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Sleep Walk - looking for criticism
Joined: May 25, 2012 Posts: 39 |
Posted on Oct 01 2012 03:00 PM
If you have a few minutes, please give a listen to Sleep Walk. It's based on the Chantay's arrangement. (and it's in Db?) This is my level best effort. I've been playing slide for about 2-3 months, so it's got a few rough spots. Mostly what I'm looking for are the big ticket items, as in "what should I work on next?" (The backing has a lot of mistakes too, please ignore - it's scratch.) |
Joined: Sep 23, 2012 Posts: 69 stone mountain, georgia 
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Posted on Oct 01 2012 03:13 PM
ImaDirtyTroll wrote:
Very solid effort for 2-3 months in no doubt about it! The 'elephant in the room', so to speak, is the notes cutting off. I notice it is pretty much for every phrase. Are you having trouble with sustain? On spots where you hold the note a little longer, I notice the note kind of dies out & you are left with just a scrubbing sound. If this is why, I'd perhaps try to go for more gain & see if you can get the notes to hold out a little longer. You are doing the right thing by sliding slightly back & forth on the note to sustain it - was this recorded direct, with an amp simulator? If so, perhaps using an amp in the room, mic'd would fix the issue. Are you playing a guitar or lap steel? Are you in an open tuning or standard? Is the harmony phrase an overdub? —Wake the Kraken! |
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Joined: May 25, 2012 Posts: 39 |
Posted on Oct 01 2012 04:01 PM
whistledixie wrote:
Not really trouble with sustain, it's more a trouble with damping.
This was recorded direct with an amp simulator, actually to bring out the mistakes. When I play through the amp it's usually loud enough to sustain, and also with a little reverb, which covers up a lot. (Also playing with other people covers up some more.)
That was played with a finger slide standing up, on a 335. I can play it a little better lap style using a bar, for me it's much easier to avoid hitting the frets and to control the vibrato.
Standard tuning, I'm not smart enough to learn the neck all over again.
It's a Maj 6th double stop. The melody at that point is F-G-Ab so I guess that would make the "harmony" Ab-Bb-Cb? I don't know music theory, but that probably doesn't work in the key of C. I think some versions have a chord passage there, I'll have to look into that some more. Thanks for the feedback. Last edited: Oct 01, 2012 16:01:45 |
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Joined: Sep 23, 2012 Posts: 69 stone mountain, georgia
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Posted on Oct 01 2012 04:18 PM
gain & reverb to 'smooth' things out is something we all do - not really a mistake cover, but just a tool at our disposal. even the pros use effects to make things sort of blend together - reverb is obviously common in surf music, but delay is very common in all lead guitar playing to help prevent awkward gaps between notes when moving around the neck. I asked about the harmony phrase being an overdub because it sounds like you have a track in there just for that 1 phrase. You can use standard on this, but open tuning really helps for Sleep Walk, especially in that harmony phrase, but also overall - but I understand it is tricky sometimes trying to wrap your head around a new tuning. If I were you, the only thing I would do is work on sustaining the notes out longer, instead of cutting them off. All of this is a matter of personal tastes, obviously, but I think the cutting off of the notes throughout is a little jarring, letting them ring out helps the flow of the song, IMO. —Wake the Kraken! |
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Joined: Sep 23, 2012 Posts: 69 stone mountain, georgia
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Posted on Oct 01 2012 04:22 PM
btw, I actually have spent the past several weeks working on this very tune for our next show - I do it on lap steel & use an open Cm7 tuning. but like I said before, for only a few months of practice on the instrument - this is a great performance!!! —Wake the Kraken! |
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Joined: May 25, 2012 Posts: 39 |
Posted on Oct 02 2012 11:47 PM
Yeah steel guitar is cool and someday in the future I'd like to get into that stuff, but a man's gotta know his limitations. I'm just a hobbyist (obviously) and on a good week I have maybe 10 hours of practice time. I have to keep it focused on the big ticket items. Actually, practicing slide is improving my knowledge of the neck. I've tried my hand at blues improvisation in the past, I have a bad habit of getting into one scale pattern, and then getting stuck in one position. That seems to be a common trap. The slide forces you to think along the strings as well as across the strings. |
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Joined: Sep 23, 2012 Posts: 69 stone mountain, georgia
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Posted on Oct 03 2012 06:18 AM
ImaDirtyTroll wrote:
Absolutely! Dick Dale's Mexico & Miserlou are good for this too - I don't know how other's play them, but I stay on 1 string all the way through Miserlou from beginning to end of each melodic passage. And with Mexico, I stay mostly on the G & B strings - that's a great one for teaching harmony leads too! There's a great Hawaiian standard called Dobro Chimes that is also great in the same manner as Mexico - I learned it years ago & the return on investment for that one has been amazing! Wake the Kraken! |
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