it's just amazing
all right guys jack here at jbf music and guitar lessons so what I’ve got for you today
is another one of these reaction analysis type videos to the supremely amazing guitar wizard
that is mr ali babata. So I’ve just been told he's got a new song up and I’ve not been able
to experience one of these songs in sort of real time yet I’ve just been going through this back
catalogue. So I’ve managed to carve out a very small nook of time to have a look at this here
because I’m quite limited in that regard today I’ve not been able to set things up with the
lights and the green screen properly if you're wondering whether it's a slight change in format
here. On that note if you want to check out the other videos I’ve done on him you can get them
with the "i" up there yeah as usual I’ve got my guitar so I’m gonna hopefully break down some
of the stuff I think what I’m gonna do here is listen to all the way through and go back
to the start and kind of break things down now final thing before we jump into here. I have
noticed this t-shirt here is saying indonesian finger style guitar community so if you guys
know anything about that hit me up in the comments because if this guy is anything to
go by then that's something that is well worth my while checking out so Alip Bata's new song
Sepur Tua please correct me in the comments on my butchered pronunciation! Let's go for it
it's off to the races from the get-go
it's like a jazzy
bluesy
almost ragtime beautiful pure rhythm excellent
leads he's playing
on top of the continual walking bass line
it's just amazing
this is much more sort of traditional finger style in terms of jazz
but he's always adding his own spin on it the harmonics there and again
back to that rhythmic hook excellent using octaves nice
doesn't even need to look at the fretboard
it's a really cool melody
you can hear that walking kind of baseline
just continually going on with the thumb diminished nice
the chord progression and the voicings
are just plain cool I don't know another word to describe it
flawlessly playing this as well oh beautiful car to finish off on yes lad yes superb
As ever just a mind-blowing performance this everything was so cleanly played there a very
pristine very precisely played. I’m going to try and break some of this down but
fingerstyle is not my forte I’m more of a kind of electric player so you might have to bear
with me here so one of the first things that's worthwhile checking out if you're trying to
work out his music for yourself is what tuning is in now the chord he did at the
end. I do recognize that chord so what I’m going to do is I’m going to go to that I’m
going to look at his fingering see if I can replicate it without having to tune anything
okay so the good news is it sounds and looks very much like he's in standard shooting this final
chord I can definitely master this one the rest of the song I’m not so sure about! We've got this
brilliant way to finish it off. So break down what he's doing he's kind of leaving out this
bottom string second fret on this open open second fret here and just strumming through that
with his nail. So let's work back from there let's look at the final phrase he's doing so to give you
an insight as to how I break this stuff down. Part of it is from learning music and you build
up a bit of a vocabulary but a strong part of it particularly when it's this caliber of playing
the sophisticated is using the tools that youtube provides. So a lot of the time I’ll
just use the cog to slow down the speed of the video so that's what I’m going to do here right.
So I’m putting it down to half speed here hopefully that will be all right I,
I can kind of tell that the line is going, I can hear that the line is using the blues note
going down to the fourth the flat third and then the open string that's kind of where
it's going. And then we have that beautiful I, I can tell that he's not going to play
something as simple as that so let's watch his fingers and see what the master is up to.
Okay so he's using octaves so this is playing one note and playing the same note,
but higher so it looked to me like he was sliding in like that.
Okay so an example of an octave this string is an 'A' string,
this note on the second fret on the g string it's also an 'A' so when we play those together
we call that octaves same note here lower same note higher. What he's doing is playing those two
strings sliding up on here by a semitone to this b flat, alright? Which would be the blues note
but oh no it's not just doing that! He's simultaneously using his first finger
to hammer on this first fret on the a string right so you have this octave
sliding into another octave because we've got a b flat here and a b flat here. So you have
which I can get that a bit cleaner because he's playing it quite fast as well it's more
of what you'd call a grace note slide so rather than being a full-length note it's more kind of
just to sliding into it gracefully to add a little bit of pizzazz to the music so that's what a great
note is a kind of quicker, quicker note right so he's doing that I’ve got the first note.
