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Thread: Senior Citizens Chords (Read 491 times) |
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paulcreid
MV Fresher
I love Midnight Voices!
Posts: 4
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Senior Citizens Chords
« : 20.09.24 at 15:30 » |
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Just picked up my battered copy of "A First Folio" and tried to strum along to "Senior Citizens". My 70+ year old fingers are out of practice. Many years ago I made a note of the fingering of the sequence of chords which include Eflat9, Aflatmaj7, Bflatm9, Eflat7, Bflatm7 around the sixth fret with plenty of tricky barres. I'm not up to it now (if I ever was). I wonder if anyone has a simpler/easier chord sequence or a simpler/easier way of fingering the original chords. Thanks in advance. Paul
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=Music&action=display&num=1726842656&start=0#0  |
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S J Birkill
MV Administrator
just a sensible reserve
Posts: 876
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Re: Senior Citizens Chords
« Reply #1: 21.09.24 at 22:03 » |
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Sorry Paul, no-one else seems willing or able to help so it's only me, and I'm but an elementary guitarist. I thought better an unhelpful reply rather than a snub. Does anyone care any more?
Decades ago (it seems) when MV began, we found ourselves with a number of accomplished amateur musicians on board, more than enough indeed to form a tribute band. And as the Website expanded, some of them came forward to offer their own chord transcriptions of Pete's songs, transcriptions hungrily seized upon by members eager to play them themselves. Pete would comment from time to time, explaining simplifications or offering corrections or suggestions to improve them. Here's a typical comment from Pete, on 'You Can't Expect To Be Remembered' :
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There are several melodic suspensions (in other words stuff the melody does
that you don't necessarily also have to do in the accompanying chords)
and a lot of chords (especially in the verse) can take quite a bit of
thickening out with added maj7s, 6s and 9s etc. In practice I hardly ever
play it exactly the same way twice anyway, but this is the basic harmonic shape.
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Or see Pete's dialogue with the late Paul Gunningham on 'Errant Knight'.
Looking through the chord charts on our Discography page, I'm seeing contributions from Dave Jones, Leslie Moss, Roy Brown, Jeremy Walton, Ian Sorensen, Dave Bondy and Ian Chippett, as well as our dear departed MV members Gerry Smith and Paul Gunningham. Back before Pete gave us lead sheets, their work gave us the ability to play most of the songs. Apart from Gerry and Paul, who need no excuse, where are those members now? My guess is that most of them seldom, if ever, check back to see what these days passes for conversation on this platform.
Of course, A First Folio gave us the canonical versions of 22 songs, including 'Senior Citizens'. Not to say that Pete always played them just as they were printed, but the complete harmonic structure was laid out for all to see, extended chords and all. The result, as far as the Website was concerned, was that no-one needed to work out these songs for themselves, so there were no simplified or basic versions for us to show. It's not for me to come along and say 'play a dominant seventh here without the ninth' or 'we don't need that major seventh on the guitar, as it's covered by the vocal melody', or even 'capo here and play as such-and-such a key'.
I don't even know whether the song would survive without those implied modulations and such, the intricate harmonic features that are so much a feature of Pete's work. But I bet some MVs would, and could, and might even be inclined to advise, if they were readers, responders and not just members.
Dear reader, if you're such a member, and have just spotted this (by then) months-old thread, don't dismiss it as too ancient to revive: we never close threads, and any new post will immediately bump the discussion to the head of the list. If you can help Paul out, please do!
Steve
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| « Last Edit: 21.09.24 at 22:15 by S J Birkill » |
https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=Music&action=display&num=1726842656&start=1#1 |
Stephen J Birkill
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paulcreid
MV Fresher
I love Midnight Voices!
Posts: 4
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Re: Senior Citizens Chords
« Reply #2: 22.09.24 at 00:29 » |
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Steve, Thank you for your full and helpful reply. I must confess that I have been lazy and haven't tried out alternatives to the published chords. I just thought I'd try the forum first in case anyone else had done it. The credit for Electric Guitar on The Road of Silk sleeve notes is Paul Keogh. His mellifluous fill ins really help to make the song so moving, especially during the first part before other instruments join in. I haven't the talent to be able to play anything like he did - I just strum along occasionally picking certain notes out to break things up.
It's good to hear from you again. I am a lapsed member of the Forum. I was one of the original members when you created it, but I tend these days just to wait for Pete's emails and Facebook postings and keep in touch that way. Although I was unable to attend the very first gig at Monyash, I went to the second one and have been to most of the "of Dreams" gigs and the Pete & Clive gigs. I hope you and your family are well. I remember your son taking photographs inside the marquee at the second Monyash bash using a digital camera. I think it was the first time that I had seen what good images could be achieved in relatively low light conditions.
I had reason to mention Pete's gig at Milton Keynes in 2000 when I recently put a post on Facebook referring to Wizz Jones' generosity:
https://www.facebook.com/steve.tilston.9/posts/pfbid0KQ5u8Cb6bt9oBeEM58jMg4yRnB8zMWne55xH3yihATn1U3Hayt2Rcyy6K6R7wHqyl?comment_id=1052674213227228¬if_id=1726589150453497¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif
On a different note, Pete's Facebook post on 13th September with the link to the Church Times article refers to himself as "one eyed". Is this a literal description or metaphorical? If literal, it had completely passed me by for over 50 years! (I was tempted to pun "overlooked".)
All the best,
Paul
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=Music&action=display&num=1726842656&start=2#2 |
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S J Birkill
MV Administrator
just a sensible reserve
Posts: 876
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Re: Senior Citizens Chords
« Reply #3: 22.09.24 at 05:57 » |
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Paul
I was imagining you had a long history with us, but I'd forgotten just how long. So I must apologise for not remembering meeting you at Monyash-99. So many faces! So many names! If I'd asked Carole I'm sure she'd have recalled all the details -- I'm amazed she can recount the hardships almost every member had to endure on the road to MV-ship.
