played on the same guitar – which is why it is so clean and perhaps difficult to replicate. Anyways, I am doing both rhythm and lead on one guitar, which is harder.

Progress on the other songs.. not much guitar progress, only vocal progress. Cinnamon Girl I’m now playing in standard tuning (rather than double drop d) and with altered chords and I like it better that way. I’m going to have to pick a different song than Rockin In The Free World, because singing that song would just get me too ticked off.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Sonic]

superblonde wrote:

It is a pretty good song to learn as a first lead guitar song. Because of the tuning too, the rhythm part is easy. If you like Neil Young I would recommend learning it. It could probably take a month or two, that is how long it took me, just the basic easy version.

Thanks for this tip. I will give it a try after having accomplished (a first run through) week 12 of the CBC which is my primary goal by the end of the year.

I like your cover of Cinnamon Girl!

The week before I had the opportunity to practice two hours each day. I felt that it gave me a small boost already. Unfortunately, this week is worse in terms of available practice time…

 

 

[Sonic]

superblonde wrote:

But basically I added it cause I’m a science nerd

Have you got a background/degree in physics (like me) or in electrical engineering?

[superblonde]

Hey, how come no one suggested a song from Neil Youngs rockabilly album?? 😀 😀
The pink one??

Sonic wrote:

I like your cover of Cinnamon Girl!

The week before I had the opportunity to practice two hours each day. I felt that it gave me a small boost already. Unfortunately, this week is worse in terms of available practice time…

Thanks. I consider my cover so-so tho, there’s parts that really need improvement. I want to do a video which shows how to play it in standard tuning with standard barre chords, that is what I’m going to do next, it also helps to understand the song better, to me.

I think it is very possible to become good at this song in 5-10 minutes a day every day by using it as open chord practice, just use it instead of an exercise drill, ||: D, Am, C, G :|| Use a DAW to make a loop out of that section of the song (just the verse) to use it as practice backing. Usually my problem is.. once I start playing repetitions along with a song like that.. I keep playing it way longer than 10 mins which eats into the time I should move onto other stuf.

Sonic wrote:

Have you got a background/degree in physics (like me) or in electrical engineering?

EE. I always preferred physics and physics always had cuter girls! So jealous. The high EE salaries lured me away. One of these days I will find myself a cute nerdy physics girl, fingers crossed. 😀 How do you tell the difference between a physics prof and an EE prof — answer: the physics prof speaks english.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Still chasing I’m The Ocean.. 6 mos later! 🙁 Still, its better than before.. just not yet good enough..

NY definitely does not play the lead notes when he plays it live. He must only be strumming the big chords. There’s only one video on youtube of him playing it live.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Here is a rendered demo of my Heart Of Gold progress using a practice recording from 2 weeks ago double-tracked with a practice recording from today. Drums via beat buddy pedal set on some generic rock beat and I’m tapping the pedal to add fills. Still not 100% there yet but getting closer. I definitely didnt think it would take so long to learn this song to a performance level.

Enjoy.

I took Southern Man off my set list, its too much of a bummer to sing. I might look adding Top Gun’s suggestion of Downtown instead, thats a cool grungy track. I will have to try hard to sing Downtown with a straight face because only one thing comes to mind if singing “lets go downtown”. ahem, haha.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Last month I finally played I’m The Ocean live, after many hundreds of hours of practice on it. Dedicated to all at metal method, the instructors and forum peeps.

I’m The Ocean

I wasnt going to post this particular video but there it is anyways. My nervousness is audible in my vocals. I taught the chord progression to the bass player on the spot and he did a great job with improvising a bass line. This guy is also a great rock guitarist and plays slack key guitar too (aka, Hawaiian style). He plays bass professionally in one of the best local rock cover bands. So I had to pull out this song for him to jam along.

I give myself a “B-” for this one.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[SonicRider]

Cool, you internalized all the lyrics?! No cheat?

Could you perhaps summarize your findings from the discussion above? Thus, how exactly do you play the riff? Perhaps you could even share your tab?

 

[superblonde]

Yup, I memorized the lyrics, and I remember them really well now. That was difficult and time consuming. I was able to remember them even with the bombshell bartenderesses walking around. omg ha. I got a couple of the melody notes wrong so I’ll be back to the DAW to rehearse the vocals again with the album track. Normally I get them more correct, but, I guess nerves got me. Even off pitch a couple places, ugh. 🙁 The tempo of 100% is still tough to stay ‘in the zone’. What’s funny about the lyrics is the verse I have the most problems with is the 3rd verse, because right about that time, my nerves seem to kick in and I start getting distracted thoughts like, “omg, am I messing up? am I off tempo? or am I okay?” Kind of a strange thing.

