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Black bird song9/9/2023 ![]() ![]() Note that Jethro Tull had a hit in the late 60?s with a syncopated instrumental version of the same piece, led by Ian Anderson’s flute. McCartney often credits Bach’s Bouree in E minor as the inspiration for the guitar part. Remember that the guitar part is essentially a simplified Bach bouree with the strumming and singing interweaved. That’s about as close as he gets to finger-picking - perhaps more akin to elementary classical guitar in this case. So McCartney is typically pinching two strings, often 2 anbd 5, with the strumming in the appropriate measures. I should add to the above, for the sake of clarity that many of those bass notes described above are accompanied by a melody note, often on the second string. The explanation is a lot more involved than the actual playing. Ironically, many absolute amateurs on youtube get it right, and there are some pretty good versions on youtube.įor my two cents, you are best off to keep this simple and natural in the physical practice of the bass note and alternating strum, and not over-complicate it. The guitarist from the Foo Fighters (?) makes an awful mess of it on youtube as well. ![]() The worst attempt I have ever seen is on a video by a former editor of an acoustic guitar magazine. Remarkably, many “professionals” seem to get this wrong. A somewhat more recent example would be “Calico Sky” on the Flaming Pie album. Sir Paul varies the moves of thumb and forefinger to write other songs such as “Mother Nature’s Son,” but this type of strumming seems very natural to him. It’s easy, but requires a fluent, natural rhythm in the alternating timing of the strums. If you remember to observe the steady on-the-beat playing of a bass note by the thumb, and follow each bass note with a strum of thumb=up, forefinger down, then reverse after the next bass notes, you should have no trouble sounding authentic. I am not sure why many people seem to get this wrong. My view: McCartney was never a finger picker that I can think of, but typically wrote songs such as “Yesterday” around a thumb and forefinger strum. Language, as he uses it, holds us and leads us to a place where we can mourn and pray and wonder.I mentioned above that I play this on a youtube video, (channel = maxmoose10) but perhaps I didn’t notice the technical debate above. His poems burn us, feed us, and make us feel beloved even if we have been broken. "This is the book of poems I've been waiting for. There aren’t many people who get to that place and sometimes it can feel very lonely there, but the masters are saved by the brilliant and humble work they have done, their poems the crevices in our lives where the light shines through. His poems join the shades that walk among them. “Lundy has entered the place where the masters reside. We should be grateful to Randy Lundy for bringing his wise, wry, visionary, large-hearted meditations into language, and for demonstrating to his readers and himself the need for 'seeing with another kind of eye. Randy Lundy's poems bring forward the spirit of his Cree ancestry, and place our species humbly among the creatures of Earth-who are all observed with deep reverence and perceptive care. "What meditative power there is in Blackbird Song, what pure acts of attention and remembrance. ![]() Winner, Saskatchewan Book Award for Indigenous Peoples’ Publishing, 2019 Winner, Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry, 2019 Language, as he uses it, holds us and leads us to a place where we can mourn and pray and wonder.” – Lorna Crozier, author of What the Soul Doesn’t Want “This is the book of poems I’ve been waiting for … His poems burn us, feed us, and make us feel beloved even if we have been broken. “Randy Lundy’s poems bring forward the spirit of his Cree ancestry, and place our species humbly among the creatures of Earth-who are all observed with deep reverence and perceptive care.” – Don McKay, author of Strike/Slip There aren’t many people who get to that place and sometimes it can feel very lonely there, but the masters are saved by the brilliant and humble work they have done, their poems the crevices in our lives where the light shines through." – Patrick Lane, author of Washita This is the mind of prayer, a seeing and re-seeing of the immense cyclic beauty of the earth. Readers will be reminded by turns of Simon Ortiz, Pӓr Lagerkvist, and Jane Hirshfield. Randy Lundy draws deeply from his Cree heritage and equally from European and Asian traditions. An exquisite series of meditations on memory, evanescence and the land. ![]()
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