Love this! You sound great and the Homespun-style camera work is awesome. I love that you've taken time to really study the rhythm guitar. My only advice would be to just slow it down a bit and just sit in the resonance of the song just a touch more. But overall, this is a wonderful tribute. 

Hi Matt, sounding good! I really appreciate the spirit that you've got in this. My main observation is that the tempo changes quite a bit when you're playing rhythm guitar and singing vs. playing the melody. Maybe try playing the entire song at the slowest tempo where you feel comfortable playing everything. I'd even suggest playing along with a metronome for this. Then once you've got a better sense of continuity between the instrumental and the vocal, begin to slowly raise the tempo. Whereever you play it though, just make sure that you really sink into the groove and the pocket of the song and carry that pocket through. Sometimes I like to think of "taking care of the listener." My other suggestion is that your rhythm guitar under the vocal could be simplified and opened up a bit. I often will just play sparse bass notes and not really worry about the strumming. See if that leaves more space for the vocal to sit out front. 

Hello Torgeir! I'm so pleased to see this - your guitar playing is really getting better and better all the time! The thing I think you should pay the most attention to is actually making sure that you're singing is in the groove rhythmically. You're developing a nice flow with your guitar playing but what pulls me out more often is the timing of the singing. I know that English isn't your first language so this might be tricky, but think more about the actual rhythm and groove of the words coming out of your mouth and make sure that they are working together with your guitar playing to create a groove and pocket. 

Regarding the guitar playing, you've made so much progress. Your Tony Rice-style intro here sounds good. You might try paying a bit of extra attention to the dynamics. Allow the phrases to get soft and loud to create a touch more drama. All in all though I thing you're sounding great. Bravo!

There you go!

As far as getting it up to speed, I don’t think there’s any substitute for putting in the hours. It can be good to play beyond the speed at which you can do it cleanly with a focus on staying relaxed and plowing forward rather than playing every note perfectly. Even if you can’t execute playing it at that speed cleanly you want to develop the sensation of what it feels like to play at that speed. The cleanliness and notes will come.

Hey Tim, that sounds great! And yes, it looks like the right pick direction throughout. Great job of working on it. It is indeed very tricky to keep the timing accurate and flowing this way, especially if you’ve been alternate picking all of your life! But the timbral reward is worth it, IMHO. It also provides a great look inside TR’s highly unusual right hand approach. I think he just figured out how to flatpick that way when he was a little boy because nobody told him not to, and he built a beautiful style around it.

I use those types of sweeps in my playing now when I want to give extra texture and color to the notes I was going to play anyway. It’s a great tool to have in the toolbox.

Hey Darren, you sound really good on here! Lovely playing and singing. This performance feels very musical and settled. There is one immediate thing to point out though: there are beats missing consistently between the A and B sections. On the first instrumental at around 0:23 it jumps ahead by 3 beats. At that same spot when you are singing (0:55) it jumps ahead by 1 beat. It jumps ahead there a bit in the last instrumental as well. So I’d listen again and count while you’re listening and make sure you know which beats the downbeats of the measures are occurring on. It’s confusing with this song. For years when I was younger I thought that the downbeat of *Tony Rice’s* version (but not Norman’s) was the very first note of the song - but the first two notes are actually pickups and the downbeat is the 3rd note. All of that to say, this song is a little squirrelly. 

The other note that I would make is that there’s an opportunity in the Norman version (the first instrumental you play) to get really, really groovy. You might try playing that one as if you were trying to get people to dance. I take it to a kind of calypso-y place, which you don’t have to do, but I do think that it’s inherently groovy so see if you can squeeze a little more of that out of it. That said, it sounds really nice and calm as is!

Chris

Beautiful.  Love your playing.

thanks for the help Mike, and the compliments. 

Hi Darren - good question.  We found that most people were either pre-recording and then uploadeing their videos or using the YouTube link for videos -- so we removed the in page recorder.  The in page recorder also had lower quality. 

I tried doing a video in QuickTime but it wouldn't play here. What youtube link do yoou speak of? Any help would be awesome.

Hi Darren -- sorry for the troubles.  For YouTube videos -- in the top menu of the comment box you can find a " + YouTube " button.  If you click it, you can paste in a YouTube video URL that will then add the video to your comment.  Please let me know how it works.

mike I keep having trouble with video upload. is it because I have private enabled on youtube? I just want to share the video here. 

i just pressed the little clock looking thing on the screen  and now my video is back??? Any help??

Yes -- the video needs to be public on YouTube in order for it to be shared here.  Sorry -- it's just the way YouTube is setup.

Aww, thanks Darren!

Any advices/tips from members ?

