Recently I chatted with my guitar-playing brother about us doing a jam. We decided to learn 4 songs.
One he suggested was Wish You Were Here. I checked out a couple sources for tabs and found it quite daunting. There are so many changes it almost feels random! The bassline in that song, in many places, is very iconic and playing it any simpler would border on blasphemy.
So I know this topic came up in 2021, but what do you do to try to simplify a song so you can “just play it”?
The other thread noted playing roots , and in cases where there are lots of fast 16th notes, just play 8ths.
I saw a recent song (Lonely Boy, I think) by @Barney where in one part there were FAST 16ths, but B chose to do quarters, or even fewer, Maybe even just played the note once but let it ring.
Anyway, that sort of thing is what I’m interested in hearing. What sort for things do you do to help you quickly get through a song to a point where you’re not butchering it, but it still fits?
A lot of what you’re seeing are just flourishes and walkups between the chord changes. In reality, if you cut those out it’s not much more than a root/5th pattern.
Easiest way to simplify a song is just find the root not of the main chords and skip the flourishes for now. Simple plucking of the root notes on each beat would give a good foundation to fake it on. Just find the C, D, A(don’t worry about the minor key bits if you’re just doing roots), G and E for now. Once you’ve got the progression down, start doing root and 5th.
Yeah I totally agree. Just play roots and fifths (or just roots), and as far as rhythm, follow the kick drum. If the kick pattern is too complex, just play the accents.
Of course this won’t always work in a song where the bass line is the melody or iconic part of the song, but it’ll work for a lot of songs.
Even when the bassline is iconic, you can often get away with a simplified version. E.g. instead of playing pedal 8th or 16th notes, just play the accented notes or follow the kick drum, which usually won’t be doing a pedal.
Moises is pretty cool if you turn on chord mode. Just following what it says and then using your ear to try and flesh out more of the song around that. I guess a chord sheet would work too but it doesn’t show how the chords transition as accurately.