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What is the timing in Pumpkin Pie?
Ok, I’m answering my own question for 2 reason; well, maybe 3.
I looking at the lesson and then reading the comments, it seems a number of people didn’t get the timing correctly and any answer I made under the lesson won’t be seen by most people. (The “maybe 3” is that no one else asked the question, so I did.)
Ok, it is true that this is in 4/4 time. It is also true that beats 2 and 4 are muted. However, our “dotted quarter note” is on an upstroke. So, what does all that mean? Well, I’ll start by defining the dotted quarter note, just in case anyone cares. That just means you add half to your note value when you put a dot after it. So a quarter note becomes 1 1/2 quarters, or 3 eighths.
Ok, so let’s do the actual down/up thing, as that’s easier.
First, I’m going to show the hits and misses. I’ll show all down and up strokes, or all eighth notes, along with if we hit the strings or don’t hit the strings. Remember that it is natural, even if someone is keeping time with their foot, to move the hand and/or pick up and down in a regular fashion even if the strings are not being touched. Ok, here it is:
1 (down hit), + (up hit), 2 (down hit), + (up hit), 3 (down miss), + (up miss), 4 (down hit), + (up miss).
That’s the actual rhythm with the picking hand. Now, we are muting the string with our fretting hand on the 2 and 4 beats, so if we put that information into the above, it looks like this:
1 (down hit), + (up hit), 2 (down muted hit), + (up hit), 3 (down miss), + (up miss), 4 (down muted hit), + (up miss).
I hope this helps make this very cool rhythm cooler.
And I wanted to encourage @Heidi H as she mentioned her frustration with this lesson.
Heidi, you also mentioned that you were just starting. First thing I want to reiterate what @Zebrasrock said: all the information is there, but it is not obvious when you first start as there are so many new things going on. He also said to slow down and go back to the beginning as you will pick up more things. And get you guitar in you hand and explore, really trying to make sense of what Tony is saying.
What I wanted to add, Heidi, is the general method here on TAC. Believe it or not, we make progress remarkably quickly when we put in effort on these lessons even if we think we completely failed in both understanding and execution. Just do your best on a lesson, then mark it complete and move on. Each time, you will be adding to your understanding and your skill. As your understanding and skill grows, the lessons won’t seem so impossible. At first, you’ll simply start understanding what Tony is saying better and what your supposed to do. But, it won’t be long, and you’ll be executing the lessons better. That’s not to say you will be doing them the way you want, mastering them. You will just do better. But that’s progress.
Learning guitar is hard and takes time. Tony’s method can’t change that. But just making progress is also hard, and Tony’s method fixes that. You will make progress if you simply put in some effort every day on these lessons and forget about “mastering” them.
MG 😀
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6 Replies
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So, not only did I answer my own question, now I’m making a reply to myself. Why?
Simple, I want to make it clear that I have not “mastered” this lesson, nor am I finding it easy to even practice it. I wanted to share what I have had to do to get the timing down.
To throw in the extra motion of releasing the pressure on the string so that it’s muted just complicates my trying to get the rhythm down. So I’m starting with just playing the rhythm, not even changing notes.
Down, up, down, up, pause, pause, down, pause; repeat. That’s
1 + 2 + 4 1 + 2 + 4 1 + 2 + 4 1 + 2 + 4 1…
There’s a full quarter note pause between the 2 + and the 4, where as there is only an eighth note pause between the 4 and 1.
From experience, I know that I have to get that rhythm down to the point I can “feel” it and stop thinking about it before I try to change notes. Once I can do the rhythm and the notes without thinking about it, then I can throw in the muted notes. Otherwise, I’m trying to learn too many things at the same time and I’m just fighting myself.
An important step to learning the rhythm, is to tap my foot to the beat. It took awhile before I could tap my foot on the down beats because I’m missing the 3rd down beat. That’s why I needed to stop changing notes or trying to mute. Just do the rhythm.
I hope this helps others.
Maybe I should have put all of this in the “Show Us Your Routine” section. But I wanted to highlight the problem with even understanding the rhythm of this week’s lessons and then the effort to actually play it.
MG 😀
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Too darn cool N-light. It was as if you were in my mind. Love, love, love, the strategy of getting the rhythm pattern established with only the picking hand.
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Yeah, thanks @jumpinjeff , not just for the comment, but for the help you have given me in the past that allowed me to break this down that far. I didn’t right away. I tried shoving the whole thing in my mouth, but I was choking, so I tried a smaller bite. I still couldn’t chew it, so I finally broke it all the way down to just the picking hand. It’s unusual to skip the 3 beat, but when you do the you don’t want to skip the 4+ beat. Just hitting the 4 and waiting for the 1 is a killer. But I got it.
It will be interesting how far I have progressed by the end of the week. I hope to at least have Monday’s lesson handled. But I’ll keep working on these as I love this technique and really want to learn it.
MG 😀
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Wow, this is very helpful! thank you for putting the time into writing this post.
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You bet, @Rich B. , putting this down helps me and there’s always a chance it might help someone else.
Until we learn the lesson, we always try to “play” the whole thing. We don’t realize how many new things we are doing all at the same time.
By the way, your unique handle, or profile name, doesn’t seem to work. I can’t get you to come up. I think the @Rich might be calling up someone else. I don’t know. But the B. is definitely not coming up.
MG 😀
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Ok, so this is Thursday. I can finally play Monday’s lesson. But, in order to keep that rhythm I have to go about 30 bpm so I can keep the fretting pattern.
But I am still counting it out, 1 (down hit) + (up hit) 2 (down hit mute) + (up hit) 3 (down miss) + (up miss) 4 (down hit mute) + (up miss) 1 (down hit on new fret location) etc.
So, I am counting the numbers, what’s in the parenthesis is what I am doing on that count. I’m pretty sure that’s obvious, but just to make sure I have spelled it out. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I won’t understand something that is “obvious” if it’s not spelled out. Occasionally, someone is like me, so there ya go.
MG 😀
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