Matt: Neil and I were just chatting about this song.
Neil: Now, we’re trying to… I was trying to… Matt wanna see if he can learn it but before tonight’s show.
Matt: Yeah, the like and what have good about 10 minutes (music playing). And this song is called “I Still Can’t Say Goodbye” (music playing).
Neil: So again, his Capo at 2nd fret playing a bunch of normal chords in the key of G.
Matt: Right. Did you bring the Capo?
Neil: Yes somewhere around but I have one here.
Matt: So tell us a bit about the pattern you were mentioning. This song, by the way guys, if you don’t know the history, it’s actually a Chet Atkins’ song and Chet Atkins is Tommy Emmanuel’s hero, and if you don’t know much about Tommy Emmanuel, you know that Chet Atkins bestowed the title of Masterfinger…
Neil: Certified…
Matt: Certified guitar fingerpicker?
Neil: No. It was CGP, certified guitar player. So he used those initials after his name now like…
Matt: Right, sir.
Neil: Like DDS.
Matt: Right! (Laughs). And so that’s… he’s one of three that ever got the thing from him directly. I’ll have to look that up, so…
Neil: Muriel Anderson might’ve got one too, didn’t she?
Matt: Not directly from Chet.
Neil: Okay.
Matt: Yeah. So, Tommy got it direct in him.
Neil: Oh, I see. So he got united by Chat, huh?
Matt: Right. So, tell us about… you were saying that it’s very similar to House of the Rising Sun…
Neil: Yeah. I wanna play it without a capo because he’s playing in the key of G (Strumming the guitar), and it’s really just G4-G to D with F# in the bass to Cs… Gs, Ds, and Cs more or less and what I said the picking though, it’s just a 4 note Arpeggio (Strumming the guitar). Something like that would work fine. Now, Chet did it a little bit differently and Tommy did it a little randomly…
Matt: Right.
Neil: But if you just play the 4 note Arpeggio going (Strumming the guitar) bass, index finger on 3rd string, the other 2 fingers on the top strings, and then back to the index finger (Strumming the guitar). And I’ve simplified the chorus a little bit just making a Gs, Ds, and Cs. There were some that had some moving bass notes (Strumming the guitar). Something like that.
Matt: Let me…
Neil: Okay try it.
MattB: ‘Coz I’m really probably gonna struggle. So, you’re saying D but I need to do something.
Neil: Just G, start with G, and then thumb on the bass note, yup.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: Yeah. Then just go to the same thing on a D chord.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: And the bass note for D would be the 4th string with thumb, wait, so you’re thumb hit it at 4th string there, right.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: And then, yeah, again. And with your index finger though.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: Then just D, yeah. And make sure… yeah, good.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: Again, and with your finger, not your thumb.
Matt: I think, alright… because it’s the end bottom four
Neil: Yeah.
Matt: Okay…
Neil: So G chord was good.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: Then the D.
Yeah, wait! Put your fingers to… yeah! Then just go to C and do the same thing. But the bass would be the 5th string. Yeah. Now, you really need to work on right hand position again. Your wrist has to bend so that more this way, so your thumb stays out in front of your fingers, you know, we talked about that yeah. So you gotta be working on that, yeah. And not let this happen, okay?
Matt: See what happens when I don’t pick it up for a week.
Neil: Okay, so, yeah. So keep your thumb out in front your fingers.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: That’s better, yeah. Now when it goes to the… Now, your whole hand could be a little bit lower too.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: Yeah. Good. That’s much better.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar). What’s next?
Neil: And then I think back to D again. I’ll have to go hear it again.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar). Then?
Neil: Back to G.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: And that’s D again. Bass for the D, yeah.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: Now something different happened here. It may be an E minor or B minor. I have to go back and listen to it again. I can’t remember… yeah. Yeah, may be something like that, and then back… Oh! And then the C. Here’s what would happen. (Strumming the guitar), yeah. And then the 3rd line must be the same as the first, probably G-D-C. (Strumming the guitar) Yeah and probably back to D again, and then probably C-D. (Strumming the guitar). Yeah. It’s just a normal chord progression with 1, 4, and 5. (Strumming the guitar) Yeah, something like that. What I have to do is to write down as I’m hearing it.
Matt: There’s a B…
Neil: Yeah, I’m not sure if that’s very accurate…
Matt: Now of course if this had the capo on the 2nd, what would I be doing with that…?
Neil: Well you still… Yeah, so that G… Yeah, so yeah. So what that does is that you wouldn’t think about it any differently. That was just put really in the key of A. So the capo would be here.
Matt: And I say you were…
Neil: Oh yeah..
Matt: When you’ve been practicing, you had your… you were doing that and you just stretched.
Neil: Yeah. Don’t , that’s okay. Don’t try this at home.
