Will Fly - Musician
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Blog - occasional, random thoughts on music - May 2015


Creating instructional videos
28.5.2015


I've
created a number of instructional videos on my YouTube channel since I started posting stuff there about eight years ago. The first one, which to date has had over a quarter of a million views, was 'How To Play Davy Graham's "Angi"'. This was produced and uploaded in May 2007. The technique I used then has become a bit more sophisticated with the years, and takes advantage of HD video, but is essentially the same, using a mix of:
  • live action at normal speed
  • live action at slow speed
  • animated chord diagrams
I always start by creating a script which sets out each element of the video in turn, and then decide on the shooting order. So, for example, I record all the live voice to camera bits in one long take - to be cut up as required later. I shoot all the live action and any slower speed action in the same way. The various bits and pieces are then uploaded into iMovie and assembled in the scheduled order using dissolves and titles as appropriate.

For the animated chord diagrams, I create a computer guitar track using the music writing program on my Mac Book Pro - "Harmony Assistant". I start by creating a score of standard notation and tablature - just as I would play it. This serves two purposes: (a) the tab produced acts as a guide to creating the beat-by-beat chord diagrams, and (b) the program can generate and export an artificial guitar track at any given tempo. So, the exported computer-generated sound track is used underneath the computer-generated chord diagrams.

As far as the actual chord diagrams are concerned, I used to use Adobe Photoshop but now employ a similar but simpler (and cheaper) program called 'iDraw". This allows graphic objects to be created as layers which can be switched "on" or "off" - i.e. visible or invisible - as required. I create a JPG file for each beat in the bar - one which shows the chord, beat and note positions on the fretboard. All this is also uploaded into iMovie and intercut with the live action and to-camera talk.

I use a medium-priced Sony HD camcorder for the video shots and a Zoom H2 digital recorder for the sound. The Sony is not a good camera for low light, and gives average sound, but I only ever use it in decent daylight and rarely use its sound in my videos - relying on the Zoom.


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