The inaugural 'learn a song a day for a month' challenge.

octatonic

Hi mate, 

I'll see about doing a drum video.
It will require some creativity as I don't do a lot of video stuff and I do most of my playing here on an electronic kit, so syncing the video with the audio might be tricky.

That track has 6 main beats- the kick intro, the verse part lead with toms, the verse part on the hats, the variation verse part over 'Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight', the chorus part with the open hats, and then the 'pace yourself' bridge section.
Everything else is basically a fill or a variation of the 6 parts above.

I won't say I've got it down yet- this is definitely the most challenging piece in the song list so far as far as drums go.

On charting out riffs- I chart things out usually for 2 reasons- either for me to learn or for me to teach someone.
If I am teaching someone then I usually notate it properly, on a staff. If the student doesn't read notation then I tab it for them.

If for myself, I usually just learn the riff- the Lenny Kravitz tune earlier in this thread is a good example- I wouldn't need to notate that- if I play it roughly 20 times a day for 20 days then it is into long term memory.

octatonic

Day 18, Songs 24 & 25

Getting towards the final stages of learning the songs- My plan is to do the last 5 in two days, certainly by end of Sunday, which will give me a full 7 days of practicing the set, finding any pressure points and smoothing them out.

It is taking quite a bit of time to run through them all on 3 instruments now, so I am dropping most of the easy ones in favour of going through the harder ones- instrument dependant of course.
So I might go through Copperhead Road on drums but not worry about it on guitar or bass, for instance.

"Shake a Tail-feather"- The Blues Brothers

Dominant blues type thing in D.
Guitar: Pretty typical for the genre. No solo.
Bass: busy part, lots of walking about and istinato,
Drums: Some nice builds on the floor tom, otherwise pretty straight. 

"Upside Down:- Paloma Faith.

Minor 3 chord vamp (I IV V) in Dm.
Guitar: Stabs on the 2 & 4
Bass: Significant role. Some nice walking stuff but otherwise mostly root to 5- tone pot down for faux upright tones.
Drums: 1/4 note hats, lock in with the bass. Will probably play this with hotrods or brushes.

I'll get charts done for them now.

octatonic

"Shake a tail-feather" chart.

octatonic

Upside Down chart.

EricTheWeary

Looks the right way up to me

octatonic said:

Upside Down chart.

octatonic

Here you go then...

octatonic

Day 19 Songs 26 - 30

I'm going to leave playing the set for today and mop up the rest of the songs.

"Fuck You"/"Forget You" - Ceelo Green

"Hot Stuff" - Donna Summer

"Brown Sugar" - Rolling Stones

"Alright Now" - Free

"The Power Of Love" - Huey Lewis And The News"

I'll get going on them and post breakdowns and charts as I go.

octatonic

"Fuck You/Forget You" chart.

Harmony: C D7 F C most of the way through with some different chords in the bridge.
Guitar- pretty sparse chord playing- using partial voicing.
Bass-much more to do- some nice climbs and motown fills, especially in the bridge. Resist the urge to slap. )
Drums- some nice tom fills, otherwise mostly 1/4 note or 8th note stuff. Tip/shank is your friend here.

octatonic

Hot Stuff chart is below.

We are doing an abridged version and this goes on forever. The end sax solo and stuff is cut.
Harmony: Nothing tricky here- Gm F vamp in the verses and a two part chorus.
Guitar: Chip chords in funk style. Strat, position 4 or 2.
Bass: This is pretty tough on a bass actually- a lot of mutes and pedal ostinato to make it sound right.
Drums: Disco fever- 4 to the floor, open hats on the upbeat. She decent fills- bit of an endurance song.

octatonic

Brown Sugar Chart below

Harmony: Simple 2 chord chorus- intro has the most movement, 4 chord verse.
Guitar: Several prescriptive riffs- especially the intro
Bass: Pretty standard rock n roll tune- root notes, some general bass meandering.
Drums: Tip/shank hats, some gratuitous cowbell/wood block opportunities. Try to ignore the singers poor attempt at keeping time with a tambourine.

octatonic

"Alright Now" chart is below.

Harmony: clever use of very few chords.
Guitar: probably one of the most argued over riffs in history.
I'm playing it like this:

A: x 0 2 2 5 5
D/A: x 0 4 2 3 2
D add11: x 5 4 0 3 0

Chorus:

A5: x 0 7 9 10 x (then descending with F# E on the A string) to
G5: x 5 5 7 8 x
G/F#: x x 4 7 8 x
The final A I'm playing: x 0 x 9 10 9 (plucking the open A with the pick and puling the top 3 notes with my fingers.

Bass: A lot of hanging about in this one- man of the verses you drop out. You get to play a little melody thing in the bridge.

