March 30, 2012

Our Target releases this week included a little more Slack Key, a
guitar take on a piano classic, an ear training exercise on a tune
from the Psychedelic era, reviews of Student Uploads featuring Doc
Watson and Eva Cassidy, and Fly On The Wall videos covering a basic
Theory Review and another look at a tune from the movie Crazy Heart.

We started the week with a fingerpicking accompaniment version of
Elton John’s Your Song. This used some chord inversions common in
piano songs but not so much in guitar songs. We followed that with a
look at Radio Hula, a popular Hawaiian song from the early days of
radio. This is styled a bit after the playing of Slack Key legend
Ledward Kaapann and done in Open G Tuning. At the end of the week we
broke out our ‘Work It Out’ version of Mellow Yellow by Donovan. This
is a basic 3-chord song so using it as an ear training exercise seemed
like a good idea. There is also a chord solo segment that works on
picking out the melody.

Our Student Reviews this week included looks at Doc’s Guitar, by Doc
Watson, and Paul Simon’s Kathy’s Song, as arranged by Eva Cassidy.

We also had a great Basic Theory Review with my returning student
Doug. We went over a lot of important building blocks in the
fundamentals department. Our second live in the studio lesson went
into the picking pattern used in The Weary Kind. I hope everybody
checks out our Fly On The Wall videos once in a while.

Next week- a little John Fahey, I hope.

Stay Tuned & In Touch,

Neil