What 'oldies' have you been strumming on guitar today?

I was waiting for this! And why not? It's a classic and sounds so good, just on a 12 string.... I like playing this one, even instrumentally.

 

Sweet! I love ELP.... usually the the proggy the better but they were of course much more varied than perhaps at first glance.

 

Any guitar will do - if I don't have one to hand, I will pick up an electric... different textures and of course effects on the amp and pedals etc. I recorded Til There Was You for my ex-girlfriend years ago... a nice change from the usual/standard chord sequences I'd usually do. And Nobody Knows You... is a classic.... I love all those old blues numbers. I don't really practise as such - I'll do some arpeggios and scales etc just to remind myself but not very often. Ooh - I'll have to look for that Jeff Beck one... it's just a few of his Yardbirds riffs and I got fairly close with a couple of those solos that are short but sweet.

 

I know what you mean and funnily enough, I was thinking about songs I could slow down and change the feel of... almost completely. That was one! But then the UK Subs (cira 1980 IIRC) went the other way and (roughly) doubled the tempo.

 

Excellent - I've certainly had a crack at all those at some time (DLMD last was only weeks ago) and had the most fun doing Yer Blues acoustically!

 

My noodle 'oldies' include:

No Reply
Something
The Night Before
8 Days a Week
Here Comes the Sun
The Weight
Starman
Albatross

 

Thanks n cheers for an inspiring thread. My repertoire tends to include rusty (but brave) renditions of:

Handle with Care
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Have Never Met)
Redemption Song
Love in Vain

Sunday Bloody Sunday is a good one as well.

/Fredrik

 

I use medium gauge. .13 on the high E. I got used to it years ago. I like the tones of heavier gauge and my Martin hd28 responds best to heavier strings. amazing in drop D tuning.

 

That's the best way, I say! Keep things interesting and the challenge the brain cells... keep things sharp and interesting as possible. I'm one who always needs to keep learning.

 

More Fabness (among other tunes...) To be expected and it's always fine with me.

I'll have to have a go at doing an acoustic recording on Albatross at some time... I got a set of bongos a couple of months and haven't thought of much of a use for them as yet! Lots of great Bowie ones can be done solo of course... I have The Weight in a book somewhere and used to play it - Music From Big Pink is one the best albums ever made IMO.

 

Wow! I never thought I'd hear of someone trying that one. Awesome.

 

Thank you! It's doing a lot for me - shame I've been too busy to play since I started it but that's life and that will change today. Handle With Care is a must for me to look into!!

Another by The Band (/Dylan) and I'm trying to think of the others I've played by them... escapes me for the moment apart from I Shall Be Released.

Redemption Song would be the obvious choice for a Marley one on acoustic but then if one has difficulty with singing and playing the rhythm solo, then why not change the beat/rhythm to it. I've a songbook of his that I was given a year or two ago and there's so much I'm surprised I know in it, never having owned all that many albums but I consider Exodus to be a classic, for starters.

Love In Vain... I love Robert Johnson and played many of his but also worked out fairly well how the Stones did it on LIB, with the tremolo effect on the amp. Definitely effective!

Never thought of doing Sunday Bloody Sunday and I like U2 very much - there's an idea!!

 

Ah, serious acoustic players (as you own a Martin - none of my guitars and especially the acoustics I'd ever call all that 'serious' for what they cost ) do tend to use what I'd consider a very heavy gauge! And yes, they just give that sound that is so rich and pleasing... I've used 9s on an acoustic (and electric - probably nickel wound) when I couldn't find anything else. So easy to play but at a cost!!

I use drop D and sometimes DADGAD (need to get another acoustic for this - good excuse lol)... a couple of my electrics I have in 'slide' tunings... open E and open G.

 

It's because when the VU reformed in 1993 and Channel 4 TV over here did a night (a few hours to be more precise...) on their music the following year, one of the things they showed was the reunion concert and The Gift was a real highlight for me. I thought John Cale reciting it while playing bass and turning the bass over, barely missing a beat in the process was about the coolest thing I'd ever saw. I think I'd not long got The Velvet Underground And Nico and VU on CD so the timing was just about right. Like most things, I didn't keep that recording but did it again years later as my ex wanted me to do something for Halloween. She did NOT get it at first. But then realised I wasn't having a dig at her... and all was well once more. For a time anyway. Not sure if I still have it and am not sure where to look. I might have put it on You Tube but I must have had 50 channels over the years.

 

I find the songs listed here to be a wonderfully varied lot. There are several surprises, such as VU's The Gift or Fleetwood Mac's Albatross or Joni Mitchell's Coyote, but overall, if I were a famous songwriter, I'd find it very satisfying if I knew that folk were strumming and singing my creations.

The majority of complete songs that I play and sing are on this acoustic. I've had a Martin J40 (similar to this one) for about 15 years, and it's a wonderfully resonant and sweet instrument. It replaced a Yamaha acoustic that I had had since the '70s.



As to songs that pass through its strings, here are a few . . . .

