Brain of J- cant be THIS easy to play!

12345AGNST1

http://www.giventowail.com/tabs/?p=104&tabid=148

Im extremely new to guitar and I was looking up PJ tabs when I found this. There is no way they actually play it that way. one finger on the top 5 strings just going along frets 7,8 and 9? Nooo waaaay.

DOSW

Yep, it's that easy. The reason it's that easy is because of the alternate tuning it uses. Open tunings (where the strings are tuned in a way that strumming them without touching any frets results in a chord) and drop-d tuning (where the sixth string is tuned down two steps from E to D) can be used to play passages by only using one finger.

Open-G is my favorite alternate tuning.

xtremehardy388

I play it in standard and it sounds great!

Anon

12345AGNST1 wrote:

http://www.giventowail.com/tabs/?p=104&tabid=148

Im extremely new to guitar and I was looking up PJ tabs when I found this. There is no way they actually play it that way. one finger on the top 5 strings just going along frets 7,8 and 9? Nooo waaaay.

Hehe, yes it's easy peasy, DOSW has pretty much explained why already. It's a great song to play. Easy songs like that are great confidence builders when you are starting out. Good luck with the learning!

xtremehardy388

Pj_Gurl wrote:

Hehe, yes it's easy peasy, DOSW has pretty much explained why already. It's a great song to play. Easy songs like that are great confidence builders when you are starting out. Good luck with the learning!

Not to mention, it's an AWESOME song!

12345AGNST1

Well unfortunately I know nothing about tuning. I noticed on some youtbe vids that they dont play it that way though

ballgame

Its called Drop D tuning. The fingering might be easy but timing isnt. Dobnt be fooled by the tuning.
If you're new I bet you cant keep time to it

ballgame

DOSW wrote:

Yep, and drop-d tuning (where the sixth string is tuned down two steps from E to D) can be used to play passages by only using one finger.

Thats 1 step, not 2

exhausted

Pj_Gurl wrote:

Hehe, yes it's easy peasy, DOSW has pretty much explained why already. It's a great song to play. Easy songs like that are great confidence builders when you are starting out. Good luck with the learning!

does anyone feel like you lose some mystery whenever you learn these songs? it's sort of weird.

i recently sat down and learned some of the "riff" songs.... i never bothered in the past because i was always learning the "ed" songs that worked well solo acoustically.

i took a few minutes to figure out "animal" because it's such a bonecrushing recording. and the riff and general arrangement is so easy which leads me further into my conclusion that complexity is not required to kick people's asses. there is immense talent in simplicity done right. so in some ways, the mystery is gone because now i can play this but in other ways the awe is hieghtened because something so simple sounds so incredible.

of course, there is immense talent in complexity as well which is why i'll never even attempt to learn mike's solo. i'll never be able to do that.

now i just have to learn how to play it and duckwalk at the same time.

xtremehardy388

exhausted wrote:

does anyone feel like you lose some mystery whenever you learn these songs? it's sort of weird.

i recently sat down and learned some of the "riff" songs.... i never bothered in the past because i was always learning the "ed" songs that worked well solo acoustically.

i took a few minutes to figure out "animal" because it's such a bonecrushing recording. and the riff and general arrangement is so easy which leads me further into my conclusion that complexity is not required to kick people's asses. there is immense talent in simplicity done right. so in some ways, the mystery is gone because now i can play this but in other ways the awe is hieghtened because something so simple sounds so incredible.

of course, there is immense talent in complexity as well which is why i'll never even attempt to learn mike's solo. i'll never be able to do that.

now i just have to learn how to play it and duckwalk at the same time.

I don't know if it's the mystery but when I learned Jeremy and a few others, I started to miss the song...like, it wasn't clicking. Same with Black. Those songs hit very close to home with me and, for a while, they lost their ability to kick my ass. Same with Brain of J and couple others but, then I learned how to play Jeremy with chords and it started to come back. Black and Brain of J eventually did on their own but I do understand what you're getting at.

Anon

exhausted wrote:

does anyone feel like you lose some mystery whenever you learn these songs? it's sort of weird.

i recently sat down and learned some of the "riff" songs.... i never bothered in the past because i was always learning the "ed" songs that worked well solo acoustically.

i took a few minutes to figure out "animal" because it's such a bonecrushing recording. and the riff and general arrangement is so easy which leads me further into my conclusion that complexity is not required to kick people's asses. there is immense talent in simplicity done right. so in some ways, the mystery is gone because now i can play this but in other ways the awe is hieghtened because something so simple sounds so incredible.

of course, there is immense talent in complexity as well which is why i'll never even attempt to learn mike's solo. i'll never be able to do that.

now i just have to learn how to play it and duckwalk at the same time.

