NickDrake.com

Bogo · Joined: 31 Aug 2006 Posts: 55 Location: Philadelphia

Hello,
I'm new here, but not to Nick's music.
I have been reading a lot of posts from people wanting to learn how to play at Nick's level or how to play in his "style", as well as what guitar he used, mics, etc.

I was going to ask in a post how someone reccomends teaching yourself in Nick's style, but it seems that the question has already been exhausted.

However, I think it would be great if there were some kind of forum specifically set up for professional musicians (and skilled ametuers) to help teach novices fingerstyle via Nick's music, as well as tips for recording, good guitars, this sort of thing.

Anyway, please share your thoughts.
Thanks
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Brighten my northern sky

Matt (admin) · Joined: 29 Jun 2006 Posts: 637 Location: United Kingdom

Hi Bogo,

That's what this bit of the forum is essentially for, it's a seperate area for musicians to discuss the specifics of Nick's work as opposed to general topics about Nick on the 'Fans' section.

Cheers,

Matt

Bogo · Joined: 31 Aug 2006 Posts: 55 Location: Philadelphia

Matt (admin) · Joined: 29 Jun 2006 Posts: 637 Location: United Kingdom

Hi,

There is one TAB book out at the moment :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Way-Blue-an-Introduction-Nick-Drake/dp/0711981795/sr=8-10/qid=1157099983/ref=pd_ka_10/026-8905999-4180421?ie=UTF8&s=gateway

but it's unlikely there will be a full set of TABs released officially. With most of Nick's stuff, however, once you've worked out the tuning it's not that big a step to work out what he's doing. I suggest you start a new thread to discuss tunings for the songs and see what happens. Maybe we can start a list of the tunings for all the songs which we can add to the site somewhere for others to reference.

Cheers,

Matt

Richie · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 156 Location: Ireland

Hi Bogo, you might want to take a look at this site:

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/NDtabs2.html

Comprehensive and quite accurate tabs of pretty much every song by Nick.. they may not be professional but I've found that most of them sound spot on. A lot of Nick's songs can be quite challenging to play, it takes a lot of work to get the right\picking hand patterns correct in particular but if you start off playing things slowly and gradually work up speed it'll come to you eventually.

PS- I'm new on here by the way. Nice to see another healthily active forum on Nick, I also post a bit on Brendan's long-running Drake board over here:
http://www.b2g2.com/boards/board.cgi?&user=brendan0813

Anzacky · Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 10 Location: United Kingdom

I have the tab book "way to blue an introduction to the music of Nick Drake" But i have seen another book with a bigger collection of songs, the only problem is it's not tab so for some one like me who can't read music it is useless. I would love to see a tab release as three hours is in that book and i would love to learn that song.

4_feet_to_infinity · Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 1 Location: NY-USA

I'm in agreement with the statement that once you learn the patterns slowly, you can pick it up. I usually try to learn the chords first, and then try for individual notes. Seems to work well.

jacomo · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:18 am Post subject:

Hi. I've taught myself every Nick Drake song within one year. I'm twenty years old - I became obsessed with his music and had to master the songs. Start slow with the fingerpicking patterns and you'll soon master them. I love the sound of the rolling rhythms.

You can hear/watch a bunch of my Nick Drake songs here to believe me - http://www.youtube.com/evanrkg

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modestmatt14 · Joined: 05 Oct 2006 Posts: 107

nicks guitar picking is like a tougne twister i think. you jsut have to pracitce for massive amount of minutes or hours and never stop it and once you can get htat down it is jsut perfecting it

jacomo · Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 10:15 am Post subject:

bmore · Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:54 pm Post subject:

A friend of mine does excellent covers of a lot of Nick's music. He showed me how to play `From the Morning' and with a couple weeks practice I've got it down and can sing it also. I find the slide is very important to get the right sound.
But he's told me that the only way I'll be able to play some songs (eg Fruit Tree, Road) is to be able to pick with all five of my right hand digits i.e. Ive got to have good control of both my right hand pinkie and ring finger. Is this so? Is there any one out there that plays `Road' without using their right hand pinkie? I find it very hard to pick with my thumb and all fingers.

Richie · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 156 Location: Ireland

No, you don't need your right-hand pinkie to play 'Road'.. at least not the way I try to do it (using the tab from that site I linked to above). It's tough to get it to sound like the way he plays it though, you need to work on emphasising certain strings above others. My own project at the moment is trying to get 'Cello Song' right, I have a fair bit of it sounding okay but I can never get through the full intro part without coming undone towards that tricky bit before he launches into the main part..

modestmatt14 · Joined: 05 Oct 2006 Posts: 107

fruit tree doesn't need to use a pinkie unless you are picking a few strings at the same time. but fruit tree can actually be done with 4 fingers

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