Recordings
(Don Chance)
This page reflects my effort to improve my guitar playing and singing. By
putting these out here, I am not trying to show off in any way. What I am
doing is what any person should do who is trying to improve in music:
force yourself to perform in such a manner that you render a satisfactory
performance, one you would not mind anyone hearing. By forcing myself to
record and placing the recordings on the Internet, I challenge myself to reach my
highest level of performance. Of course, everyone can also improve and
indeed, each song would have benefitted from at least one more take, but at some
point, you wear out.
As anyone will tell you when you record, it is
truly difficult to perform a song flawlessly from start to finish.
Professional recordings are spliced and edited. These songs were performed
repeatedly until I achieved a satisfactory rendering. The only editing was
using Audacity to elevate the volume in some cases. The recordings were made with an
Olympus LS-10 recorder at my house, playing my Martin DC16-GTE acoustic guitar
or Yamaha keyboard with no amplification.
This kind of singing and playing works best if
you stick with somewhat quiet ballads. You'll see my preference for Paul
McCartney songs, as he obviously liked the soft ballads.
The songs listed below with (v) were recorded
using a BOSS VE-20 vocal effects processor that adds a second layer of my voice
in harmony.
Fingerpicked songs:
-
Classical Gas: This is strictly an acoustic performance.
A "classic" guitar song from Mason Williams, otherwise known as a comedy
writer. One of my friends calls my rendition a kindler, gentler version, meaning without the
orchestra. As any guitarist will tell you, this is a very hard song to
play.
-
Tears in Heaven: A great acoustic song from Eric
Clapton and not a terribly difficult song to play. One of my
best, though I prefer to do this as a duet with my band lead singer.
-
Never Far Away: A little known slightly bluegrass song from
Jack White that was in the movie Cold Mountain. A truly great fingerpicking song. Unfortunately, it involves a
tremendous amount of sliding from fret to fret, so you'll hear a lot of squeaking.
-
Never Going Back Again: A song by Fleetwood Mac, or just
more or less Lindsey Buckingham, from the classic Rumours album.
A great fingerpicking song and quite a challenge. This song requires
double-dropped D tuning. I finesse the dropped D. Instead of re-tuning, I place a capo across the second fret and turn a
second capo upside down over the bottom five strings of the fourth fret.
This makes it the equivalent of double-dropped D tuning in the key of F#.
This song involves a lot of sliding from fret to fret, so you'll hear a lot
of string squeaking.
-
Blackbird: Beatles again (the White Album), and one of the truly great fingerpicking songs of all time. This is a very difficult song to
play. Lots of hand movement up and down the frets and a complex
combination of fretted and open strings. The song sounds like the
strings have been retuned, but McCartney swears it was standard tuning.
That's how I play it.
Strumming songs (played with a pick or strummed
with fingers): (w/RH means recorded with Rudy Hirschheim on bass)
Keyboard songs (played with my Yamaha keyboad):
-
Desperado: From the Eagles.
-
Secret Garden: Bruce Springsteen song from the Jerry Maguire
movie. Probably one of my better ones.
Originals (songs I have written)
My solo guitar act page
My songwriting page
My guitar page
Return to
Main Page
Last updated: June 26, 2021