Computer Aided Musician

[computeraidedmusician]

the blog is over now

I've not posted here for a while. I suspect I never will again. Part of writing the blog was writing stuff down for my own benefit, to express what I had learned in words so it would stick. Part of writing it was basically just to show off. I don't need to do either of those things now, really. I'm still practicing and learning things - but now I'm also playing with bands on stage, which is the show-off bit taken care of really. And the learning is becoming more internalised. I still find it helpful to break down song structures occasionally, but I often don't need to. So, there's much less to write about. Anyway, it was fun writing this, while I did it. Thanks for reading.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Punka”

Not a video. Well done, Warner Bros, on keeping the official video off YouTube.

One of my plans is to form a Kenickie covers band, because frankly it’s ridiculous that this hasn’t happened already.  It’s here this blog gets really weird, and the coincidences in my life start worrying me. 

As I wrote before, Kenickie are the first band I remember seeing live, and probably also the first single and the first album that I bought with my own money to play in my CD player.  It’s my origin story.  I’m not sure how true it is, I’ll admit.  But I think I’d just borrowed albums before that?  It’s certainly the oldest one in my collection, we’ll put it like that.

Anyway, I used to be on an internet forum about them, and I remember using their fan-run site kenickie.com.  Don’t tell anyone, but somewhere, in a dark corner of that site, is my old Internet handle.  I discovered, years later, that that site was run by Kieron, I would later independently get to know from comics.  He wrote Phonogram, which was part of the reason I got back into music.

[conspicuous gap]

So, Punka isn’t on Songsterr. No Kenickie songs are.  Girl-fronted bands are in fairly short supply there, at all, which is depressing.  What can we do?  In the thread I complained about this, and Steve offered to tab it but he’s super busy being an art droid.

So, there are dodgy internet sites full of pop up ads and dubious chords.  But there is kenickie.com; still going, hosted god knows where, and at the bottom of the Punka lyrics page, we have a link to the tabs. Guitar tabs, but still, that’s better than nothing.  There’s ones for “In Your Car”, too, along with a note from the site owner.

Who is right? Who is wrong? I’m a bassist: I haven’t got a clue.

Oh.  Yeah.

Anyway, so I stare at the tab, listening to the song, trying to see what’s going on.  I have a breakthrough on the way home.  (I’ve got to go out again soon to see my bandmate’s other band - that’s less notional one with a rehearsal booked - and a guitarist now apparently.)

Chords, right, or at least the sort you get in guitar music like this, are based around the lowest note.  I think.  It’s certainly true of “power chords”, which are the note and the one seven semitones above it (called “the fifth”, for music theory reasons).  And Punka has mostly power chords, which I can see because I know what they look like: a fret on a string and on the next string having two frets up (and sometimes, if you want the octave, the next string again two frets up, 5+5+2=12.)

They are super easy to play.  But not as easy to play as the bass.  Because the standard bass tuning is the same as the standard guitar tuning, and all I wanted to do was shadow the main guitar part, I realised I could just play the bottom notes of the main guitar part on the bass.

So I did that.

And it sounds pretty good.

Figuring out the arrangement was a bit trickier: bits in that tab repeat and I’ve still don’t managed to successfully play through the entire song.

I’ll get it eventually, but I’m happy with where I am.

Because Punka, like “Formed a Band”, and like “We Hate The Kids”, is a song about how you don’t have to care.  On the thread, some friends of mine wanted in, making it the second notional band I’ve been (I think, I’ve maybe lost count).  Steve is in for drums (he doesn’t play), Hannah for singing and guitar if I buy her a sparkly guitar, and Daisy can do handclaps.  In other words:

We’re getting a band together! Let’s get all our mates! But then you find out your mates can’t play.

But I also have a less notional band to play with.  And practice, soon!

