Find a song and play it!!

Here’s where to look, cuz “No One Is To Blame”….

Previous “Bonus Round” answers:

Last week’s bonus round song was “Last Thing On My Mind” written by the great Tom Paxton

Yesterday’s “Bonus Round” song was “Mr. Tambourine Man” written by the incomparable Bob Dylan

You’ve learned some basic chords and can strum those chords and (mostly) change chords on the beat - you’re ready to play some songs!! But where to find them?

Today, let’s talk about some places to search - I’ll give you a list of the apps for your phone or pad that I use and consider indispensable.

Let me start with my usual disclaimer - I’m not endorsing any of these, I use them and think they’re helpful, but I have no financial interest or affiliation with or in any of them (other than I pay a yearly subscription to a couple of them - worth it!! - so it’s kind of the other way around).

First, I use an iPhone, but I assume, without knowing, that each of these is also available on other mobile platforms, phones or pads.

A great place to start is an app called SoundHound - if you hear a song on television or radio, you open the app, make sure the phone’s microphone can receive the sound, and press the pulsing button on the screen. The app analyzes the sound and if the song is cataloged somewhere will return the song title and artist and maybe some album art and information. There may be other apps that do essentially the same thing, dunno, just happens to be the one I use.

So now you have a place to start, where to next?

I usually go to an app called Chordify and use the search function - if the song or a cover of the song has been “chordified” previously, you’ll get a return with a lot of great information. To “chordify” a song the app searches a database of videos and processes the video to produce a moving roll of the chord changes in a matrix that represents the “bars” or measures of a song - if you’re not sure what that means, I’ll be covering it when we get to the dreaded music theory stuff a little later, best to just roll with it for now. The good news is the moving scroll of chord changes are accompanied by a video (usually YouTube, but maybe another source), where you can hear the song while watching the chords change. If the chords are ones you can play, you can strum along, changing chords as the moving cursor gets to the next chord and hear the chord changes as well from the video. Fabulous!! You’re playing a song!!

One downside to Chordify is there aren’t written lyrics, so you’re relying on the audio of the song as well the moving cursor to give you cues that a chord change is coming up. There are a couple of apps that help. One is Genius Lyrics, that will give you (generally) accurate lyrics, but you can’t have both Chordify and Genius Lyrics open at the same time on the same device.

What to do? If I want to do more than just play along with the video on Chordify, that is, I want to practice the song while looking at and singing the lyrics as I’m playing, I open the Ultimate Guitar app. The search function may give you the song you’re looking for, but since all the content is user created, it may or may not be there at all. If it is, there may be multiple versions, and different versions may or may not display the chords you saw on Chordify. We’ll talk about how you can change that as we delve into music theory in future newsletters, for now try to find a version that has chords you can play or learn (there’s usually a section at the top of the chord chart that has chord diagrams for every chord used in the song, don’t be afraid to try a new one!).

What you’ll be seeing is either a “chord chart” or a “tab”. A chord chart has lyrics and the written chord symbols on a line above the lyric where the chord change occurs. Chord symbols are just a letter for Major chords (C, D, G) or something like Am, Em, Dm for minor chords. If you’re not sure how to play a certain chord, refer to the chord diagrams at the top of the chart.

A “tab” is for playing a single note (a “melody” - we’ll talk about that in a future newsletter) in a progression - tabs look a little like sheet music, but the six lines are representations of the strings of the guitar - high e is at the top, low E is at the bottom (Yes, we write them that way to differentiate the two “E”strings). The numbers represent a fret on the string, starting from the nut and working toward the soundhole. The order from left to right is the order in which each individual note represented by the fret number on a string is played. Kinda complicated and since there isn’t tempo/timing information, you kinda have to know the song (or write your own!).

Chord charts and tabs are good topics for discussion with a guitar instructor, but to help facilitate, here’s a link to an article that goes from basic to fairly advanced (I’d recommend taking in the basic stuff and skimming/saving the advanced stuff - specifically music scores, unless you already read music): https://www.guitarmeet.com/how-to-read-guitar-chords-charts-tabs-and-the-staff/ (Couldn’t find copyright info on the page, I’ll assume ©️Guitarmeet.com)

Last week I talked about how important private guitar lessons are to your success with the guitar - if you use the apps I’ve mentioned here, or the last one coming up next, make sure to have a discussion about it with your guitar teacher. Playing the songs you’ve learned with your teacher and discussing technique (especially strumming patterns and phrasing, as well as the basics of good fretting technique and practice) will help you immensely on your journey.

The last app I’ll recommend is a little more advanced, and you may want to just browse it for awhile until, with the help of your guitar teacher, you’re ready to dive in. I use a fantastic app called Acapella (subscription required to access the really great features, but absolutely worth it!!). Acapella is an app that allows you to collaborate remotely with others on a song. It’s to playing with others as Zoom is to meetings, except it’s not live. Instead, a collaboration is built of layers, each performer adding to a previously recorded layer (but someone has to start it off - maybe you!). Sounds kinda complicated, but you’ll get the concept as you watch a few “Acapellas” and read the accompanying comments. It’s like creating a song with a band in increments, each person contributing in turn. Participating becomes a collaboration, called a “collab” on Acapella. It can be a little daunting to put yourself, your skills and maybe your singing voice out there, so don’t be afraid to just take it all in (lurk) for awhile as you read the comments accompanying the collab. Also, the interface has a bit of a learning curve, but there are some basic mixing tools for completed videos that are saved but not yet published - (EQ, volume, panning - so some things to play around with). This is a great community of talented and encouraging people from all over the world making music together!!

All right, that’s a lot for today, please send a question in the comments if you aren’t sure of the details of anything in today’s newsletter and I’ll respond to all in next week’s newsletter and thanks to all my new subscribers - it’s very encouraging!!

Bonus Round: The song I referenced in the subtitle is an 80s song by Howard Jones in a definitive style of the times (Phil Collins on drums - and he does, if not THE “magic break”, it’s still a great drum break! - we’ll talk about that in a future newsletter). For this week, if you’re up for it, find the later, mostly acoustic cover of it (hint: an excerpt from it is in a niche, cool movie - pretty cute, but sort of bittersweet) starring one of my favorite actors, Nathan Fillion.

Cheers, and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic