Guitar Tricks 28: Lisa and Neal Jam Session

[Music Playing] Neal Walter: Hey everybody! Welcome back to the Guitar Tricks Channel. We’ve got a special guest this week, all the way from Guitartricks.com. Lisa McCormick came out to visit us from Vermont and she’s making a guest for us with favor, great to have you here Lisa McCormick: Alright, great to be here, what a trip. Neal Walter: Yeah, it’s a duo show now Lisa McCormick: I know, I know. Neal Walter: That’s cool. So we thought we do this time since you used to see in all of us, well except for me, I’m like the goofy goof-around guy. In the midst of lesson, you used to see all the instructor do lesson we thought we’d show us, just us being as musicians and playing a little guitar, knew it all around? Lisa McCormick: Yeah, yeah Neal Walter: And at least it cannot be focused in the instructor for a second at you and— Lisa McCormick: What I’m hearing this now? I’m hearing this now Neal Walter: Yeah. Lisa McCormick: Yeah, we’re just going to call up and play a song. Neal Walter: Yeah, one of your songs. Lisa McCormick: Yeah, this is a song called “Lay Me Down.” Do you want to play it? Neal Walter: Yeah, we’ll play it then we’ll just talk a little bit about that Lisa McCormick: Alright, let’s do it, then we’ll talk a little bit about this, okay? One, two, one, two, three, four [Music Playing/Singing] Neal Walter: All right, nice tune. Lisa McCormick: All right thanks, great playing. Neal Walter: Thank you Lisa McCormick: That’s so much fun. Yeah. Neal Walter: That was, so tell me what you’re thinking when you came up with that tune, really they’re nice flavor to it. Lisa McCormick: Well, yeah, I was kind of in a Latin music phase at that time so it’s kind of I was learning Salsa dancing and I was playing around with Latin rhythms and chord progressions. In terms of the lyrics of the song, it’s just about being in a moment. It starts every moment has its day. You cannot say that you’re making it stay. You can only breathe it and unfailing loving this right now. So it’s just about being right here in the moment. And the thing I want to say about the guitar part, a couple of things. One is that I’m using an unusual kind of capo here, which skips the lowest string and skips the two highest strings, since we’re only pressing two strings down. That allows me to get kind of interesting harmony without a lot of, you know, durations over here. And the other thing I wanted to say about it was just in terms of the composition that this part when I go all up here, this are all chord inversions through the E minor, A minor, B7 and C, which is basically what the song is. When I was writing the song, I could hear this part in my mind and it was way too hard for me to play. You know, it’s like I hear this part, I hear those harmony and stuff like, I don’t know. How do I play it? So I just practiced like crazy, and made it happen up. Neal Walter: That’s great. Sometimes it’s hard to connect the dots Lisa McCormick: It is. Neal Walter: You got some floating around your head. Lisa McCormick: It is. Neal Walter: You try to sing it or play it and like, it’s kind of there, but it’s still— Lisa McCormick: Yeah, we’ll keep looking for it Neal Walter: The right version is up here Lisa McCormick: because it is leading, it’s leading you somewhere. Neal Walter: Yeah, sometimes just to get let it come as some, some cool stuff doing, you’re trying to figure out what’s going on Lisa McCormick: Definitely, yeah Neal Walter: What you’re hearing in your head, spit out some fresh ideas. Lisa McCormick: Yeah, you got to find it Neal Walter: That’s great. Lisa’s going to do her own solo guitar tricks episode and I believe that maybe some request from our friends on Facebook and our members for guitartricks.com. So we’re looking forward to that. See you all back here real soon in about seven days or so. Great to have you here and it’s really nice to meet you Lisa McCormick: Thanks for watching, it was so great to be here with you. Neal Walter: Great playing. Lisa McCormick: Alright, you too, awesome. Neal Walter: Yeah, want to jam out a little bit? Lisa McCormick: Yeah. Good. Neal Walter: Okay, let’s jam out on your song. Lisa McCormick: Okay, one, two, three, four (Music Playing) Neal Walter: Cool.