First song you practised

Subject: First song you practised
From: Leadbelly
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 05:34 PM

Hi there,

to all people making music: which was the first song you practised?

Do you remember?

Can remeber my first efforts: I still miss someone (J. Cash). Long time ago.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 06:18 PM

the cunning cobbler

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 06:28 PM

Skip to My Lou.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 06:50 PM

1952. "The Fox," which I learned from my girl friend at the time, and who taught me my first chords on the guitar. Then I struggled with "Greensleeves," which I learned from a folio of twenty songs sung by Richard Dyer-Bennet.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 07:44 PM

I played some tunes on recorder before adopting a cheap autoharp my ex-wife was ignoring.

First attempt? "Wildwood Flower" of course!

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 09:53 PM

First piece. practiced, memorized, and performed before a general, non-musical audience...."Jet Cadets"'

It was a flamboyant string of arpeggio that led to my transfer to a new piano teacher.

Sincerely,,
Gargoyle


It became apparent...I could memorize but could not read notes, and had zero understanding of basic theory.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 10:36 PM

Lou Marsh (by Phil Ochs), before I got my first guitar. I was noodling on an old gibson at my cousin's house. Before I knew anything about tuning it, or chord progressions.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 12:28 AM

Barbara Allen {The 'Scarlet Town where I was born' version}

≈M≈

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: PHJim
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 12:44 AM

For my accordion lesson, I still recall:

Music so sweet and so gay       CDE,CDE,F//,///
On my accordion I play          DEF,DEF,G//,///
Try to improve every day         CDE,CDE,F//,///
And you will soon know the way. DEF,GFE,C//,///

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Musket
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 03:11 AM

I started out with violin in classical music as a child so the first music would be the contents of The Eta Cohen Method, the book my tutor used.

Regarding guitar, I suppose the contents of The Bert Weedon Play with Yourself in a Day book, (Bobby Shafto, When the Saints and the ubiquitous Guitar Boogie Shuffle!

My first get up in a folk club, therefore practice a first song? I knocked up an acoustic version of a rock song I wrote called Concrete Jungle. I don't recall what I followed it with, but I did have a book called Ireland Sings and many of my early traditional songs came from it.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: G-Force
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 05:29 AM

Practice? What's that then?

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 05:38 AM

I practise folk song. Sounds nice & vocational. 'I'm a vocational singer of Traditional Song, don't you know. It is a calling in my soul needs must I follow!'

My first was probably Lucy Wan which nearly got me expelled until I showed the beak my battered copy of TPBOEFS which justified it in terms of worthy scholarship.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 09:09 AM

Approx 1973, after school round my mates house.
He was a big "The Shadows" fan, so he'd just got a cheap electric guitar.
I used his ropey old spanish guitar, and together we struggled to master
"FBI" and "Apache"
Satisfied with our progress, we then studiously worked our way through the bulk of The Shadows' greatest hits.

We then roped in a couple of schoolmates and started trying to learn to play as a group
with Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" & "C'mon Everybody"
The Beatles/Stones "I Wanna be Your Man"
and Marc Bolan/T.Rex's "Hot Love" and "Ride a White Swan"
Plus a few more of the usual old 1950s Rock 'n' Roll standards....

and oddly enough, some Donovan and Lindisfarne songs*..

[*there you go, my 'Folk Roots' !!!]

Couple of years later when we were good enough, we became basicaly a Dr Feelgood/Wilko Johnson covers band.

A perfect foundation course for the punk band we were to become a short while after.........

The teenage dream of being local College Disco and Town & Village Hall legends...

Shame it all got so serious, with predatory wannabe managers and dodgy record label deals...

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Sean Belt
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 01:20 PM

Gosh. The first thing I can ever remember trying to learn and practice was The Beatles' "Ticket To Ride". I just had to learn that opening riff on the P.O.S. Stella guitar with the 1/2" high action that my parents had given me.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: MikeL2
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 02:03 PM

Hi

Like Musk I started with Bert Weedon's Bobbie Shafto. I played it so much that I hated it and still do to this day.

First song I got ready to sing in public was The Gypsy Rover. I used to listen on the radio to Elton Hayes and his songs to a small guitar.