[computeraidedmusician]

It’s not quite a year since I wrote this.  A lot has changed, and yet nothing has.  I’ve learned how to play Punka - not only on a bass but on a guitar (although as I explain they are the same part really - I’m not doing the fancy lead bits like the solo).  And I’ve played it several times with other people now.  Because I’ve succeeded in achieving one of my ambitions - properly forming a Kenickie tribute band.  We’ve had four rehearsals and we are getting to be pretty excellent.  I’m playing rhythm guitar.  We’ve not gigged yet.  We will soon.

[computeraidedmusician]

“My Art”

I went to Hoxton on Friday to see a band called The Ethical Debating Society. I’ve seen them a few times before - most recently at Guided Missile, but before that supporting Jack Off Jill; but I’d not seen them since I’d listened to their LP, and that’s always a nice first, listening to a band play songs you know.

They very kindly invited me on stage for their last-but-one song, a cover of Le Tigre’s “My Art”, to do rhythm guitar and struggle with a far-too-low guitar strap while Tegan roamed with a microphone.

What didn’t tell them until afterwards was that I’d never been on stage before.  The best bit there was nobody I knew there.  I’d been getting quite nervous about the upcoming gig I’m bassing at (an aftershow, in Tottenham, February 5th), because lots of people were saying they’d make sure see it, which is great, but if they’re doing it to see my Debut they’ll make me nervous.

It’s still a big deal, of course.  Playing as a proper part of a band is a bit different to guest guitaring with no rehearsal on a song you don’t know that lasts about a minute and a half.

“My Art” was a a good choice, though.  It’s just two chords.  G and B.  B for three bars, then G, then back again.  There’s a bit in the middle and the end where it does something different, with the same two chords.  I’m not entirely sure what, I just watched the other guitarist’s fingers. Whatever. Rock and roll.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Modern Art”

iYouTube link

I went over to a friend's on Monday with my bass and an amp; we went through basically the entire 90s indie catalogue.  It was fun.  We will do it again. Ideally we would find a similarly underemployed drummer.

One of the songs he taught me was the Art Brut song “Modern Art”.  I’ve linked a version on YouTube, from their compilation album.  It has the best Eddie ramble I’ve found on the internet; a shame that I can't find the video as I’d like to see all those people sitting down. Watch it.

Anyway, the song.

The verse is D♭ three times, then E three times; repeated; then the same but with A instead of D♭.

--9--9--9--0--0--0--9--9--9--0--0--0--5--5--5--0--0--0--5--5--5--0--0--0--

that just repeats. There are three each of them. Are they triplets? Possibly? I suppose that depends what time signature the song is in, doesn't it? If you say it's 6:4 then they don't need to be, if they are 4:4 they are. I don't really understand to what extent time signatures are real versus just being an analytical tool. (I'm currently rating them a little real than keys.) The chorus is the same, except that last A A A E E E is replaced with longer, single G and F♯, i.e.

--9--9--9--0--0--0--9--9--9--0--0--0--5--5--5--0--0--0--3--------2--------

It's a phenomally fun song to play. I nearly didn't leave the house this evening because I was busy mashing at it.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Pull Shapes”

 Video

Back from Thought Bubble, where I was helping my Steven Horry and Eddie Argos (yes, that Eddie Argos) sell copies of their new graphic novel Double D.  It was my first time tabling at a con, and it was great but I missed noodling around on stringed instruments.

On my first day back I thought I would look into this song for no particular reason other than having highly enjoyed dancing to it at the geek disco.  A quick chordify and some poking and I have broken it.

intro G E C A/C G E C A/B C/D (D) a-line G E A C/D “dance with me, pretty boy” b-line G E B C/D “pull shapes! i like to disco” b-line “pull shapes! i lead with my left hand” a-line “dance with me, pretty boy” b-line “pull shapes! is there a drum beat” a-line “dance with me, pretty boy”” b-line “what do you do when the music stops” b-line “clap your hands if you want some more” break () () a-line “dance with me, pretty boy” a-line “dance with me, pretty boy” G “shapes”

Simples.

