I Love When This Happens

alantig

Zombie Four, DFZ
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Apr 28, 2012
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Bear with me - a little background before I get to the goods...

So I've just finished Ken Caillat's book "Making Rumours" about the Fleetwood Mac album. On top of that, I also picked up the three-disc set of the new remaster of "Rumours". Has a disc of studio outtakes and demos, and a live disc. Lots of talk about how the band really picked up their game in this era, and how some songs from the "Fleetwood Mac" album took on a new life live. "Rhiannon" is one of those, and the live version of it in this package is really good. (Doing a radio mix of "Rhiannon" is how Caillat got started working with Mac.)

So here's where the good part comes...some years ago, I had started figuring out some of the riffs in "Rhiannon", but never enough to learn how to play it. Reading about it over and over had me wanting to play that stuff again and maybe work out a little more of it. So earlier this week, I picked up the guitar I keep in the living room - and I can't get it. Not the riff. Not the melody. Nothing. The only thing I've got right is I have a guitar, and there's guitar in the song. So, disappointing, but no big deal.

Fast forward to today. I went down to my gear to work some more on my cover of "Sofa" that I'm still working on. But I've had my Mini Muff Metal pedal sitting there to swap into my signal path to play with, so I decide before trying to record keyboard parts I'll plug that in. Make the connections, plug in a guitar and..."Rhiannon" comes out of it.

Now, I didn't think "I'm going to play 'Rhiannon'" or even that I was going to try to play it. I flipped the amp from standby to on, played four or five notes before it hit me what I was playing.

I frigging LOVE when that happens!

(And it put me in a good mood, which probably carried over to the keyboard parts because they came pretty quickly, even a couple I thought I would really struggle with. But it was one of those glorious days where I sat down for ten minutes and three hours went by.)
 
Sometimes your subconscious just has to take over. It's amazing what comes out when you're not thinking about it.

I've always felt that my best work comes out when I'm not consciously trying to do something.
 
That's very cool. It's great when it just falls into place, isn't it?

I'm looking forward to reading that book. Nobody here has it, but supposedly it can be ordered. Part of living in a small town/city...

Lloyd
 
I frigging LOVE when that happens!

(And it put me in a good mood, which probably carried over to the keyboard parts because they came pretty quickly, even a couple I thought I would really struggle with. But it was one of those glorious days where I sat down for ten minutes and three hours went by.)
That's the best, you look at the clock and hours have gone by but you were so immersed in what you were doing that you didn't even notice.

Sometimes your subconscious just has to take over. It's amazing what comes out when you're not thinking about it.

I've always felt that my best work comes out when I'm not consciously trying to do something.
Sometimes the switch just flips and that's often when the best stuff comes out.
 
That's very cool. It's great when it just falls into place, isn't it?

I'm looking forward to reading that book. Nobody here has it, but supposedly it can be ordered. Part of living in a small town/city...

Lloyd

I ordered it. It was worth it - there are times when Caillat writes stuff that, as a musician, you just want to respond "duh...", but you have to step back and realize he's trying to explain it to people that might have trouble with which side of the CD goes up. But there are a lot of cool stories and things I didn't realize where in there (if I'd heard them before, I'd forgotten them). Even better, for some of the stuff, he gives specific times in the songs where the stuff happens.

I'd also recommend the Eagle Rock DVD "Classic Album: Rumours". It's one of the series where they sit with the master tracks and walk through the album. "Rumours" was in the first (and superior, in my mind) run. There's a bit where Lindsey Buckingham solos an acoustic part for one song, and my first thought was, "Well, that doesn't fit the song at all." Then he plays the song without the part and it just sounds wrong. Not bad, but wrong. When he fades the track up...boom, there's the record.
 
That's the best, you look at the clock and hours have gone by but you were so immersed in what you were doing that you didn't even notice.


Sometimes the switch just flips and that's often when the best stuff comes out.

And that's how yesterday was. It just seemed like everything I wanted to do, I could. I did a couple short keyboard lines that I knew were going to give me problems. (I'm not really a keyboard player, so we're not talking really difficult stuff - Jordan Rudess could stuff his hands down his pants and play these lines with his nose while someone sprayed a hose in his face.) For whatever reason, they seemed to fall under my fingers pretty quickly. To give you an idea what kind of day it was, I learned the first line wrong - the first three notes were C-D-C, and I learned it C-C-D. My first thought was to just play it C-C-D, even though that's not what was written, but I decided to try to do it right - and it came together after about three passes. I immediately decided I wasn't going anywhere until I put down everything I wanted to because it was just one of those days.
 
Jordan Rudess could stuff his hands down his pants and play these lines with his nose while someone sprayed a hose in his face

When I was a little girl, I started piano lessons at four, and that is exactly how I was taught to practice sight reading. Because my teacher was a strict classical educator in the European tradition, there was also live ammunition being shot a few inches over our heads so that we wouldn't be tempted to lift our faces too far off the keyboard in order to read the notes.
 
I had this happen last week. I had gotten the pups from Shawn and I was playing an SE semihollowbody to see if it would be a good place to try them. I wanted to do a before and after vid.

I barred an A at the 2nd fret and plucked it - strings 2, 3, 4 and 5 in unison. Before I knew it, my pinkie was on string one at fret 5 and I plucked it. Pluck barred s2. Then s2 with middle finger on f3. Then Barr at f4 s1-3 with middle finger on s2 at f5 pluck 1, 2, 3 and 6 open with a slight accent on s1.

It was the opening of The Beatles In My Life exactly. The thing is, I had never played I before! it kinda freaked me out.
 
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I had this happen last week. I had gotten the pups from Shawn and I was playing an SE semihollowbody to see if it would be a good place to try them. I wanted to do a before and after vid.

I barred an A at the 2nd fret and plucked it - strings 2, 3, 4 and 5 in unison. Before I knew it, my pinkie was on string one at fret 5 and I plucked it. Pluck barred s2. Then s2 with middle finger on f3. Then Barr at f4 s1-3 with middle finger on s2 at f5 pluck 1, 2, 3 and 6 open with a slight accent on s1.

It was the opening of The Beatles In My Life exactly. The thing is, I had never played I before! it kinda freaked me out.

Just out of curiosity.....are you able to tab that out? I'm having a hard time deciphering your fingering above, and would like to try it.
 
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