Performance Preparation #0001 — 'Old Man'
Covering Neil Young's classic ballad.
A quick note before we get started: You can read this post on my substack website (instead of in email) by clicking here. On my website you can also access all my other posts via the archive.
Getting ready…
I’m currently preparing to do some gigs in 2024, a mixture of my original material and my favourite covers, songs that really mean something to me.
I’m not sure exactly where and when I’ll be playing live, so my ground zero starting point is that I can play and sing everything convincingly on my own with just an acoustic.
I jam on a regular basis with some superb musicians, and for sure in theory, I could easily put a great little band together, one that I feel could really raise an eyebrow or much more than two. However, in practice, they are all very busy people, with multiple commitments and strands to their lives, so I just have to see what’s possible as I develop my live set and begin to book dates. However, for sure at least on some of the live dates I will be performing my sets with other musicians, and on some I’ll be alone.
So really this post — about Neil Young’s classic song ‘Old Man’ — is the first in a series of planned posts about my process for preparing for performing live. In this series, I hope to cover:
The things that I do in general (i.e. for each song I prepare, and generally for preparing to do a stint of live shows).
Some deeper dives into the specific things that I’ve focused on for each of the songs I’ve chosen for my sets.
I’ll also go into what kit I use, and why and how I use it.1
In total, I’m preparing about twenty-four songs — twelve covers and twelve originals, which is somewhere between seventy-five to ninety minutes. This means I have enough material to easily do a show with two thirty-minute sets, with songs in reserve. For the kind of venues I’ll be playing (fifty to one hundred and fifty capacity, quite often with people seated at tables, drinking and eating) that’s more than enough.
My process
To give you an idea of the kind of ‘general’ stuff I’ll cover (directly and indirectly) in this series of posts, here’s a list:
Choosing the material — in particular, why does that cover song mean something to me? Same for my original material, in particular, does my song mean anything to me any more? This is an important first step/question. If I don’t truly like the song or no longer relate to it, I’m never going to be able to do a convincing performance of it/
Analysis of each cover song (much of the below is also applicable to analysing my own songs):
Which version? From a studio recording? Or from a live performance? By the original artist? Or by someone else covering that song? Or totally my own take on how to perform this cover?
Good examples of what I mean here are Tom Petty’s ‘Free Fallin’’ — the version I base my version on is John Mayer’s live version — and Neil Young’s ‘Old man’ — the studio album version is superb, however, I base my version on a live performance from 1971.2
I quite like when people 'own' their version of a cover song, a great example for me is Al Green covering 'Light My Fire'. It's totally different to The Doors' version, yet instantly recognisable as that great song. Al Green just owns it. I try to do this, for example I do a blues style version of Bob Marley's 'Wait In Vain' in E Major. Yet some songs I just want to do the way the original artist did them, I can't and don't want to try to change or improve it, the original artist’s version just nailed it, and Neil Young's 1971 'Old Man' live is such a version for me.
Gathering some history about the song, the songwriter/s, and the performer/s.
What’s the original key?
Tempo and rhythm?
Arrangement? Meaning BOTH the sections (verse, chorus etc) of the song AND the instrumentation/parts (vocal melody, baseline, guitar parts etc).
Lyrics? My go-to app/website for this is Ultimate Guitar. I don’t just copy and paste. I use the app as a way to double-check because my preferred way to gather lyrics is to actually listen line-by-line to the exact version I’m covering and write it (type) down, word-for-word. I never rely 100% on online resources, I trust my ears more — although these days my hearing ain’t what it used to be?!
Guitar tuning — is it standard EADGBE? Or something else?
Guitar chords? Again my go-to resource for this is Ultimate Guitar, again for double checking. Again my main tool is my hearing, I use my ears, and watch videos (if I can find some) of the song’s performer playing. When I’ve decided what chords I’m going to play I create my own chord diagrams using an app called Guitar Toolkit.
All through this process I’m constantly cross-checking all of this, however maybe when I’ve gathered all this data, I’ll do one final cross-check — I’ll sit with a guitar and my laptop and play the song through with a YouTube video, or looking at a chart I found on Ultimate Guitar, and check for any errors in what I’ve collected.
Working out how to play each song?
When I’m satisfied that I understand the song, I then experiment and decide how my version is going go — is it going to be more-or-less me attempting a carbon copy of the original? Or am I going to adapt it, and try to create my own take on it, my variation on a theme? For example, is it going to be in the original key? Or, if to, and how to adapt/transpose the cover song to suit me, my style, and my limitations?
