So: I’ve been playing pro guitar mode in Rock Band 3 a fair amount over the last few months. And it’s great, and I’m even learning a little bit about how to play rock guitar!

The thing is, rock guitar is not the only type of guitar that I like to play: as Jordan will attest, there is another kind of song that I like to play on the guitar, and it’s called “Alice’s Restaurant”. Which, sadly, will never come to Rock Band 3, because the controller doesn’t work well with finger picking.

While that is unfortunate, I don’t have to limit my guitar playing to video game situations. It is, however, conceivable that there might be other songs that I might enjoy playing almost as much as Alice’s Restaurant, so I should consider broadening my repertoire a bit. Which raises the question: why do I like playing Alice’s Restaurant?

I think finger picking is part of the answer: not that strumming chords is a bad idea, but I like putting my individual fingers to work as well. Experimenting a bit, though, I don’t think it’s the entire answer: picking out arpeggios is pleasant enough, but not quite the same. I think what I really like about Alice’s Restaurant is the independent musical lines, picking out both (a stripped down version of) the melody and a bass line.

So what I’m really looking for are other pieces I can learn with (at least?) two voices. I’m not fussy about the details: clearly melody plus bass is fine, but two equal voices in counterpoint would also be great. (Heck, I might enjoy that more, given the nature of my musical background.)

Suggestions?

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