Alexis kept up the photography thing through his move to Canada, producing his greatest work around the time he arrived in Vancouver, between 2011 and 2015:
https://photovancouver.com/
https://alexisbirkill.com/
Now he spends most of his time on software consultancy work and helping out Carole and me in our dotage 
Wizz Jones -- lovely fellow who wears his celebrity so lightly most people don't realise his importance in the British folk/blues scene, including his work with Alexis Korner. Diamond geezer. I read somewhere, very recently, can't remember where, that he's quitting the Cornwall venture -- the shlep's getting too much for him.
Pete's cyclopean status dates only from January 2016, when, out walking near home in Whiteladies Road in Bristol, he was in collision with a double-decker bus. The encounter might easily have proved fatal, but emergency surgery saved him. He was left with the total loss of sight in his right eye; the organ apparently functions normally, but its connection to the brain has been permanently severed. His left wrist was also damaged, but he relates that his orthopaedic consultant told him the best exercise he could recommend was to play the guitar. He was back gigging in remarkably short order. More detail HERE.
Steve
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=Music&action=display&num=1726842656&start=3#3 |
Stephen J Birkill
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paulcreid
MV Fresher
I love Midnight Voices!
Posts: 4
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Re: Senior Citizens Chords
« Reply #4: 23.09.24 at 12:41 » |
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Thanks Steve. I remember reading about Pete's accident at the time but had forgotten the details.
Whilst on my forgetting things, where are you and Carole living now? I think the last time I saw you was at Theatre of Dreams in Sheffield in 2006. Have I misremembered, or are you living away from the UK now?
I've just watched the 2024 video of Pete singing Touch Has a Memory at The Pheasantry. A nice introduction mentioning Wizz. I don't know if the Facebook link I sent you worked, but in case it didn't this is what I posted in response to Steve Tilston's post:
[i][i][i]Wizz’s generosity is illustrated by the following story. Having been a fan for ages, I first met Wizz at a Pete Atkin gig in Milton Keynes in October 2000 (photo below). I next saw him at an acoustic or blues festival in Buxton a few months later. We chatted whilst he was waiting to go on and I bought him a pint or two of Stella. A couple of weeks later I got a message from Wizz via an organiser of the Pete Atkin gig asking if I’d lost anything at Buxton. I got in touch with Wizz and he told me he’d found a £20 note that he believed I must have dropped. I thanked him and told him to keep it but he offered to send me a CD. He sent me a wonderful disc including unreleased recordings for which I was so grateful. There aren’t too many people who would go to the trouble of tracking down a relative stranger to try to return a £20 note. I haven’t seen Wizz since then to remind him of his kindness, but if anyone who knows him reads this post, please thank him again from me for his wonderful generosity of spirit.
The photo of Wizz and me was taken at Pete's Milton Keynes gig in 2000.
Yours,
Paul
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=Music&action=display&num=1726842656&start=4#4 |
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paulcreid
MV Fresher
I love Midnight Voices!
Posts: 4
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Re: Senior Citizens Chords
« Reply #5: 23.09.24 at 22:51 » |
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Steve,
On scouring through your magnificent website I found the link to the Midnight Voices web digest. Lo and behold on 8th September 1997 at MV46 I found my first post under the heading "Atkin Anonymous". Who says nostalgia isn't what it used to be?
Paul
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=Music&action=display&num=1726842656&start=5#5 |
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S J Birkill
MV Administrator
just a sensible reserve
Posts: 876
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Re: Senior Citizens Chords
« Reply #6: 24.09.24 at 06:45 » |
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Paul
You can't be expected to remember such trivia -- I don't, that's for sure. Come 2015 I was pushing 69 and we thought it due time to quit the nine-to-five (well, more like the 10-to-24 most of the time, in my case), so we sold up and moved to Canada to be near Alexis. We now all three occupy a splendid house in Squamish, a small town just up the mainland coast from Vancouver, and half-way to Whistler. We're at the head of Howe Sound, a fjord off the Georgia Strait, so right on the Pacific coast, surrounded by forests, lakes and mountains, with a mild climate rather like yours (except it does get quite hot in the summer).
Yes, that Facebook link worked fine, but thanks for posting it here with the smashing photo. Oh yes, and the early-MV (mailing list) 'Archive' -- I managed the first year of MV before I realised it would take me a lifetime (or what was left of it) to cobble together the next six years of posts in that format. For a while I had unredacted yearly digests available in a 'members-only' area, which I began to refurbish until I realised no-one seemed to care anyway. Just recently (well 4 or 5 years ago) I started again to build a new public version in concertina format (like the Newsletter archive) until that too ran out of steam. Of course the opportunity then arose to compile all of Clive's work into a new Web archive, which is now well into its third phase. One day I might finish all these projects. And the others...
In case anyone here is bemused by these references:
Year One MV archive -
https://www.peteatkin.com/mvindex.htm
Paul's first post:
https://www.peteatkin.com/mvdig002.htm#mv46
Newsletter archive:
https://www.peteatkin.com/newsletter.htm
Stawamus (St'a7mes) Chief Webcam (live view from our back yard) :
https://www.chiefcam.com
The Clive James Website Archive (augmented) :
https://archive.clivejames.com
Wizz Jones -- Through The Fingers:
https://www.peteatkin.com/covers.htm#fingers
Take Care
Steve
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| « Last Edit: 24.09.24 at 08:00 by S J Birkill » |
https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=Music&action=display&num=1726842656&start=6#6 |
Stephen J Birkill
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