"Something in the Way She Moves"

It's always interesting to open my YouTube feed and see which of the people I follow have posted a new guitar lesson or song tutorial. Last week, I was surprised to see that Marty Schwartz (the best and most prolific guitar teacher on YouTube) had a video on how to play James Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves". (Tutorial is here, song is here.)

That song is one of my all-time favorites, and has to be one of the prettiest songs there is. The finger-picking guitar work is *exquisite*, and I'd always assumed this song was *way* out of my league. That may still turn out to be true, but at least I now have an idea of how to play the song (where before, I had none.)

I've gone through the lesson in great detail (backing up and repeating 10-second segments again and again). The chords of the song are not complicated. But the right hand (the picking hand) is as complicated as I imagined.

I've given it a bunch of slow repetitions, and it kinda sounds like I'm getting there a little bit. But then last night, right before turning off the lights, I grabbed my iPod, put on my headphones, and listened to the recorded version. Its beauty took my breath away...and also made me realize I'm still a very long way from sounding like that.

But I'm thrilled that I can play it at all, and this will now be part of my practice routine.

Getting in Tune

I was in the local music store recently to get a set of strings. While at the register paying, I noticed a display of clip-on tuners for $12. I love the clip-on tuner that brother Eric got me for Christmas a few years ago, and for $12, having a second one seemed like a good idea (one for upstairs, one for the basement.) So I grabbed one.

Well, I'm now reminded of the old saying that a man with two watches is never sure exactly what time it is.

Intonation is pure physics - the note A vibrates at 440 cycles/second. There's no room for interpretation. Yet my two tuners are slightly different. If I had a guitar in tune by the old tuner, the new tuner says everything is a shade sharp. My guess is that the new tuner is correct, as I've often noticed that I'm a shade out of tune with YouTube lessons I play along with. I'd always assumed that was a by-product of YouTube, but maybe it's been me.

It's not a big deal, just a very minor annoyance - and no concern at all when playing by myself. When playing with others, I will have to decide which tuner is definitive.