It's a really very oddly structured song, in that it's all chorus. Or rather, it's two choruses, which I've marked "a-line" and "b-line". I think techically the a-line (the "dance with me!" bits) are the verse, and the b-line the ("pull shapes! bits") are the chorus; but it's the "pull shapes!" which lyrically vary more. Who knows?

It certainly keeps up the sound and energy of being a chorus up for the entire song, which for a 3 minuter is pretty impressive.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Connection”

Video

As I'm getting better it seems less useful writing about individual songs. But I found one today. “Connection” is a song that exemplifies my progress.  When I picked up the bass a few months ago, it was one of the songs I immediately looked up.  But I couldn’t do it.  It wasn’t even that complicated, it’s just that the main part of the bassline is

---6-6-6-4-6-6-6-6--

that is, you shift a couple of frets for just one note, and on the offbeat. And I just couldn't do it. Not at the speed I needed to. I just kept missing the right beat, or hitting it twice.

Tried it today and I nailed it first time. I can't believe I even had a problem with it. Weird, eh.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Temple of Love”

Not a video

I’ve been a regular reader of the Sisters of Mercy’s website since the 1990s.  The word “reader” is misleading.  “Checker” might be better.  I’ve been checking the Sisters’ website since the 1990s, to see if its design changes substantively.  It hasn’t.  It never will be.  Like Bolivia, bypassing landlines to go to ubiquitous mobile, the Sisters have just skipped a technology.  They’ve got twitter, you know.

Like no other band, the Sisters remind me of being a teenager, of drinking too much cider and hanging out at friends.  It’s the teenagerhood a less square person would have had a few years earlier, delayed until I was a student.  They played the Roundhouse on Sunday, and I didn’t know until it was sold out.  Some of my friends from that circle went.  I’m jealous.  They’ll play again.  They’re a touring band.  They’re only a touring band: they’ve not recorded for over two decades.

“Temple of Love” is a long song.  8 minutes, in the 1992 version.  It’s the ideal tune to put on if you’re DJing and you need to pop away for a piss.

It’s a song that is dominated by its bassline.  I knew that, I think.   It has four bars, repeating, throughout the entire song.   A bar of Es, a bar of Gs, a bar of As and then a bar, rising, hitting A, B, C, and D twice each.  It continually ascends on a what appears to be a Phrygian scale (?), albeit skipping the F.   And it sounds immensely satisfying to play on the bass.  Not technically so, just on the basic level of invoking my youth.

[computeraidedmusician]

re

It’s been a while.  I was in the Americas for 7 weeks.  I (obviously) did have internet, but I had to be so socially on all the time, and I needed to be doing all the tourism; so I didn’t end up writing much of anything while I was there.  A bit of comics work (drawing script for Transrealities #3, lettering drafts, a few more pages of East Wick #2) was all I could really manage.

But I did keep practicing.

No I didn’t take my bass over, that would be silly.

I bought a guitar in Seattle instead.

It’s an Epiphone Les Paul.  I got it very cheap in a combination pack from the Guitar Center near Lake Union.  It seemed to work pretty well, although the amp was shit and has been subsequently abandoned.

I took it basically everywhere.  It didn’t go to San Francisco with me, but it went to Portland, Los Angeles, Miami and Bolivia with me.  And now it’s back with me in London.  The international jet-setting lifestyle has done its tuning stability no favours, but it worked for practicing.

I practiced most days, I think.  I am fairly solid at doing power chord based songs of various types now.  If I could do it as a bassline following the root notes I can now just play the chords.  I have learned maybe three Proper Chords (E, A, and, um, E minor).  I have learned twiddly lead bits from a few songs.

Because the bottom 4 strings of the guitar are just the same as the strings on the bass, I could just practice bass on it, albeit that the strings and frets are closer together.  I was expecting the bass to feel enormous when I got back home, but actually it didn’t.  It felt about right.

