Song-of-the-Week: A resolution for 2011
At the beginning of this year I decided to make two resolutions. The first one was to not eat fast food for the entire year. It's been pretty easy so far, with only a few close calls craving Taco Bell and Arby's. The second resolution was to learn a new song every week. 52 weeks, 52 songs. So far I've stayed with it and have added many great songs to my repertoire. Every Thursday I release a new video of me debuting a new song.
Typically, the Song-of-the-Week (SOTW) process starts with me listening to a bunch of different songs, either by my own discovery or on the suggestions of others. Once I find a song I think I might want to learn, I check online to see if anyone has posted the chords or tablature for that song. If it is available, I'll try playing the song, usually with a recording of the original, to check for accuracy. If it's fairly accurate I might make some changes and then print it out. Everything I print out I also save to my Dropbox as a .doc file, that way I can go back and make more changes or print out a new copy if I need it. I try to keep at least a few songs ready in the "to be learned" pile at a time; I rarely start a new week without an idea of what song I'll be tackling for the next few days. As I perfect the songs I might go and visit some of the songs in the pile, just to keep them fresh, but I don't attack them full on until their week comes up in the rotation. When I do take on a new song I dig into it and make concrete asthetic choices. I may listen to the original a few times to get certain parts figured out, but I try not to keep the original in my mind as something I need to match. There is certainly a place for "copycat" covers where everything sounds dead on, but I'm of the mindset that a cover doesn't necessarily need to be anything close to the original. After all, it's already been done that way once, so I try to put my own spin on the song through my playing and singing. However, I generally make my covers at least recognizable to the original, and sometimes I get pretty close. Once Thursday rolls around I set up my camera and record myself playing the song. Within one or two takes I usually have the clip that I need, then I upload it to my YouTube Channel and share the link to various places on the internet, like facebook, twitter, and the Acoustic Guitar Forum's "Show and Tell" section. Then I go back to my pile and start learning something new.
To see a full list of my SOTW progress so far, check out this playlist.
Bel isi,
-kyle