I’ve practiced the guitar part so much, that my hand basically moves on it’s own (unless I get distracted trying to sing a proper note). I play the riff just like the tab. With one problem, I don’t always manage to hit just the single string for the note after the C chord, so that note is sometimes more like a double stop. I think I’m able to hit all the single notes after the D correctly (pinky move). It wasn’t easy to get up to tempo. I mean literally I have been practicing that guitar part since, what, last January. I played it at 50% tempo for several months. Since I believe June, I’ve been playing the song at least once per day of practice, six days a week, and sometimes as much as 60 minutes (or more). So I dont want to downplay it being easy. I got the timing of the notes just by playing with the album track over and over and over, at slow speed (50% to 80%), panning the album track to left headphone and my guitar to right headphone, trying to match it. I think that is the best way to get the rhythm down, and then also keep going back to continue to refine it.

If you’re wondering, how to hit those single notes after strumming a chord, all I can say is, practice the right hand swinging, extremely slowly, just that chord and the following note, and do this for several weeks (no left hand changes, just right hand practice only). There’s more than just the swing, there’s lots of little movements that happen I think, like the fingers ducking the pick in and out a little bit to miss some strings and hit the desired string. Anyway all that works itself out just by doing it every day and aiming for the right sound. The left hand part can also be practiced separately, Doug has a great lesson on how to best practice chord changes in the previous stage 1-2 course. Those single notes actually make sense, they’re reachable frets, so it shouldn’t be like an impossible stretch or something like Segovia has or whatever.

I’m more concerned with whether or not the audience finds the drum machine annoying or if it sounds okay. I keep asking the listeners about this and so far they say it’s okay (except the drummer, who is mildly aggro that I’m not playing with him, hah), tho I’m not sure if they’d say ‘actually it sucks’ to me or not.

I have a funny video from another night while I was playing, the video happened to catch some tipsy bar fly behind me trying to pick up another bar fly until she finally shouted at him, “I’m married!”. HAHA. Ahhh, the joys of dive bars.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

This guy says NY uses hammers for those Ocean single notes. Well, I alternate pick them.. Whatever is easier?

Guitar Lesson: Neil Young Mirror Ball Riffs (with Pearl Jam)

In this live version below, NY messes up the lyrics of several lines and especially the 5th verse but he recovers in the next verse. Not that it matters. Rehearse it as close to perfectly as possible and whatever happens live, happens.

Neil Young – I’m the Ocean (Salzburg, 1995)

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

By the way if anyone has any idea what the song even means then post.. cause I have no friggin clue.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[SonicRider]

In the video above he says „hammer“ and „pull“ but I think he means just „put down“ and „lift off“ while strumming?

To my ears he has got it right.

Looking at the live versions I also got the impression that NY does some normal strumming, sometimes aiming at the thicker strings and sometimes at the thinner strings, but probably not with single string precision.

I like this riff and the song so much. I will finally start practicing it tonight! But honestly, I don’t know the meaning either…

[superblonde]

It’s a great song to practice, that single rhythm part, so it’s a great suggestion. E,G,C,D, the perfect beginner song to play. Plus the vocals turned out to be great practice, so many verses, when I started the notes were hard, now they’re okay. My range has increased. The other Mirror Ball songs are like that too so I’m looking to learn some others there. I taught Ocean to my fellow guitar rehearsal mates and they fell in love with the chord progression and riff notes and didn’t want to stop playing, haha. They’re older than me so of course they like NY too.

In that youtube lesson the guy is definitely referring to hammer-on the single notes. I guess that’s an option but not what I do. He has a very strange way of playing the D chord because he says his pinky doesn’t reach. I don’t think that is a good way to go. Play a normal D. Of course it’s hard at first, but, play a normal D and use the pinky to reach up for that single note. If NY can do it then it is possible.. he’s a song writer, not the greatest virtuoso guitarist.

I uploaded a recording of my Ocean practice today which is much better than messy open mic version. 145 BPM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzSNsFN5fPc

I’ll make a video of how I play it with neck closeup but that could take me a while to do.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

I listened to the Mirror Ball album again and you might be interested in playing Scenery too. It’s slow, just two chords(?!), and look at the main lead lick. Remind you of Stage 3 solo?