Matt: But, but that’s pretty incredible because I… I could not do that in a million years. That’s…
Neil: There you go! That’s it! Yeah. Look at that, it’s happened.
Matt: (Strumming the guitar) Okay… okay. Come on you cant do it. Come on! I know you can do it fingers! (Strumming the guitar).
Neil: But again, there’s no heroic value in doing that.
Matt: But there is! (laughs)
Neil: No there isn’t. That’s not how Tommy did.
Matt: And then?
Neil: And then you go to D.
Matt: Oh my goodness!
Neil: And then you put an F# in the base with your other finger. Oh yeah, wait! You’re out of fingers. Never mind! (Laughs)
Matt: How does that happen?
Neil: No don’t worry about.
Matt: (Laughs). These thumbs meant to come over up somewhere (laughs)
Neil: Yeah, that’s it! Yeah. That’s why this becomes a don’t try this at home kids.
Matt: Oh my goodness! Now, you see how you need to have meats the size of Gorillaz. So, but what a pretty song and…
Neil: Really nice, yeah.
Matt: And, so it’s about his father and blah, blah and… So I’d like to hear it tonight because, you know, it’d be great to figure out how to do it.
Neil: I think so.
Matt: So we’ll catch up again a bit more.
Neil: We better get something.
Matt: Okay, we were just looking at the tabs online and basically Neil doesn’t trust them also. His way of dealing with it is just listen to the song.
(Music playing)
Neil: Yeah. So they missed a few things in that, yeah because…
Matt: He does a thing like this almost Romeo and Juliet with this roll down or whatever you call that thing. (Strumming the guitar) Dah… dah… dah… Yeah. So, what do you call that?
Neil: It’s just almost scale run. It’s really just a fill.
Matt: A fill?
Neil: Yeah.
Matt: Okay.
Neil: You got to fill in there. (Strumming the guitar)
Matt: So, those little things that just keeps this song the texture and depth.
(Strumming the guitar)
Neil: So, something like that again. It’s… I need better audio quality to write it our for sure. So, do something about it right now…
Matt: No.
Neil: But that tab was about 80% right. He just missed a few things. G with B on the bass at one point where they though it was B minor, but I got… that’s right, you hear it again. And, (Strumming the guitar). Oh! And then that bridge (Strumming the guitar). Dooo… Doooo.. It was D-C… It was B7 to E minor there some place too in that third line.
Matt: You make it sound like the bass is stepping down there too. That’s kinda deliberate, right?
Neil: Uhum.
Matt: Yeah.
Neil: From (Strumming the guitar) Oh! Because last time the Ds don’t have sharp in the bass, so he’s doing this (Strumming the guitar) rather than going for G chord to regular D. So, it’s an F# as the bass…
Matt: And just… Right. It’s just had that extra little bit of zing, yeah.
Neil: Yeah (Strumming the guitar).
Matt: Okay.
Neil: So his Ds were played like that and sometimes he does the same with D7 (Strumming the guitar).
Matt: So, just to wrap this up. ‘Coz obviously, we’re gonna eat and then we’re gonna buy and watch him. What the fingerpicking again is all the same pretty much all the way through?
Neil: Well, it can be like you point it out, I’m not sure if we had this one when we’re filming is that… you can just strum it. (Strumming the guitar).
Matt: Yeah it was it on there, yep.
Neil: Doo… Doo… Doo… So, it really just a campfire song, and you can take any song and make a nice fingerpicking accompaniment to it and add to it, yesterday could’ve been… (Strumming the guitar). But it wasn’t.
Matt: (Laughs)
Neil: (Strumming the guitar).
MattB: So we might cut this out and then we’re gonna have some more stuff for you should you get it there.
Neil: Hello! Here we go.
Matt: Yeah we’re gonna put some more…
Neil: Especially more of this kinda ear training things. You know? Like what I’d like to do with this does not tell you exactly what’s going on with it. Now, you know I just gave you some a bunch of few hints. You know? Things to listen for…
Matt: I’m just not that advanced to be how to figure that shit out.
Neil: Maybe, you were just telling that you were starting to hear how certain things resolved and how this bass note works this bass, you know? So…
Matt: But I don’t know about the chords. I think that actually, if you wouldn’t mind spending 30 seconds on that. I mean, I don’t know what the chords are when I hear them. I have a vague idea sometimes.
Neil: You know what the hint on that is find the bass notes… (Strumming the guitar) find the bass note that is playing on first beat of each thing because picking out one note at a time is not usually too difficult if you can isolate the bass.
Matt: Right.
Neil: I can…
Matt: And also helps to play a little bit everyday which I’m still not doing.
Neil: Yeah.
Matt: (Laugh) But I’m getting there. So, alright. So let’s hook this up again tomorrow morning because we got some interesting stuff happening more. I wanna to tell you about that. But until then…