Expect a few more posts about songs I’ve learned since I came back.

[owlsouppellets]

A successful giveaway! I bought this guitar when I was 25; it was a very significant purchase, and I called it Trine and learned to play ‘Bohemian Like You’ and ‘Hotel Yorba’ on it. But in the end I think I only played it about 13 times in 13 years - small London rooms are not the best place to take up the electric guitar if you’re embarrassed about anyone ever hearing you play. I gave it to Abigail last week so she could start learning the guitar, and it felt like it was going to a good home. On its way out, it stopped by my office and my colleagues mucked about with it for a bit - here is Joe, apparently playing ‘More Than Words’ to Scottish Sweary Guy.

[computeraidedmusician]

it turns out that both ends of this guitar transaction wrote about it on tumblr.

[computeraidedmusician]

"No Good Advice"

[conspicuous gap]

[computeraidedmusician]

Oops. I inherited it off friend J, who is moving to a smaller place and wanted to get rid off it. I can't play guitar, of course. But then I couldn't play bass three months ago. So your main difference is its smaller, higher pitched, has two more strings, and you play more than one string at once most of the time. The lowest four strings (EADG) are usually exactly an octave above the bass, which is handy. The fifth string is then a B, which is one semitone lower than it "should" be if the same pattern was going on, and then the sixth string is an E, two octaves above the first E. Because the tuning is the same I can just play basslines on it and they work. But they are a bit weedy. Apparently I need to learn something called "chords." There are a lot of these, and they are all different and it seems unnecessarily complex. One type I've already talked about us the "power chord", which is a note and the one seven semitones up (called a fifth, because music theory), which means a base note and then the one on the next string and two frets up (unless it's the G string in which case it's three frets up I guess.). Lots of punk bands mostly use these, which is great because that's exactly the sort of band I want to form. I ran through a bit of "Punka" and it was fun, although I'm still not very solid on the fingering, or strumming only a couple of strings. Several people have advised me to stick with bass. I will, of course. I love bass, I honestly do. But learning a bit of guitar as well can't hurt, and may even help.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Sweet Jane”

It’s been over a month since the first (and only) time I’ve practiced with another musician. (I almost wrote that as “a musician” before I decided to permit that for myself.)  And never with a drummer.  And I know, abstractly, rather than through experience, that last part is really important.  So I was very pleased when J, after one of her gigs, found out I was learning the bass, and offered to drum for me.

This happened last night.  I’d booked three hours in a rehearsal studio not far from my home, an hour for me to mess around in and then a couple for band practice.  I was much more confident than in June, ridiculously so.  At some point this month I stopped thinking it of as “I am trying to learn bass” to “I can sort of play bass.”  And I think that’s fair.  I’ve seen bands with worse bassists than me, probably.

So, we started with "Where Is My Mind", by the Pixies; a nice simple steady one, although it helps to not play it about 50% faster than it's supposed to go. We then moved to "Formed A Band" (passim), then "Cannonball". We did, I think, pretty well at these, although being only half a band and not knowing the lyrics some of the verse/chorus transitions are tricky because really they get triggered not by counting (4 is about as high as I can count with a bass strap around my neck), but by guitar changes or frequently just the lyrics.

We also tried "Sweet Jane" by The Velvet Underground, which this post is ostensibly about, and which turned out to have learned the wrong riff to (it's a fill somewhere, we think, not the main riff.)   I had it as D D A A G G G B A, but J reckoned it was D D A A G G G G A A D D.  I tried it as that a few times but I was really not sure what I was doing.  I had, of course, got my version off Songsterr.  The Internet seems very confused about this song.  BigBassTabs says to do it my way once and then swap in another D for the first A.  Then Ultimate Guitar have another thing entirely: D D A F# G B A C#.  I give up.  Maybe the Velvets and Lou as a solo artist played it differently?   The Velvets are great but I’ve always preferred them in the abstract (bar All Tomorrow’s Parties) to their actual recorded performances, so I don’t know.