I’ll also start to think about which guitar and gear and settings to use? More or less, under ideal circumstances, I plan to have three guitars (an electric, a steel-string electro-acoustic, and a nylon-string electro-acoustic), one combo amp (maybe with a separate cab speaker), and a minimal foot-pedal system (with a looper). I’ll also have an old iPhone which I use to host a guitar amp modelling app for my amp, and an old iPad, on which I have all my lyrics, chords and setlists (I have it just in case, I don’t refer to it onstage, it’s more a security blanket). I’ll write a separate post about my go-to guitars and gear.
I aim to clearly document all of this in an easily accessible format (for when working with other musicians and live-sound engineers). For this, I mainly use an app called Songbook Pro (for logging lyrics, chords, setlists etc). The app allows you to save all of this to the Cloud and let multiple users access it, which is great when collaborating with other musicians. It also lets you save and print PDFs etc if you still use paper on stage! I really like this app although for me it does have one small limitation. When you write a chord name (so for example if I wrote ‘C’ signifying the chord C Major) the app auto-generates a very standard visual chord chart for that chord and adds it to the chord library of that particular song. This is wonderful, apart from the fact that generally, it creates standard CAGED guitar system type chord shape charts, mostly all at the nut (so a C Major chord would be [x32010]). And once in a while, it randomly seems to throw in a barre chord or two. It won’t let you override these with your particular favourite chord variation of that chord played elsewhere on the neck. I easily get around this by adding bracketed spellings of the exact chord shapes I use. So for example, if I type in Am7, Songbook Pro will generate a chart for this played at the nut — spelt [x02210]. If what I actually meant was Am7 played as a barre chord at fret 5 I simply add a bracketed spelling after the chord to remind me. So Am7 barred at fret 5 = Am7 [575555].
The stages of deeply learning the song.
Making a ‘mix-tape’ of my sets — this used to be on tape cassettes, now it’s a playlist on my iPhone. I have this on in the background as much as possible.
Walking (at the right tempo) and first saying, then singing the lyrics out loud (you get some interesting stares from passersby).
Saying/singing the lyrics to myself in a mirror, looking myself directly in the eyes. Really imagining that I am telling this story/singing this song to someone — trying to figure out who that specific someone is for each song.
In addition to this, I also try to figure out what the lyrics mean. To be clear about this (and just for example) I don’t know exactly what Neil Young was thinking about or referring to when he wrote the lyric for verse four — “Lullabies, look in your eyes. Run around the same old town. Doesn't mean that much to me, to mean that much to you.” So, I need to figure out what I think it means, and who I am referring to, and saying/singing it to. Otherwise, I’m just singing nonsensical meaningless words. This process also helps me memorise the lyrics
Going through the song chord-by-chord in my head, and air-guitaring it.
Practising the guitar (often very slowly) on its own, then the vocal on its own, then both together. I always try to do this with a metronome or some kind of beat. When singing this can be as simple as me clapping, or finger-snapping, or foot-tapping.
Rehearsing:
At home alone — with a metronome or beat.
At home to our cat, the neighbour’s dog, my wife, or anyone else who’ll agree to listen…
With other musicians.
Testing it all in public (open mic jams etc). I try to go to a local open mic and/or an open jam at least once a week.
Health! Look after yourself. I know. It’s obvious, but I’m going to say something anyway.
Stay fit and strong, and do something for your fitness on a daily basis
Eat healthy fresh food.
Keep hydrated. Drink a lot of water, especially when performing live.
Get a really good night’s sleep, all the time. Stay fresh and relaxed.
At gigs, don’t smoke tobacco or drink too much alcohol. Also, in the long run, it’s probably best to stay off any recreational drugs before, during and after a gig… just saying.
Gigging can be very gruelling. It’s a fact. So be self-responsible, and look after your own mental health. Do things at your own pace, and in your own way. Be prepared to say ‘no’ very clearly when needed.
Which leads me to…
I’m not a f#*%ing jukebox!
My aim is not to be able to churn out endless covers on demand that people come and request from me. My aim is to go deep into cover songs that I love and deliver them live the best I can. So quality not quantity. My outlook on this is that if I am genuinely relaxed and enjoying myself and giving it my all, then that will come through, and the audience will pick up on that, and come along for the ride.
Substack music community comments
I’d been thinking about writing something about the process of preparing to play live, What really galvanised me into actually putting pen-to-paper (so to speak) was a comments exchange with
of Michael Acoustic on this post.In his post, Michael said he had difficulty singing songs in the key of D due to his vocal range. I have the same issue. Neil Young’s ‘Old Man’ is in the key of D and if I try to sing the highest note that Mr. Young reaches I sound very convincingly like a cat being strangled.
