Thursday 17 January 2008

Wonderwall

Last night my neice came around for her weekly guitar lesson. In recent weeks she has been trying her hand at bass, using this little beast of mine:
Isn't it lovely? Very veratile too due to the built in electronic wizardry.

Anyway, my neice has let slip at school that she is learning bass, and has now been nominated as class bass player in the school's Arts Festival that is rather closer than is comfortable. She has got to learn "Wonderwall" by Oasis.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPtTS0TYtU

(Sorry, I could not work out how to do it the fancy way - maybe Terri can give me pointers?)



So we then had an hour of fun working it out, her on bass, me on guitar, singing along very badly. I was very impressed with how quickly she picked it up. Next week we will see if we can fit in a few twiddles to make it more interesting.

I also suggested to her that she try to persuade the teacher that they should modify it a bit. Anyone know of this wonderful version by Mike Flowers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15YA0nHpGfI

Now I am not normally one to favour cover versions of songs - they are rarely an improvement on the original and tend to show a lack of imagination when done by professionals. OK for amatures of course! I think this version is great, partly because I am not really an Oasis fan, everyone, (including themselves) seeming to think that they are much better than they really are, but also because he has really reworked the song and not just done a straight copy.

What do you think?

9 comments:

Aaron said...

I think she should save the bragging at work until she's got it down. ;)

Is she going to borrow your guitar to play or is the school providing the equipment?

(And you're right -- Oasis was never *that* great of a band.)

Rock Chef said...

I thought that too, but she her mouth has a mind of its own!

The school can lend her a 4 string bass but I have been teaching her on a 5 string which may cause problems (although I did start to show her how to do it on a 4 string too). I will lend her mine if it proves necessary.

Logzie said...

Whoa!! Way too technical for me...I am only operating on 1/2 my normal brain cells since having a third child sorry...... :0)

Terri said...

Very cool looking bass, but like Logzie, I am clueless. I didn't know there were 4 string and 5 string versions!

As far as posting the video, it's been a while since I posted on Blogger, but I think you have to click on the "edit HTML" tab when you are composing your post. Then you have to copy the "embed" code from youtube and paste it in there. A lot of the big-name artists have had the "embed" option disabled, but this one looks like you can use it.

Kiki said...

Well, I love that you are working on this project with your niece, and if my ultra cool uncle was teaching me a cool instrument I would probably brag about it too!!! I think any chance a young girl gets to feel good about herself, in a positive manner, is always good! Is anyone going to video the performance and post that on youtube??? That would be awesome.

Jen said...

I was so not expecting Mike Flowers version of Wonderwall! It was great! And, bonus points for making me laugh out loud.

Awesome!

Rock Chef said...

Sorry I got a bit nurdy there :-)

As a quick summary, 4 strings is normal on a bass, but there are 5 and 6 string versions which you will often see on music videos. In addition you can also get 8, 10 and 12 string basses where you pluck the strings in pairs, 1 normal bass string and another one an octave higher! Only for real posers... OOps, nurdy again!

Terri - hm, might give that a go.

Kiki - no, I don't think it will be filmed. Nice view on girls feeling good about themselves!

Jen - Glad you liked it!

kenady said...

It was all a little technical for me as well, but I did enjoy the music and think the bass (or was it a bass?) was super cool.

Rock Chef said...

Kenady - yes, it was a bass. When I finally do a video I will play it so you can hear how it sounds too.