We made good time, so we had time for a few other songs, random ones I could do. "Our Daughters Will Never Be Free", bits of "Tame" and "Debaser", and "Seven Nation Army."   Did I mention I like the Pixies?

Playing with a drummer is a skill. But it's not a technical skill like the actual instrument is. With that I know I need to do certain actions with my fingers, and I can keep practicing until I can. With a drummer it is a lot more intuitive.  Direct reaction to them is not enough.  You have to anticipate what they’re doing, keep in sync, just sort of trust yourself, and let your conscious mind regulate what you are doing, but not sweat over every beat, because it’s just not fast enough.

I was worried this was going to be an alien experience, that I wouldn’t be able to do it.  But of course the core skill is the same as being able to clap along to something or someone, and most of us can do that.  Even when people get it wrong and clap in the off-beat you'll notice they are clapping on the off-beat, not randomly, and not at a different tempo.

I’m pretty happy.  J describes me on Facebook as a “enthusiastic and solid newbie bass player”, and I’m even confident she’s not being sarcastic.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Cannonball”

 “Cannonball” is a one-drink song, as in I only need to be slightly drunk to immediately jump up and dance to it.  Zero-drink songs are practically non-existent.  “Cannonball” is nearly one.  To write this post I’m listening to it cold sober on headphones in a pub in central London on what had better be the hottest day of the year, and I’m this close to jumping up and dancing anyway.

Obviously, it was one of the first songs I looked up.  The Songsterr tab was a thing of horror.

Ok, so a lot of that makes sense now I know more.  I know what slides mean and I can just trust the fact that I know the rhythm.  And I don’t need to bother with the hard-to-access-on-the-P-bass 18th fret on the E string.  But sliding from B to high A# to D#, it’s just too much movement, and I couldn’t figure out how it related to the song.

A YouTube tutorial video came to my rescue.  Of course, he advises use the A-string, but he completely omits that B from the main verse riff, which thank god.

The chorus is A# D# G#, which you can do without moving the fingers, kept on the first fret, but using different strings.  The slides are an important part of the feel of the song: the video eliminates the one between A# and D#, which I’m not sure how I feel about.  And then after the first couple iterations of the chorus riff, it starts to have a very quick eight plucks of the A# in the dead space at the end, which argh, I’ll have to fake it for now.   I need to get better at sixteenths, and it’s not just I’ll get faster.  I need to change my plucking technique.

[computeraidedmusician]

"Sixteen”/”Ill”

June was a good month.  I kept busy socially, and I got stuck into some writing projects.  This blog helped unjam me.  Quite a lot of Transrealities #2 is drawn now; it should be finished in a couple of weeks.  I attended quite a few gigs (Penny Orchids, L7, Taylor Swift, The WI).  I practiced bass a lot, though not with anyone.

I’m learning songs, of course.  I’ve got better at learning them.  Part of this is practice: part is better tool use.  One main discovery is chordify’s editing tool.  Chordify does a fair job of identifying rhythm and chords, but it makes mistakes, so if you sign in, you can shift chord changes forward and backward beats, and change the notes, and save that for later.   This, combined with some poring over chord charts on the Internet, means I’ve figured out chords to a whole bunch of songs, including the Indelicates “Ill”, and “Sixteen”, which I can play basically from memory now.  In all these I found figuring out the overall structure to be as important as the chord progression.   When I first saw the Indelicates I wasn't going in entirely cold: I'd listened to a few of their songs. "Ill" was one instantly grabbed me. Decoding the tabs of it had puzzled me so much at first, but turns out to be fairly simple and basically alternates between stretches of E A E A C# A E A for the verses, and stretches of E/B C#/A in the chorus.

