The Daily Mail reported the death of Doc Watson the Godfather of all flatpickers and linked to the video below. I cheerfully admit that I'd never heard of him before (cue cries of scorn/disbelief from the likes of Elektro Kevin) but watched the video anyway.
The first half just shows what he's doing with his left hand, and you think, that looks easy enough, I could do that with a bit of practice, but what on earth must he have been doing with his right hand to make it sound so good?
Then the camera pans to his right hand, he only appears to be using his thumb and one or two fingers, and you think, well, that looks a bit trickier, but I could manage that with a bit more practice: so what on earth is he now doing with his left hand to make it sound so good?
And so on, ad infinitum. It's like Shrödinger's Cat or something, whatever you observe isn't actually doing anything but something is still happening:
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Doc Watson: Now this is a clever video!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I think the camera panned to his right hand not his left.
As a total ignoramus of all things musical and instrumental I have to say his digits seemed very busy indeed. The left hand ring and little finger were flitting about with considerable vigour and the right hand seemed to involve the use of three fingers plickety-plucking wherever they wished.
I once strummed a guitar in 1980 and knew it wasn't for me, so I'm just giving a layman's opinion.
TFB, left, right, I knew I'd get those mixed up, I have amended.
I watched this too - how he does it I've no idea. I'll stick with Shrödinger's Cat - less tricky.
This is an example of awesome guitar stuff sounding harder than it is. This isn't easy, but it's not ludicrously difficult either. Most of the notes are right hand plucking (on several strings at the same time) while the extra notes you hear will be hammers/pull-offs which are just done with the left hand.
I'd never heard of Doc Watson either but I have a feeling my dad might have...
Post a Comment