The thing is I love this song in the key of D, with its chords almost all played at the nut, with open ringing strings. I can’t play the guitar part exactly like Neil Young does, however I can do a very reasonable rendition. And I can sing the intro and the verses in the same register as the original no problem. But that high A note at the beginning of the chorus, the one that really gives the chorus entry a lift… well like I say, when I attempt it strangled cat sounds spout forth.
I explained all of this in the comments section of Michael’s post. He made some suggestions and said he’d be interested to know the outcome of how I got around the dilemma of how to perform this song, retaining as much of its original key of D flavour, without totally murdering it.
So, here’s what I did…
Covering ‘Old Man’ by Neil Young
Here’s my background research.
About the original artist.
About the song.
‘Old Man’
Why ‘Old Man’ still resonates with me.
I first saw Neil Young on BBC TV when I was about 9, I remember this song, and also ‘Heart Of Gold’. I thought (my memory is) that it was on the Old Grey Whistle Test — which was usually very late on Friday or Saturday evening, and I used to sneak downstairs from my bedroom to watch this (along with late-night Monty Python or Spike Milligan or Peter Cook and Dudley Moore). However, it seems my memory is blurring things together, as it turns out it was simply broadcast as a live concert on TV.
Mostly, when first discovering Neil Young, I remember hearing ‘After the Gold Rush’. I was astonished by it, mesmerised. I still am, it’s simply beautiful. I thought it was a woman singing — which is why I could never attempt it myself, I simply cannot sing naturally in that high range. However, that’s bad attitude on my part,
does a superb lower register version.
Neil Young wrote ‘Old Man’ about meeting an old man when he was about 24, I first heard it when I was about 9 or 10, now I’m 61 — go figure, 61! In many people’s eyes, I’m now the old man, though I still don’t feel that much different to when I was 20 — which seems to me to be a big part of what this song is about.
The album version. A single from Young’s 1972 album ‘Harvest’.
The live version I base my version on.
Recorded on February 23rd 1971, BBC Radio Theatre, London, England First broadcast in the UK April 1st 1971
The original key.
Most sources online, and indeed the official printed sheet music, say the key is D Major — I don’t entirely agree, my ears tell me differently.
I think the introduction and the verses are in D melodic minor — which explains the F natural (e.g. there’s FMajor7 chord), and also the occasional B natural in the harmony.
Melodic minor (aka Ionian b3, & Jazz Minor)
ascending: 1 - 2 - b3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
descending: b7 - b6 - 5 - 4 - b3 - 2 - 1 (= ‘Aeolian’ mode/natural minor)
D melodic minor =
ascending: D - E - F -G - A - B - C# -D
descending: D - C♮- Bb - A - G - F -E - D
Whilst the chorus is in D major, but with a twist — being that the V chord (under the D major melody) is A minor 7 (so v7), the harmony of which (the flat 3 and the flat 7 in the Am7 chord) gives the melody at the point that lamentful lilt.
Major mode #1 ‘Ionian’
(aka Diatonic Major, it’s relative natural minor is built from point 6)1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
D Major = D - E - F# - G - A - B - C# - D
The original tempo and rhythm.
It’s somewhere around 71 BPM. Most chord charts I’ve seen online put the time signature as common time, as 4/4. This may be a bit confusing and perhaps needs a bit of explaining.
If You watch Neil Young’s right hand in the live video above (for example during the chorus from around timestamp 01:52) you can see that his hand is constantly going up and down in what looks like a straight 8th note rhythm — with the downstroke on the beat and the upstroke on the offbeat,
so — 1↓ &↑ 2↓ &↑ 3↓ &↑ 4↓ &↑.
And this is what most online chord and tab platforms say the time signature and the rhythm count is — 4/4, with down/up strumming based upon an 8th note rhythm pattern — 1↓ &↑ 2↓ &↑ 3↓ &↑ 4↓ &↑.
