Sunday, December 13, 2009

Better version of my cover of Help!

In the wee hours of this morning I recorded yet ANOTHER version of my cover of this famous song. It took ten takes before I was satisfied with the guitar track, then the second vocal take is what I added to that.

I have listened to this song a LOT and have played guitar and (sometimes) sang to it literally thousands of times the past few years. I really like the guitar playing of this version better than my earlier efforts, and while I most certainly ain't no Beatle, my singing has improved considerably compared to my R Band days of the early 1990s.

The earlier instrumental version of Help! I was so excited about in the previous post to this blog is still online, but it's place on the home page of my web site has been replaced by this version.

Here is a direct link to my latest cover version of Help!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

been cold around here past few days

It's been way too cold here lately for me to ride the bicycle and play guitar. It's not good for the wood of the guitar when it's this cold, and not good for my fingers or hands either!

I charged the battery of my 1965 Ford Falcon Ranchero yesterday. Tomorrow I will get a couple gallons of gasoline into it and try to start the engine again. If it doesn't work, then I'll ask for help from people who know more about mechanics than I do.

A few days ago I recorded yet another version of my cover of the Beatles song Help! and posted it to my web site. I've been practicing this song literally thousands of times the past few years, and my playing is getting smoother and smoother. My latest insight about the song came about a week ago and involves the spiraling arpeggio riff played by George Harrison at the end of the intro, each chorus, and the outro.

There are many groups of three in this song, three evenly spaced bass notes between chord changes, three verses, etc. However, that spiraling arpeggio riff consists of sixteen evenly-spaced evenly-stressed notes. It is played by picking four strings of a hand position then moving that same hand position down three more times one fret at a time, in other words, four groups of four notes! Not only that, but that riff is played four times during the song. How much more "fourness" can you get? Well, okay, I see that a riff of four groups of four notes being played four times only references the number four three times! But then, that reinforces the "threeness" in this song.