"Those were the days my friend".

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Andy7
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 02:15 PM

As a teenager, with one of my first pay packets, I bought a cheap guitar, and a 'teach yourself guitar' book, I think it was written by John Pease.

Thanks to John, I learned to fingerpick 'Home on the Range', and played it, in the dark, at a beach barbecue in Wales; and despite my slow and careful picking and nervous singing, everyone sang along.

I really felt, then, that I'd arrived in the 'music scene'! :-)

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 02:43 PM

Wreck on the highway

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: cptsnapper
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 02:51 PM

Living Doll by Cliff Richard

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: RTim
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 03:02 PM

Excluding the few songs my father taught me -
It was most likely the opening Chorus song in The Mikado!! when at school.
" If you want to know who we are, we are gentlemen of Japan"

As far as a Folk song is concerned - I would guess Whip Jamboree!!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,ketchdana
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 03:49 PM

The Fox (went out on a chilly night)
OR
The Bold Fisherman (Took a long while to figure out what was going wrong, with that single measure of 4 beats in the middle of a 3/4 song. Music notes would have helped.)

Practiced until I got it right (at least once, more or less).

First song "practiced until I couldn't get it wrong"? None so far.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Andy7
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 06:42 PM

"First song "practiced until I couldn't get it wrong"? None so far."

Hahaha! I'm glad I'm not alone! :-)

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 07:06 PM

Oh sinner man - only 2 chords!

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Deckman
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 09:12 PM

"The Foggy, Foggy Dew", under the guidance of the late Bill Higley. It was probably in 1950 ... bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Little Robyn
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 09:20 PM

Apart from the songs we had to learn at school, the first self chosen song was The Virgin Mary Had a One Son - which we pinched from the Newport FF record - Joan Baez and Bob Gibson.
Robyn

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Mooh
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 09:21 PM

On piano or vocals I have no idea, it was a very long time ago and I was very young.

On guitar, Greensleeves, House Of The Rising Sun, maybe Paint It Black, and lots of tunes from the folkie songbooks around the house.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 26 Aug 14 - 09:10 AM

First I practised and performed was Eric Bogle's Now I'm easy, followed by a lot of Hank Williams songs which were more suited to my talent limitations

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Aug 14 - 09:48 AM

This is a really great 'memory therapy' thread...

Just recalled 2 more of the batch of songs our band of 15 year old school mates
initially set ourselves to try to learn...

[it'd be a another 2 or 3 years before our band settled into a 'fixed' line-up and our own musical identity, writing our own songs]

The Moody Blues "Nights In White Satin"

Rare Bird "Sympathy"

A pretty diverse bunch of songs reflecting the tastes of 4 or 5 provincial teenagers.

The drummer was out of luck though.
He was heavily into Steely Dan.
.. no effin way could we ever have hoped to attempt to play any of those songs.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 26 Aug 14 - 11:11 AM

Spike Driver's Blues
Fingerpicked out of a first position G chord. I still play it. Great song.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Alan Day
Date: 26 Aug 14 - 02:24 PM

For me it was Shepherd's Hey played on a Hohner CG concertina that I purchased from Bell Accordions at Surbiton for ten quid.
Al

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Elmore
Date: 27 Aug 14 - 10:55 PM

Banks of Marble.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 08:10 AM

Dont think Twice

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 08:54 AM

oh dear.. digging even deeper into long repressed memories...

"Edelweiss" from "The Sound of Music"

- word & note perfect for an infant school annual music festival.

The one and only time I have ever sung solo in a public performance.

Apparently I was quite good ??? [if you say so mum]

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 11:07 AM

The first 'folkish' songs I remember having to sing (in school) were "Little Mohee" and "Polly Wolly Doodle". Can't say I ever seriously 'practiced' them... pieces of them are still embedded in very ancient brain cells.
Even before going to school, I sort of memorized "Sioux City Sue" from Gene Autry...but I can't say I really tried to sing it.

Subject: RE: First song you practised
From: GUEST,Jackie Boyce
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 07:50 PM

Lord Gregory, 1977, tape recorded from the singing of John Flanagan, Corofin, Co Clare, Ireland.