I laughed out loud at the duckwalk comment . I totally get where you are coming from with the 'lose some mystery comment'.
I fell in love with Pearl Jam when i was about 11. I had a much older brother who was fully into them and he was a pretty awesome musician in his own right. Being musically inclined my whole life, I knew it was only a matter of time before I convinced my parents to buy me a guitar and annoy my brother relentlessly, until he seriously started to teach me.

My brother was pretty anal and made me learn the right way and although I learnt the basics and fundamentals of playing the guitar properly through his teachings, and got to be able to play Pearl Jam songs decent enough, I soon discovered that I learnt a lot more by predominantly teaching myself.

As much as i love Pearl Jams music, and they will probably always be my favorite band, i found that merely playing lots of their tunes had lost its kick... I wanted to create my own. So yar, i do get what you mean by the 'lost their mystery'.

That happened a few years ago and that's when i knew it was time to do my own thing and I started experimenting with my own music writing styles. I used this as a creative outlet and I wasn't overly great at it, but i love writing and trying to come up with my own original works, my own thoughts, emotions, ideas and views. It's an amazing feeling to be able to express things for myself and an incredibly rewarding experience if someone actually likes it. i think as musicians, we are our own worst critics. I have picked up my own personal style of writing and developed it over time, a style that didn’t necessarily follow the same musical direction as the band anymore, but i still love them to death.

Taking songs and translating them to your own meanings, your own outlet, even when i think i suck, well that is the true beauty of music.

Ps. I've had too many beers. I am not a good drinker. Thank god for spell check.

xtremehardy388

Pj_Gurl wrote:

Ps. I've had too many beers. I am not a good drinker. Thank god for spell check.

Wine > Beer hahaha

I really understood the loss of mystery with Nirvana....ESPECIALLY "In Bloom"..

That's such a baddass song and then I learned it and playing wasn't nearly as fun as listening

exhausted

Pj_Gurl wrote:

That happened a few years ago and that's when i knew it was time to do my own thing and I started experimenting with my own music writing styles. I used this as a creative outlet and I wasn't overly great at it, but i love writing and trying to come up with my own original works, my own thoughts, emotions, ideas and views. It's an amazing feeling to be able to express things for myself and an incredibly rewarding experience if someone actually likes it. i think as musicians, we are our own worst critics. I have picked up my own personal style of writing and developed it over time, a style that didn’t necessarily follow the same musical direction as the band anymore, but i still love them to death.

Taking songs and translating them to your own meanings, your own outlet, even when i think i suck, well that is the true beauty of music.

i understand this for sure. though my creative fire is pretty much gone now i did write for a lot of years and pretty much hated everything i created i absolutely loved the process and recording and *trying* to make it sound good. once i started writing i stopped playing along with CDs (which is how learned how to play)

and it was also kind of funny how completely different everything i created was from what i listened to. mostly a function of not playing in a band situation. whenever i jammed with people i played much more aggressively because i wasn't singing.

i think writing on my own actually contributed to the glass ceiling my guitar playing hit because, as a guy that just went out and played covers and originals by himself with an acoustic guitar, i never really pushed myself technically as player. i spent much more time writing and trying to make that interesting. i guess i did push myself a little when i was recording though.

now i just play along with CDs again.

Anon

exhausted wrote:

i understand this for sure. though my creative fire is pretty much gone now i did write for a lot of years and pretty much hated everything i created i absolutely loved the process and recording and *trying* to make it sound good. once i started writing i stopped playing along with CDs (which is how learned how to play)

and it was also kind of funny how completely different everything i created was from what i listened to. mostly a function of not playing in a band situation. whenever i jammed with people i played much more aggressively because i wasn't singing.

i think writing on my own actually contributed to the glass ceiling my guitar playing hit because, as a guy that just went out and played covers and originals by himself with an acoustic guitar, i never really pushed myself technically as player. i spent much more time writing and trying to make that interesting. i guess i did push myself a little when i was recording though.

now i just play along with CDs again.

And you find time to make a sexy cabinet into an awesome sounding sexy cabinet. Dork . I have so much admiration for your talents there. Very, very awesome.