However, if you look online at some examples of the sheet music you will see that where the barlines have been placed would mean that actually what is being played on this live version on guitar is a 16th note rhythm,
so — 1↓ 2↑ 3↓ 4↑ 5↓ 6↑ 7↓ 8↑ 9↓ 10↑ 11↓ 12↑ 13↓ 14↑ 15↓ 16↑
Or more accurately in 4/4:
1↓ 2↑ 3↓ 4↑ - 2↓ 2↑ 3↓ 4↑ - 3↓ 2↑ 3↓ 4↑ - 4↓ 2↑ 3↓ 4↑
You can really clearly see this on the video at timestamp 03:21, where you can see Neil Young’s left foot tapping the downbeat of each 4/4 beat, and for every foot tap his right-hand goes down-up-down-up (so four 16th note beats)
What adds another element to the confusion (which can be clearly seen in the sheet music), is that the second bar of each line of the intro vocal section is 2/4 NOT 4/4 — so there is a short bar inserted which, if you are not aware of, can put your time count out. To really understand the structure of this song you have to be aware of this stuff because Neil Young uses techniques like this in other places in the song — for example the first D chord of the main verse preamble is also the last chord of the vocal intro. So a section ends and begins on the same downbeat — clever stuff!
If you listen and look closely from time to time you can hear 16th note runs (for example at the end of the last bar of the 2nd verse, at around timestamp 01:52, from the final G Major chord of the verse to the first D Major chord of the pre-chorus). As far as I can see his right hand never stops the constant down and up, downbeat upbeat rhythm, which is how the implied 16th note rhythmic motifs are achieved (for example in the intro section from around timestamp 00:42) where hammer-ons are used with the left hand
For me personally, knowing all of this is important, because most of the time I don’t use a plectrum, I just use my fingers. So this down/up style of picking out individual notes with a pick is not so straightforward if you just use your fingers. At some point, I’ll have to decide if to use a plectrum or try to emulate as closely with my fingers as I can what’s being played on the original live version.
Finally, I’d go as far as to say that this constant down-up-down-up right-hand movement is the backbone of authentically nailing the original guitar part for this song.
I found this tutorial. If you want to try to emulate Neil Young’s original strumming/picking style, well, I think this tutorial would be a good place to start. Just keep in mind that my eyes tell me that when Neil Young plays this song his right hand is constantly going down up down up, and he skillfully manages to pick out individual notes in the process. In Justin’s fantastic tutorial, he shows you how to pick out these individual notes, however, it sometimes seems to be with a slightly different method, with right-hand syncopation (so not constant down up down up movements, but with some syncopated variation).
Guitar tuning.
As far as I can tell it’s standard EADGBE.
Link to the original lyrics.
Link to the chords.
I don’t 100% agree with these chord charts, they are pretty close and definitely good enough to be able to play the song. However, they are not exactly what I play.
An example of what I don’t agree with is that the chart says the very first chord of the song is FMaj7 and they suggest a chord shape at the nut for this. You can see very clearly from the live video that Neil Young’s first chord is played at fret 5, and I think it’s a straightforward Dmin9 chord. For sure FMaj7 — spelt R-3-5-7, which is F-A-C-E — is contained with Dmin9 (spelt R-b3-5-b7-9), it’s the b3-5-b7-9 of Dmin9. However, the way Neil Young plays this chord has an open high E string, so there is no 5th note in this particular voicing of the chord, and the root note, D, can be clearly heard. So saying it’s FMaj7 makes no real sense to me.
I point this all out simply to emphasise NOT to 100% trust these online resources. It’s much better to start to trust your own ears and eyes.
What I did with this research…
What to practice/warm-up:
Singing the notes out loud whilst practising all this, to warm up my voice.
As you’ll see as you read to the end of this article it’s E major and E melodic minor that you’ll need to practice if you have the same limited vocal range as I do.
Decide on which guitar to use —most likely for this song live I’ll go for my Yamaha APX 500iii electro-acoustic.
Try playing the song with and without a plectrum.
Am I going to try to emulate exactly what Neil Young plays (in which case I need to use a pick) or am I going to adapt it to my style of playing? Or a mixture of both? I still need to experiment a bit… so probably by the time I post this article, I will not have decided. However, what I am clear about is that I enjoy playing the type of open chords Neil Young uses, so I want to maintain that as much as possible.
I need to figure out what to do about not being able to hit the high A note at the beginning of the chorus. It’s a perfect fifth above what I can comfortably reach.
Options?
Work on my falsetto — the entry point is a perfect 5th (seven semitones) above what feels natural for me to sing. Working on my falsetto is not quickly doable. It could take months. I don’t really think I could commit to the amount of time and effort it would take to attempt this. If it was one or maybe two semitones that I wanted to add to my range, then maybe I’d attempt it. But seven semitones — that’s a big leap.
Get some helium.