"Sixteen" (which I've rarely seen them do live) is a bit more complex. This is what I reckon: intro consists of F F F Bb, then moving to F F F A/Bb for the verses, until the final stanza (is that the word? I don't know, why do I think I'm qualified to unpick a song if I don't know what stanza means), when it approaches the chorus, with F F A Bb, so those last half-bars at A and Bb are given a whole bar. It then goes right into the chorus, with C D Bb C, twice, and as the volume of that increases it goes into another repeat but skips the C: D Bb, and then suddenly a low F, then back to C and D. It lingers for two bars at Bb before returning to the chorus's centre at C.

And repeat. But after the second repeat there is an instrumental bit introducing a new chord progresion. This goes A Bb F C, with two whole bars of each; before then providing the backing to the chorus - at first straight and then again but with a C# in place of the F at the "even though." Then the instruments cut out for a bit, before launching in to the end of the chorus again (at one of the Cs).

I've stopped bothering with the cue cards - I don't like writing with a pen (I've a blazer for the millennials in many ways - I've been typing for longer than I've been using a writing implement, and with every passing year it feels less natural to put ink on paper) - but what I have started doing is making little Google Docs for these songs. Because it was impossible to really do my numbering and string notation, I used the note names, which has had the side effect that I am properly learning the actual notes.

God, if I'm not careful I'll end up being a proper musician.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day”

I took my bass and little amp over to east London last night to do a first practice with Ruth. I'd been trying to recruit her for a while, but she was only interested in playing keytar. I was close to calling her bluff, and mentioned I'd seen a cheap second-hand one in Essex on ebay, but she kind of backed away. A few days ago, she remembered that she had perfectly good vocal chords, though, and asked if she could come to Crystal Palace rehersals (although in the end she couldn't make it because of deadline crunch).

Anyway, our free evenings coincided so we decided to just practice together. We did a few songs to warm-up, including, most important of all, "Formed a Band", but the main event was complying with Ruth’s arbitrary demand that we form be a bass-only Morcheeba covers band.

Therefore I had learnt "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day". I got the chords (not tabs) off Songsterr, and was happy to find through listening that it’s just a regular pattern.   The chorus is just C C Bb F repeating, and the verses are

C Bb C C C F  G G C Bb C C C F  G F

and there's a bridge bit that goes C Bb F C which is really just a fragment from the verse with a different window of looking at it.

After doing some Pixies, Dandys and Blondie, we eventually remembered that we were supposed to be doing this, only then Ruth's voice gave out halfway through. We demonstrated feasibility, though.

We have set each other some homework, to learn what we can from a couple of albums. I've set her the Indelicates' "American Demo"; and she's given me the Grates' "Gravity Won't Get You Down", which is frustrating not available legally digitally.

[computeraidedmusician]

“Our Daughters Will Never Be Free”

Today (Sunday 7th June) was the my first proper practice since the session in the south London studio on the Friday.  (I’d been busy with board games, brunch and a gig.)

The gig, by the way was Dream Themes with Keith TOTP &c.  Dream Themes cover TV theme songs, which they somehow manage to make a riotous and glorious evening. And before that, Keith TOTP rocked out, as usual, to a slightly baffled audience.

I did a mix of things.  I did runthroughs of several songs I already know or am learning: “Formed a Band”, “My Favourite Game“, “Call Me Maybe”, “Bohemian Like You”, “Vow”, "What A Waster”, “I Predict a Riot”, “Mr. Brightside”, “Deceptacon”, “Lust in the Movies”, “Aneurysm”, “Self Esteem”, “The Kids Aren’t Alright”, “Debaser”, “Where Is My Mind?”, “Monkey Gone To Heaven”, “I Bleed”, “Monsters in the Parasol”, and “Last Nite”.

