Virtuoso like yourself.....no way. You'll nail it!

Well, we just had the first practice and I certainly need to work on it more. And I will. The vocalist is absolutely phenomenal though - I will see if I can get a copy of our performance, which happens 10 days from now. 

I know you'll be superb......hope you get a vid or recording. That really is a beautiful song. I didn't know it from the title but when I heard it on your post I knew right away.

Awesome. I'm sure you consider it an honor! I am also sure you will pull it off very nicely. I hope you are able to get video recordings of it.

Hmmm, guess its too late to suggest 7 Nation Army or We are the Champions instead.  But Seriously, that's quite an honor to help salute a mans career in music and education.  I have to agree that you'll do well.  And YES, please get a copy of the performance or practice.

Maybe a little fingerstylin' lesson in it for the MGA Members hanging around for scraps?

I just listened to this song... great song. I hadn't heard it previously... 

It would be interesting to learn how you are going about learning and getting the song ready for performance.

Are you using prepared sheet music... YouTube 😉 ? Is the performance going to have a full arrangement with a full band, horns...?

Should be fun!

Nice questions Chris.

Yep, great question. Now I'm curious to hear what Robert's thought process is when taking on something like this. 

1) Using Guitar Pro, Sheet Music AND YouTube. I'm thorough.... 😉

2) No, only guitar and voice. 

The approach is the same as you guys should (and probably do?) use - listen intensely for several times. Get the song & melody in your head before you even think about playing. Look and listen to the chord progression. It's fairly easy to recognize repeated chord sequences, like Verse and Chorus. Learn these first. Then learn the (if there is one) Bridge, Coda, Solo section, etc - learn them separately.

Then, write down the form: Intro, Verse, Verse, Chorus...etc. 

For a song like this, I usually just strum along until I feel I know the chord progression quite well.

The last, and hardest step for me, is to work on the technical aspects, which in this case is the fingerpicking patterns, and being able to keep steady time and solid accompaniment. Not easy I tell ya! It's much easier to jam the blues!

Sounds like a labor of love! Surely, it will go over very well.

Did you copy the sheet music over to GP? Hmmm 😉

When is the show? I wish it weer near enough to go and cheer you on!

The show is on May 24th. I found a Guitar Pro file that is quite accurate, just searching in Google. 

Although I prefer to learn by ear most of the time, the Guitar Pro file was helpful because it made it easier to learn the right hand picking pattern. The looping feature of the program and slowdown feature is of tremendous help here.

Interesting approach Robert. Similar to mine. Only mine takes longer. Much longer......haha.

Anyway good luck my friend.....not that you'll need it. I know you'll be great!

Ditto, Ivan, much longer here, too.  And the finger picking pattern would take forevah.  Hard to teach this old dog a new trick like that.

Today is the performance. I will first be playing with my daughter's school teachers, the tune Gimme Some Lovin.

Then I play Leader Of The Band with a wonderful female vocalist.

I cut my fretting hand's ring finger this morning. Good timing huh?