March 24, 2023

This week’s big news was an addition, or completion of our lesson on These Days by Jackson Browne. The ‘Campfire’ version has been up for at least 10 years and I had forgotten that I always meant to complete it with a look at how he plays it acoustically, and particularly solo over the years. It is a pretty basic fingerpicking song, using what I term ‘generic’ fingerpicking. It just mixes up some standard patterns. However, he does use the unusual embellishment of reversing the order of the bass notes in a few measures. This is also done in Rev. Gary Davis’ version of Candyman, so I played a little of that as well.

There were some other tips related to fingerpicking addressed along the way, with some excursion into a little Elton John (because we have a new lesson under construction on one of his tunes), more John Fahey, and even a Jobim tune that may have to be turned into a lesson soon.

We are also working on an idea for an upcoming contest, like we did more of in the really early days. More details will be available soon.

Back again with you next week,

Neil