I tried to learn the Seven Nation Army riff.  This is turns out can be done with just frets 2 and 3 and open strings; rather than the requirement to hop between 7 and lower frets, which the Songsterr tab has.  Oddly the tab has the sensible way of playing it as the very last iteration of the riff, which is just weird.  Anyway, I can do it now, but not fast enough to keep pace, but maybe fast enough to do it as a ballad or something.

I’ve also made serious stabs at figuring out the chords to a couple of other songs.  One is “Our Daughters Will Never Be Free”, which aother Indelicates song.  Since there are no tabs online, it’sback to chordify.  I’m still not sure I’m reading it right.  I’m pretty certain the main riff is A Db/D.  It also uses a bar pair of A E/A a lot.  However there are bits with bar pairs that go very differently, and are E except one of the half bars of the second bar is some different note (B, A#, etc), and I’m not sure that I’m right or there’s a pattern.  These are the most energetic bits of the lyrics, so I’m wondering if it’s just wrong.

I suppose I could just ask.  But that’d be cheating.

The other song I tried to figure out was “Lies”, by the Grates, which was a special request by Ruth, who has offered to sing for me.  I figured out enough of the chorus to make a recording of me playing over it to send to her, but it’s a bit of a fake I had too many subsections for me to be confident in anything.

When I started typing all that I was a bit frustrated that I’ve not really accomplished much today, but that’s not fair.  I did lots of practice.  I should now obtain food.

By the way, I’m now no longer retconning in entries, in the sense that this is written at the end of the day it describes.  There’s still lag because of the queue, obviously.  I don’t know what this means for the tone of the blog going forward, I think I’ll mostly stick to the song-a-post format, if I have anything interesting to say about a song.

[computeraidedmusician]

"Love Will Tear Us Apart"

Video

I’m still buzzing from last night.  I was so happy!  My housemate said that I resembled an especially blissful cat when I got back.  I’ve slept since, but the lightproofing in this room is the worst and now I’m up, have drank tea, and it’s not even 8am.

Last night I rocked up to practice having no idea how it was going to work, and being super nervous.  Ruth, who was kinda maybe gonna come along and do vocals, ended up having a deadline crunch instead.  Guitarist was running a little late.  So, I went to the reception, introduced myself, got told were the room was, and started setting up.

Guitarist arrived just about the right time.  We played some songs.  We stumbled to begin with, as I’d misunderstood one of the songs that they had sent me in a way I’m not still sure; but we quickly decided to go for something we both knew: “Bohemian Like You”, which goes B D E A, with some bass flourishes every so (A# A F E),  This worked, after some confusion about where I should come in.  I was so nervous and I kept fumbling and picking up again and it was fine.  We played to the recorded version; I tried to introduce the drum part from Songsterr and play off that but it was difficult to know when to come in and out, especially for guitarist.  It was all fine.

After that we tried “Masque” (A F D G), which we nailed on a playthrough.

Then: “Formed a Band”, which we also managed OK.  I was confident enough at the chorus to this that I even managed to sing along a little.

Then we did “Friday I’m In Love”, or at least the section to the bridge.  I find it very very hard to discern the bass-line in the mix of the recorded version, and had tried and failed to play it before, but somehow we muddled through.

We had a few minutes left at the end so I started playing the bass riff from “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, which is my new favourite thing to do ever. (it goes E E E E E; F# G F# E D; B B B B B; A A A A A and it is so instantly recognisable.), and guitarist tried to pick that up.

Then we went to the pub and discussed the circumstances of our meeting

Lesson:

I can do this.  Anyone can play guitar.   Absolutely anyone can play the fucking guitar.   Lo-fi songs are great.  Formed a band!  We formed a band!  Look at us!  We formed a band!

More concrete lesson:

Guitarist was relying on lyrics with chords and I was relying on notation.  I suppose this makes sense because I need to lay down the overall rhythm and timing of the thing, but it did mean we had problems communicating a bit.  (Fortunately I had got my chart of all the bass notes.)  I do need to learn my note names, and where they are.