Hi, well it has been a very hectic few days looking after Rose after her eye operation. Didn't start off too well on Friday when I collected her after the operation. I nearly feinted and had to lay down as the nurse was going into detail! I am not good with these things, I actually feinted watching the film "Mash"!
Tab and Riffs, thank you for throwing yourself into learning a bit more about Tablature and how it helps us play the melody riffs in songs. Even if this is not for you I hope you have gained something from having a go.
I will mark our Songs with "R" where there is a Riff included. If you want to play these when we feature them it would be great.
Pentatonic Scales, for those who wish to pursue Tablature and Riffs I would like to introduce you to what is called the Pentatonic Scale. If you want to prep for the Friday lesson I refer you to the exercises I have posted on our website, you will find the exercise sheet in the Members Area. They will help you to learn to pick out individual notes on individual strings and refine playing Tab, Riffs or Melodies. After just strumming all the strings it is hard to be selective and just playing one or maybe two strings.
We will start with the C Pentatonic Scale (every key has a Pentatonic Scale). In our Members Area on the website you will find references to Pentatonic Scale, first of all click on the About Pentatonic Scales Button. Then there is a Button to click on for the
C Pentatonic Scales Exercise, it shows 5 Scale positions going up the neck. (Don't forget up means going towards the sound hole). In musical terms "Up" refers to the sound not the physical direction, so it is getting higher in pitch as you move towards the sound hole.
I have demonstrated the first 2 positions below BUT please go to the website Members Area to learn about Pentatonic scales and the Pentatonic Scales Exercise Sheet first of all so that you know what is going on. I will take us through these exercises on Friday.
The aim of the exercise is to practice playing individual strings without too much thought. You will find over time you will tune your ear to know what sound you will get when you play individual notes. Like everything else its a combination of 2 things, 1 wanting to learn and 2 practice practice practice! Once you can confidently play the scales at 1 and 2 backwards and forwards see if you can pick out the melody Oh Suzanna from playing selected notes from the scale.
Open Mike, we have a few people putting their names down for our next Open Mike at the end of the month, so thank you to them. I will prioritise those who have not performed so far. There is still time to put yourself forward either singly or as a group. If you would like to but don't want to perform alone then let me know and we can organise some support for you.
New Members of U3a Coffee Morning, this event for people new to Heswall U3a is at 10.00am on the 20th February. You should have received an invite but very new people may not have. It is an opportunity to find out what else is on offer within the U3a (there are over 50 interest groups for you to consider joining). Hope to see you there.
Crib Notes, it is impossible to remember all of the arrangements we have for our growing song list. To help remind us of how certain songs are formatted for us I have posted Notes for some of the songs in the Music section of our website. You can make a copy of the notes to remind you sit is a PDF once you lick the Button. It is particularly difficult to remember formats when you play the same songs with different groups but some songs are played differently or in different keys in each group. I will continue to add notes to songs when I can.
Requests, we will continue to play favourites, I think we were down to F when we finished. We can pick up from there playing gig songs.
Thanks once again for your enthusiasm and I look forward to seeing you on Friday.
Cheers
Dave