British guitarist analyses Don McLean's dynamic performance live in 1972!

hello phil here from wings of pegasus and welcome to another analysis video if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe on the agenda tonight we're going back to 1972 we're gonna be taking a look at don mclean and he's gonna be performing American Pie and I'm not sure about the copyrights on this one hopefully we'll be able to watch it the whole way through it is just over 9 minutes of this video so fingers crossed but if not I'll re editing and leave out the performance and give you guys a link in the description below and also pin it to the top of the comments but let's get done up on screen and see how it gets on long long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile and I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance but maybe they'd be happy for but February made me shiver with every paper I delivered bad news on the doorstep I couldn't take one more step I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride but something touched me deep inside the day the music died sofa [Music] drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry them good ol boys a drinkin to speak write and sing being the day [Music] right faith in God above - OH how do you believe in rock and roll in music save your mortal soul and can you teach me how to dance real slow I know that you're in love with him cuz I saw you dancing in the gym you both kicked off your shoes only teenage do today [Music] here we go [Music] surprise [Music] for ten years we've been on our own and the boss grows that's not buying the Chester sang Queen in a coat he borrowed from James B and a voice came from and while the king was laying down the gesture Stoll is learning crown the courtroom and we sang darn the day the we [Music] [Music] there's skelter in the summer swell to the birds blew up where the bus shelter eight miles high and bullet path Wow players for a forward pass hit the chest I'm just going to jump in here because we have so much going on in this performance but such an iconic song and it's something that did hit a chord with everybody when it was released in 1971 due to the subject matter and the death of Buddy Holly and the video that I have on Buddy Holly you can check that if you want to this performance it's one of those that is eight and a half minutes long around that kind of time for the original and generally in the industry as you all know they were always aiming for shorter songs because those were played on the radio whereas you've got a guy like Don who comes along and just writes it how it is and will just perform it as it is and isn't conforming to anything and that's exactly what great singer songwriters do just referring back to that crash because it is now known as the day the music died and that is due to this composition and it really does show you how closely associated that event and this composition were viewed by the public where Buddy Holly JP Richardson and Richie Valens tragically lost their lives this song just brought everybody together at a time where everyone would have been mourning and Dawn especially having written this song because he would have felt that way as well so it's that group mentality of everybody supporting each other and remembering when singing this song obviously having great melody in there's gonna help but just people linking arms getting together I know that the song isn't just specifically about that one event there are other places that we visit on this journey lyrically and Don does mention other artists around at the time and previously referring to some artists nicknames so the lyrical content is relatable as well because people know who Don's talking about getting into this live performance of the song obviously it's just dawn and an acoustic guitar so there is nowhere to hide with his playing but also vocally on the original track there was the piano and then we do have the drum kit that then comes in but most important it is set up with this freeform nature that means Donn can start out slowly and it is that full journey that we go on we've got a beginning a middle and an end here and we've got it with this life performance but also with that original recording because we start out really slow really freeform with Don's delivery vocally but also the way that he's playing the guitar because we're not just in a standard four four tempo here at you know 60 beats per minute or something just continually going on and being predictable is something that Don can change the ebb and flow as and when he sees fit which is exactly what you need telling a story and that's what you get when you're listening to somebody tell you a story even not musically just from a book they're not going to be talking at a set tempo so this is why we get this storytelling quality from Don and this song is because it abscent flows it isn't one consistent speed the whole time the other thing to look out for when this performance is the way that Don delivers his vocal dynamically just by him almost whispering in parts but then leaning into the sound getting more cord closure with his vocal cords the other thing to bring up is that Dom doesn't have a wide vibrato on his voice he doesn't use that technique a lot it is in there but it's really subtle so it means that went on is singing he does hit a lot of clean notes and straight nose with no vibrato so it means that he's got to be hitting these pitches dead-on if you start singing straight notes consistently and you're not on pitch the whole time is going to start wearing out the ears of the audience because there's nothing worse than somebody being slightly out all the time so it's the hardest way to sing is straight sometimes when a singer is using a wider vibrato and has control about vibrato the note that they're aiming for the pitch is within that and I've mentioned on this channel before when you're hitting a note straight between the eyes without that vibrato you can't throw caution to the wind like you can when you know that you're getting near the note but the vibrato will encapsulate it and it's not dead on pitch so dawn throughout this whole live performance is hitting these pitches dead-on another thing about not having such a dramatic vibrato on Don's voice it might be in there but very subtly it means that you really accentuate the storytelling quality in the vocal because when we talk and we tell each other stories day-to-day we don't use vibrato in our talking voices so the great singer songwriters had this ability to hit pitch is so dead-on that it didn't matter that there wasn't that vibrato technique in there which is mostly used to get a note to sing to sound pleasant to the ear where is when you want to focus on the lyrical content and the story sometimes not having vibrato on the voice can really emphasize what you're talking about because it has that talking quality to it just a quick word on the guitar technique here as well because playing and singing at the same time I always say doubles the difficulty but Don has so much technique in there that will fly under the radar in this performance especially because the guitar is quite low in the mix but in the intro there are tiny little things that Don does such as playing his d7 sus 4 chord shape and applying a little pull off with a little