Sing the chorus in the original key but an octave down. The high entry of the chorus is a big part of what gives the song its impact, so an entry an octave down is not ideal.
Transpose the song down — logically that would be down a perfect 5th to G Major, capo on fret 5 (using all the original chord shapes) — this could radically affect the overall sound of the song… and it did… the chorus vocal sounds great, but the verses are now in a register too low or too high for me — so out of the frying pan into the fire!
(* By ’Logically’ I mean that the high A I can’t reach but the D a 5th down I can reach easily, so transpose everything down a perfect fifth).
I tried C major — however, it was too difficult to convincingly and coherently play open chords. When Transposed into C Major in the verses there is an Eb Major chord and a Bb Major chord. Both of these are virtually impossible to play as open chords at the nut, you have to barre them, which means you end up leaping all over the neck to play the verse. It’s unwieldy and doesn’t sound great. The only other option (to retain the original open chord shapes) would be to use a capo on fret 10 — which basically makes it sound like the song is being played on a mandolin or ukelele, which I don’t want.
I tried transposing just the choruses down to C Major (so going down a tone for the chorus). It doesn’t really cut it for me. Here’s why. Going from the last G chord of the verse to a CMajor chord (instead of a D Major chord) doesn’t work. I’d need to modify the chord structure of the end of the verse or insert some kind of key-change-friendly bridge — it’s a bridge too far for (pun totally intended), in particular, because the first note of the chorus in C major would be a high G which is still out of my range by a perfect 4th, so a lot of work for no gain really.
I tried the song in F Major, so with the capo on fret 3 (using all the original chord shapes) — the intro and verses are still right on the edge of strangled cat-sounding vocal territory, however, the chorus vocal lift sounds great.
So, I took it another semitone down to E Major, capo on fret 2, (using all the original chord shapes) —overall it sounds great to me, and still close tonally to the original, except that the chorus melody is not higher in register than the verse, I still have to sing it an octave down. Even so, my chorus vocal sounds much better that extra tone higher, still not as impactful as Neil Young’s original high entry, but without extreme falsetto training for a few months or helium gas, I’m out of options. So I can live with the chorus an octave down but one tone higher.
In the end, I based all my chords (just transposed down a tone) on Neil Young’s original chord shapes. There are a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs throughout the song — far too many for me to go into the detail of it here. Also, there are places where the fleshy outer edge of right-hand semi-mutes some/all of the strings at the bridge. It’s a very effective way to vary the timbre, tone and volume all in one. What I’ve done is study what Neil Young plays (so, for example where in the verses he uses these hammer-ons and pull-offs) and then I’ve included that flavour in my version. If you want to try and learn this song exactly (or very close) to how Neil Young plays it then there are several really good tutorials online. As a starting point, I would recommend these tutorials by Justin and/or Marty Schwartz (in general Marty’s tutorials are great, however in this particular one he does not cover so much of the verse’s chord embellishments, Justin does). As mentioned, I’m still not yet clear about if I’ll use a plectrum or just my fingers. It’s not so straightforward to be able to explain this, however, here goes… Personally, playing with just my fingers is much more intuitive for me, especially on electric guitar, but it does mean that I use a downstroke with my thumb a hell of a lot, and for strumming I tend to use the nails and tips of my first, second and third fingers (either favouring the first finger or all at the same time), in a down-up motion. Doing this I can get so much more variation in tone and timbre etc (than using a pick), yet it has to be said that a plectrum is definitely much brighter, louder and clearer, and there are certain things that a plectrum is easier to use for — like detailed fast riffs, where you need to go down up rapidly and consistently. I will in the future write a dedicated post about this. About using a plectrum and/or fingers (and the things that I am currently looking at to get the best of both worlds). For example, being able to interchange easily between using just my fingers and then a pick… But that’s all a work in progress right now. So for now I just have to decide — just fingers? Or just plectrum? With just fingers, I can’t get the full clarity of all the hammer-ons and pull-offs. With just a plectrum everything becomes suddenly much louder, so intense and so much brighter, and there needs to be so much more focus on precision and all the detail. This brings me to the final strand of this topic for me — carpal tunnel syndrome. I recently got diagnosed with this. My fingers and hands feel constantly spongy and slightly numb, and not so strong as they did. I don’t find it so easy at the moment to hold a pick, I drop it a lot! The more I speak with other musicians (not just guitarists — saxophonists, percussionists, you name it) about this topic, it becomes ever clearer that very many musicians get afflicted with this at one time or another during their career. It can be treated. It can be complicated (for example in my case there also seems to be some pressure on nerves being caused by a problem in my cervical spine). It seems in most cases people can make a good recovery from this, but it can take time and quite a lot of effort. I just got properly diagnosed recently, yet I’ve had the symptoms for well over a year. So now I’m in the process of being treated for this condition and rehabilitating. It has affected my guitar playing, and I have tended NOT to use a plectrum because I find it difficult. However, now I am consciously making an effort to NOT avoid using a plectrum! And instead persevere with almost relearning from scratch how to use a pick! Watch this space! I’ll decide soon which way to go with this particular song, and I will also write a post about carpal tunnel syndrome and my experience with it.
