Things Chet did that I can't do

Discussion of history's greatest guitar player.

Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby cgprnd » Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:23 am

Jack, that was cute! With respect to Art's last post, I can NOT honestly say that I "knew" Chet in terms of being his friend but for over a quarter of a century I can say that I was a fairly close friend of Tommy Jones. I spent a lot of time with him at his home in Nashville, as well as where he stayed with his folks in Florida. He also spent time with me and stayed in my home and even slept in my oldest daughter's bed during one of his visits to perform at the boarding school where I was teaching at the time. I've recorded both audio and video tapes of him. During the time Tommy was living in Nashville and performing in Boots Randolph's club, Tommy would visit Chet at his office and take me with him. It was on one of these visits where I first met John Knowles. After several visits and playing with him in the presence of Chet, I began to be somewhat fixed in Chet's mind BUT only in association with Tommy. I never really had an identity of my own. I wish I could say that I did. I would attend as many of Chet's concerts as I could get to and when I would approach Chet afterward, he always remembered me as being "Tommy's friend" and would ask me how Tommy was doing and of course politely asking about myself. Over the years I've had several conversations with Chet about various things and even helped him in deciding on a computer for his office in the early 80's and I still carry around in my briefcase a post card thanking me for that. Chet was so kind and gracious and I always envied anyone who had the privilege of being his true friend. I will never be able to honestly say that I was a friend of Chet, but I was at least somewhere between that and being a total stranger, even if my relationship was closer to that end......lol.

Art, I didn't realize that you were a pastor. I have a lot of respect for that and I've probably performed for more churches than for any other venue, including my 2 years with Jan Rooney (Mickey's wife). My most recent arrangement was of "Sing Hallelujah To The Lord", which is usually a praise singing song and I wanted to adapt it as an instrumental. I'm sure that it's difficult to say no to requests to speak at church when you're trying to retire. I have a few friends in that same situation. Thanks again for your response.

Rande
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Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby Art Sims » Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:41 pm

Hi Jack, that's a neat smiler. A case I have has a latch that sometimes jams. Even that part doesn't go just right sometimes. Once I was putting away a really nice classical guitar and the lid came down on it. The top half of the latch scratched the top of the guitar. Ouch! I took it to a luthier friend who looked at it and told me, "That guitar now has some character of its own and your best option is to live with it." Lesson learned.
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Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby Bobby Burris » Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:15 pm

Art Sims. Do you make or sell your thumb picks ?? I sure would like to have one. Thanks ,Bobby Burris
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Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby Art Sims » Thu Sep 18, 2014 11:56 am

Sure Bobby,
Contact me at pickhinge@aol.com and I can send some info your way. Maybe you've seen the video about it, but if not, here's a link to it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqgcRLO_0qE
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Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby Len R » Fri Sep 26, 2014 12:51 pm

Art, here is a video of Sean Weaver playing Chet's arrangement of Liza. I recorded this at CAAS 2012. I use these CAAS videos to help me learn Chet's arrangements, so I usually try to get close up views of the fingerboard. I find I learn the arrangements best by listening to the original recording, having the tab, and having a video of a good player play the tune. Liza is on my list to learn, but haven't gotten to it yet.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Len

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Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby Art Sims » Sat Sep 27, 2014 12:20 pm

Hi Len,
Wow. That video shows Sean to be a really fabulous player. That arangement includes things that I'll never be able to do but it sure is great to see and hear. The part about the particular notes I've studied goes by really fast in Sean's playing but that video does assist in confirming the elements involved. It has interested me a lot because it has seemed like a useful thing for some other tunes as well as this one and I'm now able to kind of get through it. Thanks very much for that video.
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Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby ceciltguitar » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:29 pm

A couple things that Chet did that I only rarely nail down:

The rapid fire cascade of 4 sequential super licks in "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" from the 1967 LP "It's a Guitar World".

The E9 chord that stretches from the 4th string 9th fret "b" note to the 1st string 4th fret "g#" note after the intro lick.
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Re: Things Chet did that I can't do

Postby Len R » Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:43 am

Happy to help Art. Here's another trick I've used often when the video goes by too quickly...
Download the video from YouTube onto your computer, and use a program to play it back at a slower speeds.,
I use MacTubes to download, but that's Mac only, there are others that work on Windows.

VLC Player from Videolan is free and allows you to play back the video at slower speeds, down to 25%, without changing pitch. You can do that from the VLC Playback menu.

Len
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