Our complete tribute to Rhysling! We didn't have a drummer tonight, and we need to work on keeping tempo, but it is coming along. Enjoy! Also, note how Jonathan gets really excited and looses his pick.
Lyrics by Robert A Heinlein, taken from his short story "The Green Hills of Earth." Music by Chris and Jonathan.
Mate, I'd really like a list of the chords you used. I'm playing an irish bouzouki, tuned GDAE, like a tenor banjo, and yours is the best version I've heard. Any tips for me to start on? I'm not a professional player, just someone who plays with instruments...
ReplyDeleteFirst, I'm glad you like it. I have a better quality recording somewhere that I've been meaning to post.
ReplyDeleteSecond, who cares if you aren't professional. Neither am I. One of the points I try to make on this blog is that anybody can pick up an instrument, use simple musical patterns and have a lot of fun making decent sounding music. I wish I could tell you more about starting but I don't play tenor banjo (yet).
I couldn't tell you right off the top of my head, but think G,Em,C,D. I'm not sure, but next time I take my banjo out I'll play through and write the chords down. However, I play five string banjo tuned g(fifth string) GDBD, so you will have to make some adaptations. The 3rd and 4th strings are the same which is good because on this song I mostly play on those strings. Usually, it goes something like this. I just hold the chords and
[1] play 3 string, [2]strum all strings, [&]fifth string (which you could omit or just try picking your first string), [3] fourth string, [4] strum all strings, [&] fifth string again. Now do this pattern again only on beat [3] hammer on the second fret after you strike the fourth string.
This entire thing is played once for each chord. The hammer on should still work on your banjo because the lower strings are tuned the same. The only thing you will have to change is the high part. For that, I essentially hold the same chords only instead of alternating between strings three and for I alternate between strings 1 and 2.
With all that being said, as long as you follow the chords, pretty much every picking pattern will sound good. And tenors sound great when they pick out the melody. You could even try that.
If you come up with a nice version, feel free to post a link. I always like to hear other peoples interpretations.
Thankyou! I'll do what I can to work it out :) . I'd love it if you could write down the full chord sequence. Do you play any other songs fished from Science Fiction stories?
ReplyDeleteThe words I know aren't from the Short Story but from the novel he wrote called "Farmer in the Sky", I know that he wrote a few different versions of the words in different books. I'll do my best to put together my idea of it.
Thankyou, thankyou, and thankyou again for your advice, I'm taking it all to heart. My eight strings are different to your five, but the idea is still the same. I tend to scrounge chord sequences from random guitarists...
I'll have to look up Farmer in the Sky. I have been away from the internet for a while, but I'll get the chords up soon. To date, I haven't done any other sic-fi songs, but If I had a lute I would have to sing some of Tolkien's songs.
ReplyDelete