Drums: More Cowbell! Otherwise pretty straight forward.

ennspek

This is a fantastic thread. I'm so interested in the process, keep going.
I only know a couple of songs so far (and play then poorly) but I definitely use an F Barre chord for Rolling in the Deep, then down to the "big G" with the extra fifth.
It's taking me a while to realise that there is so much interpretation involved in recreating other people's music.

octatonic

Chart for 'The Power of Love"

I was saving this one for last- it is a fantastic tune and so well written.

Harmony: Some really nice bits- the bridge is so well written.
Guitar: Verse riff is very cool- has to be played prescriptively. Nice big chunky chords in the chorus. Bridge part clean.
Bass: Sounds like a synth bass on the track- so play it straight.
Drums: Lots of fills in this one, 16th note hi hats, half open hats and accents tom rolls- proper drumming tune.

octatonic

Ok... so what now?
There are a bunch of tunes here that I don't need to practice daily.

I split songs up into 3 categories- Rarely, Sometimes and Often for each instrument.

If I was looking at guitar it would be this:

Rarely: these songs get played when I need to refresh them. I've already played them so many times that they are in my long term memory and they are the easier songs that have fewer prescriptive parts, or easy parts.

Let Me Entertain You - Robbie Williams
This is the Life- Amy MacDonald
Uptown funk - Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars
Everybody Needs Somebody - Blues Brothers
Let’s Stick Together - Bryan Ferry
Proud Mary - Ike and Tina Turner, CCR version
I’m So Excited - Pointer Sisters
Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis
Fly Away -Lenny Kravitz
Rolling In The Deep- Adele

Sometimes: these songs get hit a couple of times a week. They might have some trickier harmony parts, or prescriptive riffs or solos. They might be songs that I've learned a few weeks previously that I'm not quite comfortable with.

Play that Funky Music - Black Cherry
Valery - Amy Winehouse
One Way or Another - Blondie
Centrefold - J Geils Band
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
Lonely Boy - Black Keys
Mighty Quinn - Bob Dylan, Manfred Mann version
Upside Down - Paloma Faith
The Heat is On- Glenn Frey
Shake a Tailfeather - Blues Brothers

Often: these songs tend to be the newer ones, or the ones with solos that I am learning note for note, or have a harder structure or chord sequence. They get played every day- I might skip a day of technique, scales etc but this gets done without fail.

The Power Of Love- Huey Lewis and the News
Alright Now- Free
Brown Sugar- Rolling Stones
Hot Stuff- Donna Summer
Fuck You/Forget You- Ceelo Green
Call me the Breeze Lynyrd Skynyrd
Mr Blue Sky- ELO
Somebody Told Me- Killers
SOS - Abba
Mama Mia - Abba

The goal is to push everything into the 'rarely' category, but not to rush the process. 
There are no points for saying to yourself 'job done' and then fucking up at a rehearsal or a gig.
I've knocked the last few songs off today but I definitely don't know them like the rest of the set- it will take me at least couple of days to have them down.

stratman3142

So you're done. That definitely deserves a Wow and a Wisdom, but I don't seem able to award both.
It's been interesting following this thread and it's something I'll come back to.

octatonic

stratman3142 said:

So you're done. That definitely deserves a Wow and a Wisdom, but I don't seem able to award both.
It's been interesting following this thread and it's something I'll come back to.

Not quite- I still have 11 days to go until the 30 days are up.
I don't consider that I have all the songs down- they are just charted, I'm familiar with the structure and I've played them a few times on bass drums and guitar.

Next stages are refining, recording myself playing them, observing mistakes, correcting them.

Here is a small video of me playing the last 30 seconds or so of Uptown Funk.
It is difficult to do a 'this is how I work out drum parts' lesson due to the logistics of the studio- I can't record and monitor at volume otherwise it is feedback city.

PolarityMan

Sounding good. How do you find keeping your place without the other instruments? Are you having to count bars or do you "run the sing in your head".  I find in drums I rely on cues more so than when I play guitar. 

PolarityMan

Nice kit too btw.

octatonic

PolarityMan said:

Sounding good. How do you find keeping your place without the other instruments? Are you having to count bars or do you "run the sing in your head".  I find in drums I rely on cues more so than when I play guitar. 

Thanks mate.

Oh, I was wearing in ear monitors.
At some stage I will run the songs in my head but that won't be for a couple more days.

PolarityMan

I remembers that we occasionally use charts for our originals while we are testing out different structures. Here's one

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/1908361_842558202457843_7771211219505551177_n.jpg?oh=cbd3a891573a4deebffe360a787af666&oe=588AAFC2

The thing in the top corner is the missing legs.