I did also experiment with modifying the verse chord voicings slightly, for no other reason than I personally like the sound of the D note on fret 3 of the B string constantly sounding in each chord. I think it becomes clearer that I won’t perform this song exactly like Neil Young, and also I don’t want to make radical style changes, so these slight alterations are simply to add a little of my flavour to it. I’m not sure if I’ll use them yet. But I think that’s ok, and I’d encourage you to do something similar and add your own mark. It gets us away from just copying something parrott-like and encourages our own creativity, which ultimately for me is what it’s all about.
Here’s an example of what I mean, I’ll give you the chords in D Major (so no capo), meaning if you also want to transpose the song to E Major, then use these chords spellings but with a capo on fret 2.
So (just for example) for the first line of verse one (“Old Man, look at my life, twenty-four and there’s so much more”) I use these chord voicings (with that constant D note on fret 3 of the B string):
D [xx0232]
FMaj6/7 [xx3230]
Cadd9 [x32030]
G6 [320030]
So, somewhat counterintuitively, in the end, I transposed the song up a tone as a countermeasure against the original chorus vocal range being too high for me.
With me still figuring out if to use a pick or not, and kind of teasing out similar-sounding picked guitar motifs to the original whilst strumming with just my fingers, and just being about able to hit all the vocal notes I need to without too much effort… well, it’s still all a bit blurry, it’s definitely a hybrid (not a replica), it’s definitely a compromise work-in-progress, yet it all seems to work.
Here, below, are two very short clips of me rehearsing Old Man at home.
The fisrt clip is in the original key, with no plectrum, so just uing fingers. Generally it feels more comforable, I’m in my comfort zone. No pesky pick, I don’t need to think about my right hand at all, it’s all in my vocal range… until I get to the chorus, which I have to sing an octave down. Oh and this song should be played steadily at around 70bpm. Clearly, in both these clips, I’m rushing, I’m playing somewhere around 75 bpm or just above — I need to work on that!!
The second clip is with a capo on the second fret (so in the key of E), using a pick. I’m out of my comfort zone. I have to conecentrate more on my right hand tecnique. The intro and the verses are right on the edge of my vocal range, but I can sing the chorus a full tone higher. It’s a work I progress. I’ll need to train my voice a bit and remember to warm up before attempting this song. Also usig the pick is good for me. Like I mentioned, at the moment I am rehabitalitaing from pretty severe carpal tunnel syndrom, so it’s almost like learnig to use the pick from scratch — I now find it hard to grip a plectrum and I drop it alot! Maybe you’ve had a similar experience with carpal tunnel syndrome? How do you deal with it? Please let me know in the comments.
Anyway, at the moment the jury is still out on how to perform this song, as I say it’s a work in progress. I’m going to persist for a few weeks with using a capo on fret 2 and using a plectrum, and then decide. The end goal is to improve the chorus, so if in a week or two I feel like I’ve done that then I stick with playing it a tone up from Neil Young’s original.
I hope this has been useful. Let me know in the comments below.
Finally, below are the songs mentioned in this post. Unfortunately Neil Young’s ‘Old Man’ is no longer on Spotify (whole other story…), so it’s not on the playlist! But I’ve added the YouTube video again, and also a bonus Oldish Man’s version…
What’s your process for learning a song and preparing to play live?
What tips do you have?
I’m genuinely interested.
Please note: I have another infotainment channel on Substack, called Unleashed & Unlimited, where I post podcasts, articles and content unrelated to music.🖋🎥🎙
From time to time I may include affiliate links to specific equipment I use or to a manufacturer’s/reseller’s online shop. I’m not sponsored in any way by anyone or any company, so any recommendations or comments I make about equipment and/or software I use are totally impartial, just my opinion based upon my personal experience.
At the BBC Television Centre in London, England, February 23, 1971.
There are many ways to warm up your voice and fingers. I cover how and why I do this in this article.