So because his fingers move so elegantly it's difficult to tell what he's doing.
Okay I think that's probably the way he's fingering it so we're sliding up
with the hammer on back down to here and then he's doing octaves using g so he's fretting the low g
here I think and then rather than playing the g here like this kind of shape we've been using
across these strings right; instead of using that shape; he's using the open g
string. So using the open g there lower g here again octaves so you got that slide
back down open g and then I think it's just an e let's double check it.
And a harmonic, yeah that one okay beautiful so you think you have it
you think you have it then he throws a harmonic at you amazing stuff right so.
The harmonic I think was here so this fifth fret on the e string and you're resting your finger
just above the fret wire if you pick these closer to the bridge they tend to ring out a bit more
cleanly and just for example if I play it here, it's a bit more muffled if you go closer to the
bridge where you can there's more tension. You can hit the strings a bit harder you tend to get
a slightly more resonant natural harmonic. So if you struggle with harmonics and you
find they're always kind of sounding dull or muted try picking a bit closer to the bridge
and then I think it's just the card well let's double check it
to make sure he's not putting any more sneaky tricks there.
He has put a sneaky trick in! He's playing the harmonic down on the low e string at
the same time. Okay, beautiful! I wouldn't have caught that if I hadn't watched it again so it's
the same idea it's the harmonic we did here bit down on the low e string still at the fifth fret
you're going to want to hit that one with your thumb while you simultaneously play the fifth fret
up on the e string the high e string. So there's two ways to tackle this you can do
like I was doing there and rest your entire finger across the fretboard across the fret
or you can use two different fingers it's much of a muchness that's difficult to do
both ways because you need to be quite accurate to get the harmonic
but two ways to try it nonetheless and it's final
triple check to make sure there's not any sneaky tricks he's put in here.
So if you watched him there it looked to me like he was using his little finger to get
the harmonics I don't think mine's quite long enough to get all the way across the fretboard
successfully. Just about now I’d have to use my third finger second first order use two
fingers like I’d said okay so breaking it down and playing it slowly
is one thing… it might take me a while to get up to speed but I’ll
give it I’ll give it my best shot here so two three four!
Almost there! Right, let's go for it two three four third time's the charm.
Not got the touch he has that's for sure! But I’ve just about just about got my way
through it so if like myself you really like the style of playing but fairly new to the way to
get used to is to just do it slowly so build up the stamina if you find a move like this
difficult that's because it is very hard to play so the trick is to break it down
into different components get used to sliding up for example on that g string
just a semitone get used to hammering on, on that a string then try adding them together right.
Once you can do one part of it and then the other part the trick is to combine both finger
actions into one hand other than that just take it slow I was running before I can walk with this
I’ve not got under my fingers properly but if you've got that down there just nice and slow
and with stuff, like the harmonic I eyeball your finger
make sure it's above the fret wire and hope for the best. And as I say should be taking
my own advice if you play closer to the bridge much more prominent that final beautiful card.
So if you use your nail just run it lightly across the strings you get that really kind of nice
bright shiny timbre and again, kind of closer to the bridge. If you play it here it's going to be
a bit softer a bit more muddy if you go for here get that nice kind of shimmer, that nice spot okay
so one more time slowly for good measure this this is as well to put this in context this is like it
takes him like a second to play this and this is taking me probably about 10 minutes to figure out
and try and get somewhere in the ballpark okay for good measure here we go one two three four.
So hopefully that was useful to you as I say just a tiny, tiny smidgen of a song but
when it's this level of playing sometimes that's all you can aim for! So,
I hope you guys still enjoyed this despite the slightly different format if you want
more elite reactions you can check out there or guitar stuff there you can subscribe to
the channel or check out those free links but take it easy guys and have a good one!