First Recording

It is not considered a "chord" (not three different notes, a chord is I, III and V. A power chord is the "root"/I and the V, hence 5) but you have to "strum through" the chord.

Flick your wrist through the chord. Try it out.

Sorry for the theory, but it helps.

I thought the idea of a power chord was you actually only hear the one note but it has more resonance to it. Is resonance the right word?

But basically keep my arm still and move my wrist is what your saying.

As with my recording, I strummed through the first three strings.

You don't have to use your whole arm, but yes a "little" and the rest comes from your wrist.

Strum through that sucker! Don't be afraid, the song you are playing has a lot of emotion in it. When you pick, you never have a dead spot. Every up and down stroke is accounted for.

Tracker
I gotta say man, it is DEFINITLY regular tuning for this song. I'm 100% on that.

I thought it wasn't and I looked on the .net and can't prove you wrong. :oops: Sorry OWA!

I still play it in Eb and like the sound of it.

I'm not sure about the tuning for this. Most of the tabs you'll find will show this song in standard tuning but Nirvana almost always tuned down a half step.

The album version is played in Standard tuning. When they played it live they played it Eb.

Minus Human

OneWingedAngel, that is a very good recording...you have already conquered your first obstacle...having the courage to share your music. It takes A LOT of guts for beginners to post their recordings on a public forum (believe me I KNOW! :wink: ).

Keep practicing that riff and in about a week to 10 days record it again...you will see a HUGE difference...I promise!

You can hear my recordsings over at my site (link in signature). I started recording at about 1 month...I have to update some of the reordings. Listen to the stairway to heaven and wanted dead or alive recordings...recording is great way to check your progress.

Keep it up! 8)

OWA,

The idea of power chords is that they don't sound messy with overdrive/distortion. However, what you're playing aren't powerchords really, they are barre chords, in that you are barring two strings at the same time. They aren't easy by any means.

Like Mike said, keep working at it for a week or so, and record it again, and there can be LOTS of improvement in all aspects.

Thanks for the feedback and support everyone. I'll record in 10 days or so. I actually find power chords easier than the open chords (C, G, E, etc) because I normally only need two fingers and they are almost always the same shape. Plus, I had a breakthrough today in playing them. I found if I barre the strings on the fret closest to the nut as well as barreing the two strings I get a much cleaner sound........most of the time.

I re-recorded in standard tuning. Nice recording Tracker. The strumming pattern makes a huge difference. I'll have to work that in.

Yes, the stumming pattern I gave you is the way it is played. There are no dd, ddud or anything like that. For every note or muted note that is hit, you are playing it "d" and back "u" and repeat.

If I didn't explain that well, here is the stumming pattern -

dud udud ud u dud udud ud u

As you can see it is dudududududududududud back and forth, so no need for double "d"'s or "u"'s.

I hope that made sense.

Yes it made sense. Just alternate between down and up.

I know what you mean about it taking guts to post stuff as a beginner. I already got a comment on the one on DMusic. They probably don't know how much experience I have but it still kinda hurts. Anyone else ever had this happen to them?

I just read the comments. I can't say politely what I think of them, so I won't say anything because it wouldn't be very nice comment pointed there way!

At the end of the day, it is you and your guitar, everyone is there own worst critic. Don't worry about other people's negative comments! That is not what GN is about, you know that and I'm glad you are here. Sorry you had those two ignorant sorry arse SOB's comment about your track.

That's ok. The second comment is actually a friend of mine talking about the first comment. I think Chad Kroger said it best when he said "If you don't like Nickelback then you don't like Nickelback. But Nickelback doesn't suck."

I just re-read it and I didn't look at the first posters name, now I understand the following comment. I thought the second person was talking about you. I thought he was saying that it was "Spacey" and then putting you down, but it was the other way around.

Just goes to show, it pays to have good friends.