finger down to the open E string and then fretting with his little finger on the D of the B string and that'll be found on the third fret and just applying a little bit of vibrato on there it's just a split second but it gives you an indication as to his ability playing wise because getting to the point of getting notes to sing playing lead knows is totally different to just strumming out chords and there's so much that Don does here with hammer-ons pull-offs the changing of chords but also these little sus4 tricks hammer-ons pull-offs to open strings that are impressive especially when you factoring that he's singing at the same time but let's get back into the performance and we'll watch it all the way to the end sergeant's played a marching tune players try [Music] do you recall what was CEO the day right [Music] but generation lost in space [Music] I can fire I watched him on stage my hands were clenched in fists of rage no angel Barnhill right that's safe [Music] like the day [Music] he was [Music] Oh rise I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked for some happy news she just smiled and turned away and I went down to the sacred store where I'd heard the music years before but the men there said the music wouldn't play [Music] in the streets the children screamed lovers cried and the poet's dream but not a word was spoken the church bells all were broken and the three men I admire most Father Son and by they caught the last train for the coast today the music and they were singing [Music] drinking whiskey and rock [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] and there we have a what an engaging performance and just looking everybody in the crowd here getting involved also singing the chorus is something that you rarely see where the crowd are singing the main line that the artist will be singing but then the artist up on stage is harmonizing with that main vocal of the crowd the other thing that we've got here is this dynamic journey throughout because we started in such a quiet soft place again the ebb and flow being that really slow tempo wise and then picking up in the middle and then at the end again everything brought right back down to the point where the audience when they start singing along a singing along with the same respect to the dynamic change because dawn is almost whispering into the microphone and all of the audience are whispering the vocal as well so it just goes to show the level of connection the dawn had with this performance that when everyone wanted to sing along with the chorus they didn't come all in they came in with the appreciation of dynamics that dawn had already given them previously and then at the end we're at a slower tempo but again we're just climbing this mountain to the point where DOM is going to be all in for this last chorus but just at a slower tempo therefore making the very last chorus even more dramatic because at no point have we been so all in dynamically but with a slow tempo like the intro so just adding those two elements together to hear something that we haven't heard before right at the end of the song to take you right back up to that peak of the mountain with the guitar technique as soon as we're all in dynamically Donna is now starting to emphasize be to and form of the bar with a muted strumming technique and is something that I've demonstrated in other videos before this but it keeps the whole composition going forward and driving it's really taking the place of a drummer because the snare comes in on two and four generally in a 4/4 beat also there's a little run at 6 minutes and 36 seconds which isn't massively technical but it just makes the difference it puts an extra little shine on the guitar part that isn't just strumming out chords it's been so well arranged by dawn vocally I always mention about having a range where if you can take your beginning vocal and then maybe your chorus vocal up an octave the chorus is going to be so much more dramatic we have that here with Donn in places singing around g3 and maybe even lower than that but then taking it all the way up to b4 and when we're talking about b4 as a note vocally we're just a semitone off high C and that's him know that I mentioned quite a lot on this channel seen as the holy grail of classical singing with the tenor range hitting that high C in chest voice which Don is doing here by the way he's not going into falsetto so he's got an impressive range to his voice and that's why he can get such a dramatic impact with his vocal lines and especially when it's put into a song like this that means so much lyrically but also it is so strong melodically there are songs out there that you will know you don't like to sing along with but they're so strong melodically you'll be walking around and you'll be singing a song that actually you're not a big fan of and this is not one of those songs but it is one of those songs from a melodic standpoint it is so strong in the chorus it's actually just reminded me of a great example of this last weekend where Tyson Fury was fighting Deontay Wilder and he won and at the end he sang this song and everyone got involved with it so you've got thousands and thousands and thousands of people all singing this song and the other thing about the melody in this chorus is how simple it is there aren't loads of trails or vocal gymnastics going on it's just solid melody just we're mentioning vocal gymnastics dawn does have flexible vocal cords because he can end a vocal phrase with a throwaway line or maybe two or three notes and it's a sterilization that you do get a lot in folk music but Don throws it in there so tastefully it's not overdone and it just gives a melodic end to a line there isn't the same as just holding a note or holding a note and adding vibrato so stylistically he has so many options that he can go to with his voice so a fantastic performance here and just to mention as well that writing songs like I always say is the hardest bit about the music industry and being an artist obviously Don is an expert in that field he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004 and the notes and everything that he made to writing this song and the meaning behind it was sold in 2015 for 1.2 million dollars so when you've got that amount of interest in the meaning behind a song it really does show the depth of the writing and how much people were interested in every single lyric and what it meant in this composition but thank you guys so much for suggesting this video for me to take a look at and keep their suggestions coming in the comments below let me know what you guys think and if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe and I'll see you guys at the next one rock

Channel: Wings of Pegasus

Views: 59,363

Rating: 4.971622 out of 5

Keywords: don mclean, don, american pie, bbc, bbc news, bbc newsnight, bbcnewsnight, archives, newsnight archives, newsnightarchives, 1972, perfoms, performance, singer, songwriter, music, musician, live, song, lyrics, songs, youtube, vincent don mclean, don mclean american pie live, don mclean american pie reaction, american pie song live, wings of pegasus, wingsofpegasus, british guitarist reacts, british guitarist analysis, british guitarist analyses, american pie song

Id: SygM-3hGYXo

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020