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December 04, 2005
Music is hard, period
I can spin a lot of explanations as to why I can only play "On Top of Old Smokey," but the truth is that decent music is hard. At least it is more non-musical genius types like me. Chords, keeping time and stuff just doesn't come naturally I'm afraid.
So, I mentioned wanting to learn "Gilgarry Mountain" (also know as "There's Whiskey in the Jar")?
Well, I was at it for a while and could hear that the notes I was playing seemed to be the right notes — but I couldn't hear the song in what I was playing. What I was doing didn't even begin to resemble the actual song. Turns out the song, which I thought was reasonably simple, is played at like 170 bpm. And don't even get me started about "A Rocky Road to Dublin."
So, it may take a while to climb old Gilgarry.
In the mean time — because it fits along with "On Top of Old Smokey" and "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star," — I'm making good progress with "Yankee Doodle Dandy." All I have to worry about is two strings and just a few frets. Heck, as long as I stick to a generally slow beat and only one string at a time I can do pretty well.
It's just hard to bring the rock with songs like that (sigh).