How do you approach learning a "new" Old Song?

IamNoMan

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How do you approach learning an "new" old song for ukulele?

Lots of folks at UU like new and comtemporary songs and/or write their own. That's cool! I like old songs, the older the better. My motivation for this is two-fold: I am an entertainer and like to encourage audience participation. So I tailor my song selection to old cover-songs. Lots of non-musicians know the words to old songs and musicians cover songs that people like to hear. I also really like old songs.

I also have a motivation that most of you may not. I learn new old songs on both the ukulele and banjo. So, I usually learn the lyrics first. I then pick up the chords from tabs, cheat books or videos.

Sometimes I learn them first hand from the singer themselves, that is the most fun but with old songs the Law of Diminishing Returns is at play.

After that I work on melodic lines , tricks, bling etc. There is more to it than that but it's your turn now.
 
What I do is first I just learn the song well enough to play along with the original recording. After that is when I start experimenting with key transposing, chord substitutions, fingerpicking, and different rhythms.
 
Per Jim D'Ville:

From the melody, I find what key the song is in and write out the scale in that key. For example, in Bb the scale would be:
Bb-C-D-Eb-F-G-A

Then I number the scale: I ii iii IV V vi vii (to see my major and minor chord family). In Bb:
Bb-Cm-Dm-Eb-F-Gm-Adim

Then I figure out the patterns for the verse and bridge. Is it a I-IV-V7 song?
Bb-Eb-F7

Then I noodle around to make adjustments and play it my way. I also recommend getting the book Fretboard Toolbox for ukulele C-tuning, that gives you all this information and more for every key.
 
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Hi, IamNoMan. I usually play the tune first on my flute, or keyboard, or sometime Da-Da-Da it. Then, being an English major, I peruse the words. Lots of old folk songs have really dumb words, and, in my opinion, aren't worth singing. I really like slow blues songs, but I hate most of their words. Anyway, if I don't like the words, and I do like the tune a lot, then I whistle instead of sing it. I check out chords while I'm playing the tune. If there are too many changes, I usually put it away 'til some other day. I already know lots of tunes from playing them over the years. So that gives me a head start on a lot of tunes.

I'm pretty picky about the words. I like all the verses to fit together. A lot of folk songs use verses from other songs that don't fit--no good! I'm not crazy about long ballads either; they get boring sometimes.

I would like to play some tunes with my Harps too, but I have a problem with them. I'm a melody person! I can play licks and riffs of course, but I always wander into the melody. The only instrument I ever played from "second chair" was second or third Trombone in a dance band, and solo chair usually plays melody or countermelody. I guess I'll have to work on it.

Lots of stuff to cram into this old, white head. :eek:ld:
 
I was blessed with a child prodigy piano player. Last week I heard her do the clavicord solo in the middle of one of the Brandenburg Concertos. I openly, unashamedly bawled my eyes out. Since she was home schooled so her lessons could be fitted in around the university professors' (started at 10) schedules, I got to hear many things go from intro to finished product.

My wife was a vocal major in college. Again, from intro to finished product, in 39 years, one gets the idea of how the process happens. Both did a visual completly through without stopping. It was done S L O W L Y. Both agreed that if you cannot do it well slowly, it will not get better trying to do it rapidly. For difficult places, Steph would write out the fingerings over the notes. It doesn't seem to be a common practice for pickers to consider that there might be a different way to play a chord which will make the next one easier to play. Suggesting different fingerings seems to be almost heresy! The difficult parts would be played/sung with a couple of measures before and after. Starting back at the beginning and getting up to it was a waste of a lot of time...especially on longer pieces.

Both had an attitude which said, "I have yet to be able to play/sing this to my satisfaction" rather than " I can't do this" "I hate this part". It seems mental attitude is not considered as being as important as the instrument being in tune.

The voice has been singing as never before for the past nine months. I am left with the memories of how she accomplished it for the previous 39 years. Some day I will hear her again.
 
What I do is first I just learn the song well enough to play along with the original recording. After that is when I start experimenting with key transposing, chord substitutions, fingerpicking, and different rhythms.
This is pretty much what I do too. A little fillup on this: When I decide to cover a song, I search out a playlist of the song in question and listen to various covers to decide the approach I wish take. I always noodle along, sometimes before I know the chords or even the key. Well when I figure out the key I guess I'm playing the song. You start transposing right away this way and I find it helps to learn the tune faster.

I don't copy other peoples covers, I do it my way. But when I'm going through the play lists I always bookmark covers by Satchmo and Old Blue Eyes. There is always something to be learned from those two.

Edit: One reason I don't do other peoples covers is BMI, ASCAP and Intellectual property bull s**. I don't try to make money by playing music and I certainly believe every artist should be entitled to whatever compensation their efforts can produce but the cited organizations don't turn the money over to the artist who created the work and I don't think Alan or John Lomax ever wrote a song in their lives. The hoops BMI and ASCAP may you jump through to run a simple NFP Folk Club defy all reason.
 
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