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 Beginner songs for experienced musicians 
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Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2008 8:19 pm
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Location: Boston, MA
Post Beginner songs for experienced musicians
As a new Stick player, but an experienced musician on other instruments, I initially had a hard time finding fun songs to play. I'd noodle around picking out melodies, but full songs eluded me. (It's frustrating to have a musical brain but novice fingers.) Anyway, I'd like to list the songs that helped me break past that stage: not difficult to play, but interesting enough to enjoy thoroughly.

  • "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell (the simplest of the bunch)
  • "Last Train Home" by Pat Metheny, from Still Life Talking
  • "The Naked Stalk" by Michael Hedges, from Taproot - this was the big breakthrough piece for me, highly recommended! I had to transpose it up a half-step.
  • "What If?" and "Gina Lola Breakdown" by the Dixie Dregs, both from What If
  • "Moonlight Sonata," First Movement, by Beethoven - first 16 measures or so
  • "Leyendas," by Albeniz - first 16 measures or so (until the triplets come in -- they're still too difficult for me). For this one I needed sheet music, which is available free at freescores.com. (First heard on Bob Culbertson's "AcouStick" CD.)

How about you? What were the "breakthrough" songs that helped take you to the next level while learning Stick?


Fri Jan 21, 2011 12:11 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
Great thread idea!

First of all, I think you may be the first person in history to use the words "not difficult to play" and "Dixie Dregs" in the same post! :D

Anyway, for me (a stickist of a little over 6 months) I have these to add;

* Autumn Leaves (a nice steady mid tempo version)
* Here there and everywhere - Beatles
* Potters Hand - CCM style tune

I have others that are not as interesting. These all have a nice base of left hand chord changes that pushed me as a new player.

Love your description of having a musician's brain and novice's hands. That's perfect!

Peace
Karma


Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:18 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
Karma: Heh heh. The Dregs are definitely musicians' musicians! However, "What If" is one of their few pieces that has a simple interpretation on Stick. Taking just the melody in the right hand and the bass line in the left, I figured out the basics in about 15-20 minutes. (Next up: the inner harmonies....) As for, "Gina Lola Breakdown", no way am I playing it at full speed! :o But the bass line is mostly 3 notes and the melody stays in a fairly limited pitch range much of the time.

Likewise with the Michael Hedges piece. Most of his music is tremendously difficult, but "The Naked Stalk" is totally doable and fits the Stick beautifully. Also it's slow, so there's no issue of learning it slowly and then speeding up: it works at the speed you learn it. The basics (melody plus simple bass line) took me about an hour, while adding the inner harmonies in the bass line required a few more evenings of effort.

Thanks for posting your own pieces. I'm not familiar with any of them so I'm looking forward to checking them out.


Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:55 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
I've been playing stick for about a month now and this is the stuff I've been playing to get my feet wet:

Pachelbel's Canon in D (basic changes and melody, pretty easy)
Linus and Lucy (AKA the Charlie Brown theme song)
Misty Mountain Hop, by Led Zep (good for learning straight 8ths style base and right hand octaves) Kashmir is also a pretty easy adaptation
also Autumn Leaves


Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:38 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
Well, I'll try to put here my list. I've been playing for about 3-4 months now, but all the progress I've made was in the first 2... So that's what I practice as a Stick beginner:

Walk Don't Run - by The Ventures. Sounds good and some independent bass practice.
Zoot Allures (without guitar solo) - by Frank Zappa. Bass part sounds great on Stick.
Light My Fire - by Teh Doors. It was hard to find how to play the bass/guitar part (left hand) independently with organ/vocal part (right hand), but then the song seems to be rather easy to play (though I still cannot do it at full tempo).
Also I play Fly Me to the Moon with chords in the left hand and lead in the right - extremely easy way, and played Silent Night the same way 3,5 weeks ago :D

I've also tried the Peaches en Regalia by Zappa, but cannot control both hands even at half tempo, so I put it away till I'll have more Stick experience :)
Perhaps one should try some Jethro Tull songs, I think they would sound good on the Stick...:)

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Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:30 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
Learning Greg Howard's arrangement of "Greensleeves" is what really got me on my way.

I doubt I could play it from memory now, but it really opened my eyes to simple left hand arpeggios, and melody. The arrangement is in Greg's "The Stick book".

Highly recommended.

There are so many great simple songs which easily adapt to the stick. In fact an argument can be made the the best songs are simple. So pick a Beatles tune or a singer/songwriter tune you love and start workin it out.

ps Jethro tull tune do sound great on the stick, just listen to Rob Martino!!

Brett


Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:59 am
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
I've been working on Greg Howard's Greensleeves for quite a while now. I'm really trying to polish it. I've found it both challenging and educational. I'm also working on a side project that will hopefully be of use to lots of Stickists, but I'll wait until that's fully baked before talking about it.

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Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:53 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
FuzzyJammer wrote:
Perhaps one should try some Jethro Tull songs, I think they would sound good on the Stick...:)

If you're interested I put a few short Tull demo arrangements of mine on SoundCloud:

http://soundcloud.com/rob-martino/sets/demos

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Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:01 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
Just being a bassist....

"Burning Down The House" - Talking Heads
"Born Under A Bad Sign" - Albert King
"Too Shy" - Kajagoogoo
"Lies" - Thompson Twins
"It's My Life" - Talk Talk
"When The World Is Running Down..." - The Police

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Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:48 pm
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Post Re: Beginner songs for experienced musicians
Brett Bottomley wrote:
Learning Greg Howard's arrangement of "Greensleeves" is what really got me on my way.

I doubt I could play it from memory now, but it really opened my eyes to simple left hand arpeggios, and melody. The arrangement is in Greg's "The Stick book".

Highly recommended.

There are so many great simple songs which easily adapt to the stick. In fact an argument can be made the the best songs are simple. So pick a Beatles tune or a singer/songwriter tune you love and start workin it out.

ps Jethro tull tune do sound great on the stick, just listen to Rob Martino!!

Brett
The first tune I learned how to play on The Stick was Satie's "Gymnopédie No 1", which I figured out by ear from the Blood, Sweat and Tears version. Norwegian Wood is another one that's pretty easy. I always seem to find myself re-harmonizing those Beatles tunes a bit, don't know why.

Two things I try to remember to do when learning any new tune:

1. Don't just settle on the first fingering you come up with. There might be something that makes more sense ergonomically, and/or puts the notes in a place where the timbre is more pleasing to your ear (this is where having a good muscle memory for modes and position/shifting is very helpful, and why "Greensleeves" has a follow-up exercise in Chapter 6 of The Stick Book).

2. Learn the melody in the left hand, too. This will help you find your way around if you are going to play an accompaniment that has some variety to it.

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Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:21 am
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