What's the longest time you've spent learning a song and getting it right?

Under the Bridge (RHCP). I played a lazy version of it for many years, and was too stubborn to look up a tab/YT vid, so I always tried to work it out by ear but at the same time was not really putting much effort into it. Feeling frustrated, more recently, I thought screw it and saw a guy playing it on YT only to realise I was playing it completely wrong. So I sat down and actually made an effort and now play it a LOT better (still not perfect). Just really would have been better if I had done that from the start. I learned the correct way in probably an hour, but spent years hating the way I did play it. Really stupid!
 
I started playing guitar thinking I could learn "for the love of god" from Steve Vai because it wasnt that fast to play and sounded cool. Started playing it in 1996 on a Yamaha pacifica 112 and printed tabs... no lessons, no youtube, no DAW, just pling plong through the parts haha.
Eventually learned and played the song fully about 2 years ago with the help of the AxeFXIII to mimic the correct Vai sound. As I like "my" version, it is far as from sounding like the official Vai recording. So basicly it took me 25 years to play it for myself (on and off) and still love to play fragments every day.

Cheers 🍻
 
Last edited:
The Who's "Young Man Blues," "My Generation" and "Summertime Blues" from 'Live at Leeds', the entire songs. The hard-driving, high-energy riffs, some of which I've still not learned correctly, is as elusive as finding your perfect rig. So much time and effort put into capturing the moment when things sound like they're supposed to.
 
Last edited:
I quit trying to learn songs perfectly because I’d suddenly realize I’d missed some nuance that’d only be the result of the player having been on another part of the neck and a different string because there was a little change in the timbre.

Instead I try to channel the feel and spirit of the player as they’re improvising, and get the main parts right. After listening to so many studio versions and comparing them to the live versions and hearing major differences and liking both, and knowing they’re often layering multiple takes, it seemed like the best path. I love Duane Allman, Clapton, Jeff Beck, among many others, and their live versions often were very different from the studio so I lean toward their live versions as being indicative of their normal playing.

The best players sound like themselves even when they’re doing a really good cover, so that’s what I like trying to do, I try to sound like me sounding like them.
 
Cliffs of Dover.

Worked it for 6 to 8 months.

Final result: I could play it at 95% (-ish, depending on the day) of the original recorded tempo, with no obvious errors, IF, and ONLY IF, I rewrote a couple of the most-difficult riffs in such a way as to have roughly the same notes, but played using a slightly different technique.

Only in the last few years did Troy Grady et alia help me realize that I'm a natural downstroke-escape (or "upward pickslant") player whereas Eric Johnson and a lot of other folks are the opposite. So there were some riffs in the song that I could just not get past 70% of the recorded tempo no matter what I did, especially if I started them with a downstroke. But if I started with an upstroke and judicially introduced some pull-offs or string-changes-via-sweeping, it became manageable.

Since I'm still not reliable to avoid noticeable errors when playing at 100% of the original recorded tempo, I guess I'm still working on it.

And my standard for live performance is to be able to rehearse it at 105% of the original recorded tempo, a few times back-to-back, without any terribly-obvious missed notes. I frankly have given up hope of that ever happening.
 
I've been working on the intro solo for the "Sails Of Charon" for two years now. I know the notes/phrasing but cannot execute some parts at tempo. I practice it regularly and am incrementally making progress, but man....I've never grinded so hard learning a piece of music like this one.
 
About 15 years ago I tried to nail down “Dee” by Randy Rhoads. It took a couple days but I got it about 95% and memorized. I wish I still knew it. But even if I did, arthritis has slowed things down some since then and I’m sure the chord changes would be challenging. Maybe stepping up to a wider neck (Martin?) would help?
 
The Dregs, "Pride O The Farm" (Dregs of the Earth, 1981). Steve Morse's countrified barn-burner.


I saw Morse twice, the first with The Dregs, the second was solo against his backing tracks when he had some young upstart opening for him with his trio, dressed in a marching-band jacket… something Johnson… hmm… Eric?

Each performance was amazing, with dexterity I can’t come close to replicating. I practice but my brain, or muscles, have never been able to keep up.
 
Back
Top Bottom