Hi Rémy, 

It seems to me that actually resting the hand on the bridge would limit vertical movement of the wrist/hand and impede your ability to pick as quickly on different strings. I have a feeling that players like Molly are not actually resting their hand there even if it looks close, judging by the vertical movement of the wrist.

Anyways, at the end of the day the key is removing tension form the entire arm. I find lately that relaxing my upper arm onto the top of the guitar helps me a lot in this regard. It seems that Chris may do this as well, while I've noticed plenty of others players do not, so clearly it comes down to personal preference/your anatomy/your guitar. When I'm most relaxed I find that my up/down movements are smaller and picking is simply more accurate.

John

Hi Remy,

Sorry, it seems I missed this comment from you a couple of weeks ago! I definitely think that it is not good to have your hand/wrist resting on the saddle and/or bridge pins. It really does literally rob vibrational energy from the guitar and will make it sound weaker and less dynamic. 

You are right in assuming that my right hand does brush against the strings, acting as a "guide" to use your words. Often I will be brushing lightly against the strings with the side of my thumb and the muscle-y part of my hand below the thumb. I also sometimes let my ring and pinky fingers touch the pickguard, also acting as a guide. So, I'm almost never floating completely freely.

I suspect that John D. is correct in saying that Molly isn't actually resting her hand on the bridge pins, although I'm not positive. Whatever Molly does is most certainly working though! She's one of my very favorite of the younger guitar players. Her IBMA award this year was very well deserved!

Hi Chris and John (sorry for the response time John). Thank you to both of you, your answers help a lot and thank you Chris for taking the time to detail your technique. It confort me in the way I modified my right hand technique, thank you :)

Since I posted my question, I studied a little the Molly's case . I found a video on YT ( "Molly Tuttle's White Freightliner Warmup") that focus on her right hand technique (filmed from the side) and it appear that Molly rests her wrist on the bridge/nut for solos, muting strings that aren't stroked. But as you sayed Chris, "Whatever Molly does is most certainly working though" :-)  She's really an amazing guitar player !!!
Thank you very much :-)

Hi Rémy, you are absolutely correct - I misspoke at 7:04. Should be down - up right there. Thanks for catching that! I will head over to the forum to check out the rest of your comment and respond there as necessary.

Cheers,

Chris

Thank you for your answer Chris :)

Cool picking ... I'm still having post traumatic stress symptoms from trying this way to early in my evolution. I agree completly about Chris and Julian ... so lucky to have seen them here when they passed through earlier this year. 

Thanks Kip! Yeah, this one is really a bender on the right hand, just gotta keep at it low and slow and build it up!  And I saw them play with Aoife O'Donovan in Berkeley, CA and it was one of the greatest shows I've seen in a while.

Hi Ian, you sound really good! I think you just need to keep playing it to get it smoother and punchier. Your second time playing the melody was both smooth and punchy, which means you not only do you know how to do it - you can already do it. Sometimes, when I was working on this I would just push the tempo beyond where I knew I could be in control and then try to have it feel either relaxed, or attain the punchy rhythm. Usually when one would come into focus the other would quickly follow. You're on the path. Keep at it!

Thanks Chris, really appreciate the feedback!  I'll give your advice a go and hopefully get to where I need to be. :-D

Sounds good Ian. The only thing I noticed is your left wrist. If you go up and look at Chris play his wrist is straight while he plays the tune. It might be because you are sitting down and you're dropping your elbow too much. Try standing up and see where your arms and hands sit on the guitar, could be a posture thing when your sitting. Or try dropping the guitar neck so it is parallel to the floor. I only mention this because it could cause tension in your forearm moving forward. Keep pickin buddy!!!

Yes, that looks better, especially on the second solo. There is a grace that wasn't there before. How doesn't it feel?

This sounds great! I love that you got that passing Bb chord in there under the sung verse. One thing that might help: try opening up your right hand slightly so that you are not making a fist. I see some tension in your right hand and wrist and that may be where it's originating. If you watch Tony you will see that his middle and ring fingers are extended out from his hand ever so slightly, acting almost like a depth guage. In my experience, opening my fingers up in my right hand can help my wrist relax. That said, YMMV.

Great job though! Keep going with it!

Good work Kip! The sweeps are a killer aren't they? I find trying to control them introduces a ton of tension in my wrist at the moment, which I'll need to work on. 

Hi Kip,

thanks for posting! The main issue here is honoring the rests and the overal beat structure of the song. This is the most consistent issue for you. Everything else is sounding really good! Try doing the counting on my video. It might be educational to then do the counting on yours to see where things are getting off. Way to go tackling this beast though!

And yeah, the sweeps are really hard! I get very tense when I do them as well. These days I just try to practice staying loose and I have faith that that accuracy will come with time.

Chris