(Intro / [Lead riff])
------------------------------------------------------------------|
------------------------------------------------------------------|
------------------------------------------------------------------|
5h7--------5h7----7-9-10-9-7-5-5h7--------5h7----7-9-10-9-7-5-5h7-|
------------------------------------------------------------------|
------------------------------------------------------------------|

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Who said tone is in the fingers? I guess an octave pedal is needed to get the thick bass fuzz for the intense grungy sound of these songs.

Neil Young – Hey Hey, My My Guitar Lesson
Neil Young “Hey Hey, My My” guitar lesson. Today we’re using the Wampler Tweed ’57 and the Electro-Harmonix Octave Multiplexer to come close to Neil’s explosive guitar tone. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) shows how an analog octave pedal loves single notes but is thrown by chords and this is the important part of this riffs destructive sound. A key to the dissonant feeling of this riff is the fact that the bass plays A over Neil’s F(maj7). The verse removes the octave effect and we hear the magic that a tweed style pedal adds to cowboy chords. Lastly, it’s important to note that the “It’s better to burn out” section uses an Em versus the G you hear in the intro. Enjoy your riff of the day guitar lesson!

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

For the NY fans..

Here’s a Downtown cover in progress, still some work to do.. overdub vocals + guitar (NY on left, my guitar + my vocals in right)

The interesting part of this song is the vocals are like on the 2& or 3& so it is not as simple as it sounded to do..
I havent transcribed the bridge part totally correctly yet. The lyrics are a bit cheesy, to be honest, I feel like NY could have done better.

I remember the official video on MTV, it’s trippy.

Neil Young – Downtown (Video) Uploaded by Warner Bros. Records

Below is an overdub vocal cover of Let’s Roll. The guitar part is so sparse and funky so the timing is tricky, I didnt include it yet. (NY on left, my vocals in right)

The really neat thing about Lets Roll, that might not be noticed while listening (but maybe subtly felt) is that the refrain line “Time is running out” actually slips the beat time thruout the song, at the start it starts on the 1, but by the end, it is sung on like 3 or 3& “1, (Time is ..) 3& Time is running out”. I wonder if that’s something the producer(?) did with tape splicing as an edit thing or something, or if the band came up with that idea while playing thru. Or maybe I’m wrong and my counting is totally off, I dunno.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Neil Young to open up entire online music archive for free

The Canadian music legend is releasing the collection online on December 1.

Jackie Dunham, CTVNews.ca
Published Thursday, November 16, 2017 12:49PM EST
Christmas is coming early for Neil Young fans who will be treated to the upcoming release of his latest album and given access to an online archive of his entire music catalogue at the beginning of December.
Young announced in a recent Facebook post that he would be opening up his entire music catalogue for online streaming on Dec. 1, the same day his new album “The Visitor” will be released. He described the archive as “a place you can visit and experience every song I have ever released in the highest quality your machine will allow.”
What’s more, the Canadian music legend revealed that the extensive Neil Young Archives (NYA) will be available to anyone free of charge, at least upon launch. “It’s the way it’s supposed to be. In the beginning, everything is free,” he wrote in the post.
In a message posted to the archives’ website, Young explains why he decided to compile all of his music into one archive.
“I’m very interested in collecting and organization, as well as mechanical things and old school record keeping,” he writes.
Every single recorded track or album by the Canadian singer-songwriter from 1963 until present will be “represented” in the archive, Young wrote. Listeners will be able to enjoy his music using Xstream Music high resolution streaming by OneStream on the website.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Master Killer]

I tried watching your videos but they are all coming up as “unavailable” from YTB.

Cheap Guitars (with some exceptions) play just about as good as expensive ones. It's your ability combined with an awesome amp that makes the difference.

[superblonde]

Yea youtube spontaneously suspended my account a bit ago, a story for another day.
Maybe I will link to video on my own site going forward. Some of the older audio files I retire as well, as time goes on.
Eventually I will post updated tracks including my ultimate goal of a live mini set.. Eventually.. it is taking much longer than expected to get these all down.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

Practice cut of cinnamon with beat buddy drum pedal, “one man band” style. the pedal creates a big improvement in sound. No solo yet because that needs the looper which is still a todo.

video (maybe will work)

https://superblonde.org/2017-3/20171227-cinnamon-sb-gvd.mov

Or audio only:

I play it in standard tuning. Which is a little harder to play and sounds less fat but skips the annoying changing around.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Author]

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