Many David Bowie songs, including:
The Prettiest Star
Song for Bob Dylan
Heroes

Many Leonard Cohen songs, including:
Bird on a Wire
Lady Midnight
Tonight Will Be Fine

Many U2 songs, including:
Running to Stand Still
All I Want Is You
One

Many Bob Dylan songs, including:
Desolation Row
No More Auction Block for Me
Let Me Die in My Footsteps

Many Beatles songs, including:
Here Comes the Sun
It's Only Love
A Day in the Life

Many Donovan songs, including:
Starfish on the Toast
Catch the Wind
Isle of Islay

Many Neil Young songs, including:
After the Gold Rush
Needle and the Damage Done
The Old Laughing Lady

Several Cheap Trick songs, including:
Take Me I'm Yours
Shelter
Love Comes

Several Radiohead songs, including:
Plastic Trees
Creep
High and Dry


Others:

One Headlight -- Wallflowers
Heroin -- VU
Cool Dry Place -- Traveling Wilburys
Alone Again Or -- Love
Holiday -- Kinks
Bring It on Home to Me -- Animals


Okay, I've bored everyone enough for now. Hey, @OneStepBeyond , great thread!

 

Few, if any, of the posts mention which key the songs are being played in - or does that simply mean people are playing them in the recorded key?*

In any case, some songs cry out to be played not in the key they were recorded in, but in the key they were originally written in. Two examples - both of which are in my repertoire - are Strawberry Fields Forever (written in C but recorded in A) and Something (written in A but recorded in C).

It very much depends on the song, but I find that changing from D to B7 is far more satisfying than the equivalent change from C to A7... (or, in Something, F to D/D7)

* in which case, capo or no capo?

 

Hey Tuco,nice list and love the J-40 Martin. We had a J-40 in our family for 25 years or so. In fact, I was in the middle of a trade with a guitar buddy, his J-40 for something of mine that I can't recall. My oldest son walked in while we're doing the deal and says...what's that? So, he plays it and pulls me aside and says...if you do that deal I'd be interested in it. He'd saved up some money and had a blackface Fender Deluxe Reverb and after my friend left, my son and I traded so he ended up with the J-40 which he kept and used heavily until maybe 5 years ago when he switched to a Gibson J-200 and eventually his current wood box, early 90's sunburst Gibson J-185...ha,ha which I'd bought from another friend. This is how we lived from the late 70's onward, one guitar deal after another with lots of playing time in between.

 

Another one that I slowed down and arranged acoustically was Walk Away Renee...

 

Generally, I like to play the songs in the recorded key, and that includes using a capo, if the original likely used one. There are some songs however, where my voice is not a good fit for the recorded key, so the capo moves up or down. Other songs allow me to use a more varied approach. One such example would be Tori Amos's cover of Tom Waites's Time. Since she recorded her version on piano, I have to find a sound on the guitar that matches her melancholy.

 

Ive been piecing together the basic parts to Achilles Last Stand.
Not as hard as I thought, but the timing is a bit tricky on the verses.
What a great tune those fellas wrote...

 

George Fame - Yeh yeh in Eflat, the key of the recording. My guitar friend wants to play it. Wouldn't be my choice, but interesting rhythmically.

 

Enjoying this thread. Especially b/c it's reminding me of songs I want to play again- and introducing me to some 'new' oldies. Just finished listening to the OP track of Moonbeams - sweet! Will learn it.


A few I play fairly often:

Catch the Wind- Donovan
Moon River
Waiting for a Train - Jimmy Rodgers
Make me A Pallet on the Floor -
Mississippi John Hurt
I' m So lonesome I Could Cry -
Hank Williams
I'll Follow the Sun - Beatles
One Day at a Time- Willie Nelson
Orphan Girl - Gillian Welch
Going Gone- Kathy Mattea
Biloxi - Jesse Winchester

And oodles of Dylan -including Tomorrow is a Long Time, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, Make You Feel My Love, Forever Young, and on and on.....

 

Many thanks, it’s funny how one really can get hooked on playing quite simplistic tunes! I Don’t Believe You is one. I think my favourite version is from a Dylan gig in Plymouth, USA, 1975.

Love in Vain from Let It Bleed has also got some really nice picking

And do try Sunday, nice picking/strumming combo!

 

I used to like playing On The Way Home,Neil and the Buffs,fun chord changes.

I remember my first week at college, summer 74, walking thru the dorm lawns at PSU and the guitar players would be on the grass, SWIDT, and it would draw all the other guitar players in and you'd find the ones you had something in common with and break off into smaller groups. A few of us newbies got together and were trying to figure out Neil Young's Tell Me Why and we just couldn't get it to sound like the record. So off we went to the best guitarist around and timidly, or bravely maybe, knocked on his dorm door and explained our dilemma . He took one look at the bunch of us and paused for what seemed like an eternity and then spoke the words of great wisdom we were waiting to hear....tune down a whole step.. key of G. Then he just shut the door and we stood there frozen in the hallway and looked at each other and said ...YES,the great guitar Oz has spoken! We were thrilled jumping up and down as we figured out the bass runs and connecting the chords, singing along... like...why didn't we think of that?

 

FANTASTIC post Tuco and you've certainly not bored me!! Hard to single out any particular tracks because I know nearly all of them and have to approve for definite. Great choices. Although I will say that during my limited time playing drums (in a church some years ago but I was hardly able to do a Keith Moon in there and having a kit at home for about a year until I moved) my favourite to play had to be U2's one and I always remember that what I hear or see it mentioned. We had no bassist but did some recording and I've never been against overdubbing instruments anyway! Like always, we'd do it slightly differently to the original, whatever 'feel' that works best for me and others I've played with is what we go with and that remains my thinking when recording or just picking up a guitar to strum at home.

That's a gorgeous guitar... I'd not be surprised if the Yamaha you had is the same model as the one I have at the moment (FG 335) but that was a budget model at the time and they did do some more upmarket ones. It does have a sweet tone and it can boom out if desired - loudest acoustic I can remember playing but I can get a lot of subtle tones from it too.