Great work Scott! You know, that's one of the reasons I focused very early on memorizing left hand arpeggios: I was on a tight schedule to learn a way to be able to learn and perform a bunch of songs in a short period of time: work was not that good and the stick had to pay for itself anyway, I would spend a lot of time, and I mean a LOT of time, just playing one chord, up and down, even while doing other stuff, like for instance watching TV, letting the brain work the finger movement out and the body figure out a way to relax while doing it. My main focus was on this! With every new song comes the memorization of a different variation, in a different key, different time signature, inversions, different fingerboard options and the hand movement from one place to the other. But the continuous arpeggio in the left hand is quite simple now that the brain has enough experience with it. As with any other instrument, after a while, the hand knows what to do to keep the ears happy.
Now days, I'm heading the other way: getting out of the left hand arpeggiated triad and moving on to bass lines combined with block chords. And I'm back to square one: one movement at a time, very slowly, feeling very dumb, but pushing it, while my right hand checks emails, plays melodies or whatever, making everything so many times that it will eventually become as easy and natural as holding the stick - on the way to making it become just another part of the body.
And you know what? Everyday I feel I'm a little better. So you should be proud of yourself, this video is another landmark. Keep it, it was an important day. Congrats!

This is a very inspiring thread!

Was the score done in GP6?


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One more thing.....during the lyric "parsley sage...." You are starting that chord shape with your middle finger then the fifth with your index. Ergonomically, this is causing you grief because again the root note is being lifted. I think I may have brought this up with you in a previous post.

Use your index finger for the root of that chord and you will see a big difference. Personally, every song I play uses either the index or pinky to hit roots, never do I use my middle or ring finger to hit roots of chords.......give it a try.

Cheers,
Kev

Hey, that is a different way to go about it. I like the hands free mic or over the ear mic or whatever it is called. Singing the melody instead of just an instrumental is something I have tried in the past. It gives your hands the ability for a much fuller accompaniment. It seems like the more advanced Stickists here do mostly instrumental music, playing chords or bass lines with the left and the melody in the right. I have heard some folks say that the Stick and how it sounds is what interests people and vocals over your playing are a distraction. I disagreed fervently at the time, but guess I just started to follow what the more known Stick players were doing anyway. The original idea I had for my Grateful Dead cover was to sing the lyrics while playing the song, but it turned out to be a bit of a stretch on some of the high notes.

Mike

I played this a ton, and I think that the biggest take away here is familiarity with hand placement, and familiarity with the tune. Once I felt I pretty much "knew it" which was Monday and Tuesday's task, it was time to iron out some of the kinks. The best way to do that was to hammer thew m'effer with a metronome. From 8th notes at 46BPM to 132BPM. My goal was 144, but 132 just about killed me; My reaction time on the changes was terrible.

Then, when I tried to quickly shoot the video, I went back into old habits and train-wrecked a bunch of times. lol I really shouldn't get nervous, but I do... So yeah, tons more work to do!

So all total, probably about 20 hours to get this piece to this point...

Anyways, now this tune is part of my vocabulary. I win.

I love that Kev offers such awesome encouragement and also actual practical advice. He's a great cheerleader AND a great coach!

I'm gonna have to think hard about this advice. I tend to use my ring finger to start the roots of chords and I can leave it there and let the middle finger grab the fifth, and the index finger grab the octave (and I'm not using my pinky finger AT ALL yet, which alone bothers me). But I think it depends if you're making chord shapings going "up" or going "down," or shaped like an L versus shaped like half of a T. If I'm making shapes down I think I'm doing what Scott is doing, index on root and the other fingers grabbing notes further away from me.

But I think the crux of your advice is "use the fingers at either end of your hand to get the roots," and since I'm not using my pinky in the left hand at all yet, for me that's my ring finger. I'm going to have to mull that over and see how it works for me.

I'm a bit late to the Scarborough Fair party, Scott, but I see you're making great progress and have really got the forum plugged into your progress! Kudos on both fronts! This is a great cover tune to have in your repertoire and in your arsenal. I see a lot of left hand action in your playing that really shows that you've been working hard on this. Good job!