God I Love Music! Pt 1,452,322

Yesterday I was wasting some time just surfing the net, and came across this gem from Mike and the Mechanics.

First, before I go any further, I must mention that Mike Rutherford is a HUGE influence on my bass playing. Very under-rated. At :54 seconds in, listen to the way the bass lays down the descending scale while the guitar plays the same two chords…. Brilliant. Paul Carrack is a musical virtuoso, can play about anything, and is vocal GOD. So much soul! I should have payed more attention to Paul Young, who, sadly, is no longer with us.

Anyway…. While listening to the song, I asked myself “Hmmm, I wonder if I can play this?”. So I surfed the net and found several websites with the chords… or supposedly the chords to the song! I picked up the guitar and started trying to play the song according to the pages, but, as is the usual with so many internet chord pages, they were wrong! So I started plucking the string until I found the root and the fifth, and, after putting the capo on the first fret, I was suddenly off to the races! I’m not sure what the middle walking scale at 2:41 is yet, but I’ll figure that out soon enough.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a bass player, and will always be a bass player. I’m proud to be in that club. But playing / learning to play guitar is so much fun! It feels like a whole new world of music is opening up before my eyes!

Here is another great Mike and the Mechanics song. LOVE the bass line!

Bass / Guitar Techniques | Sonicfrog January 31, 2011

5 Comments to “God I Love Music! Pt 1,452,322”

By Derek, January 31, 2011 @ 7:17 pm

Thanks for posting these videos. I almost forgot how great Mike and the Mechanics music is.

Speaking of trying to learn a song. I had the same kind of problem with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nneEIX59I8. It’s a relatively simple bass part. Yet for some reason there’s still a few notes I just can’t seem to figure out.

Have a great day, Frog.
By Sonicfrog, January 31, 2011 @ 9:48 pm

Dude… forget the bass parts… That’s some mighty fine mandolin playing!!!! I’ll have to work on this on my mando.

PS. Sometimes, for what-ever reason, the simpler parts are hard to play.
By Jeff Alberts, February 1, 2011 @ 2:42 am

I’m pretty shallow when it comes to music. But there are a handful of songs that just do it for me, can’t explain why. Some of them are:

A Day in the Life
Nights in White Satin
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
Happy Together
Yesterday
Eleanor Rigby
And the newest one: Lake Michigan, by Rogue Wave.

I don’t usually care for music earlier than 1980, but I heard that RW song on a Zune ad a couple of years ago and just had to find out what it was. It’s a very Beatles-like song.
By Sonicfrog, February 1, 2011 @ 6:15 am

My band plays both Happy Together and Eleanor Rigby. On Eleanor, I sing the last verse of the song. On the first or second night we performed it, my wires got crossed. Instead of singing “Eleanor Rigby, died in the church and was buried along with her name…”, I sang “Father McKenzie died in the church…”. And yes, recognizing my mistake, I DID have Eleanor burying him at the end!
By Jeff Alberts, February 1, 2011 @ 3:40 pm

lol