ch1ng_chung

How does Guthrie Govan get that slap sound in the beginning? I've been playing 2.5 years and yet I can't even come close to that. Also, I'm having great trouble figuring out what notes he plays. I slow it down to .5 speed and even then it's too fast for me to remember what it sounds like when I try to put it on the fretboard.

I won't resort to tabs. Tabs are for the weak willed.

And why is this song so hard to learn? I could translate YJM's Far Beyond the Sun by ear, including putting a chorded intro, half a year ago, and that song's a million times faster than Wonderul Slipper Thing.

Junior#1

Why is it so hard? Because it's Guthrie. He is a truly phenomenal guitarist with some incredible songs. Naturally, some are going to be ridiculously hard to play.

This might help:

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Soccerguy

Tabs are a great learning tool. Don't be pretentious.
This is not just a tonne of fretted notes like YJM's wankery. These aren't sounds you will be used to hearing on a guitar, so clearly you'll have a bit, if not a lot, of difficulty. Try learning to slap on guitar first, then work your way up to this song.
Also, I don't think the speed of the song is really the problem, I think it is most likely the skill of the guitarist playing the song that is making it harder to figure it out. YJM has a very fast, yet much more simplistic style of playing, while Guthrie is the opposite, not to say he can't play fast.

Edit: To clarify the last bit, it's no so much the skill of the guitarist as the difficulty of the song. Guthrie's songs will be harder than most any other song you come across, I mean, watch a video of him, his skill is beyond comprehension. Yngwie, while still having lots of speed and skill, just hasn't composed near as difficult songs.

ProgFripp74

Malmsteen is not faster than Guthrie for a start, the harmony lead break in WST is far faster and more accurate than anything Malmsteen could play.
Also, don't be a pretentious shred monkey, lots of people use tabs to play songs, its common and I'm sure lots of people who use tabs could play the song whereas you can't.

Actual advice: Just look at youtube vids on bass slapping or the vid above.

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shredder3386

I didn't even read the question, all I know is Guthrie Govan is amazing and watching that video made me instantly turn on Erotic Cakes for the millionth time.

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Funk Monk

Cool Video Bro.

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Sickz

The reason you are having a harder time picking out Guthrie over Malmsteen is because Guthrie uses alot of jazz playing. That would be alot of chromatic playing, altered lines aswell as playing "outside" the key. Malmsteens style is not that hard to pick out, but it's of course hard to play.

I transcribed Wonderful Slippery Thing a while ago, and it's one of the hardest tune i have ever transcribed. Just because of the reasons stated above aswell as guthries phrasing. Some stuff he plays on that song you just don't hear that distinctly, but if it was taken away you would notice. I am talking about small pre bends/bends, sliding, etc

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Zaphod_Beeblebr

Well when you're done being a prick, check this out: http://www.freewebs.com/deadferretc...uthriegovan.htm

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ch1ng_chung

wow... shocks me that Govan would tab something out. Then again, it is the only effective notation for guitar. What shocked me even more is when I found out that I had transcribed the first few seconds of the song correctly by ear

Zaphod_Beeblebr

1 - He did tab transcriptions of music for Guitar Techniques magazine for a living for a long time.
2 - He claims he can write standard notation much better than he can read it.
3 - Of course you did, you admitted yourself that you had a lot of trouble remembering it when it came to transcribing even with it slowed down.
4 - By your own admission tab is the most effective guitar notation, why the snobbery in the first post?

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ProgFripp74

Are you trying to prove how amazing you are because you can listen to something slowed down and transcribe a very small part of it? Then say tabs are for the weak but you can't play the song without one?

Your pretentious hypocrisy is on a level I have not quite seen before, well done.

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JUST BOUGHT SIKTH DEATH OF A DEAD DAY ALBUM FROM THE US AND IT CAME WITH THE 6 YEAR OLD SIGNED POSTER (30/4/12) WIN

mdc

TS, Guthrie is an improviser. The only thing that stays the same in that song, like all of his songs, is the melody. And in this song, the slap intro, the tapping lick in the middle, and at the end of the song.

I think he'd appreciate that you do those parts justice and improvise the parts that are meant to be improvised.

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Morphogenesis26

This. I've tried to doing some of his stuff, like Waves or Fives, and I always end up improvising over the crazy parts and playing the repeated section(Intro of Waves, chorus of Fives, etc.).

Also, Malmsteen's stuff is pretty straightforward and not that hard to tab out by ear.

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Funk Monk

Lmao. Good Times

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Freepower

Quell surprise! Guthrie is hard for a relative beginner to imitate.

Just keep at it and keep using your ears. Getting anywhere near as good as Guthrie will take a lifetime, just like it has for him.

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steven seagull

+1


so you've been playing a fraction of the years Guthrie has, you probably haven't practised as much or as much as he did in his first two years and I guarantee your practise hasn't been as intense or focussed as what he was doing.

And you're surprised that you can't play his stuff?

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ch1ng_chung

I'm pretty sure Govan started playing guitar when he was around 4

mdc

3, ACTUALLY. Lol

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Zaphod_Beeblebr

As usual you have completely missed the point in favor of arguing some inconsequential detail.

For the record: Govan was transcribing Joe Pass by ear at a younger age than you even thought about picking up guitar. By that point he had been playing several times longer than you have been now.

When Wonderful Slippery Thing was first written he had already been playing for 19 years. The recorded version on the album was recorded somewhere around 10-13 years after that. There are literally hundreds of reasons why you cannot play this song, let alone transcribe it by ear.

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