January 20, 2012

This week we followed mostly a similar path to last week, Badfinger
and Damien Rice were the headliners at TG, with a little excursion
into slack key guitar for good measure. From Damien’s catalog we took
a look at Cannonball. This is another typical song from him: haunting,
emotional, thought-provoking, with a very cool guitar riff as well.

As evidenced by some comments on the Forum, many people were familiar
with the song Without Out, mainly due to Harry Nilsson’s huge hit with
it. It was written by Apple artists Badfinger, specifically Pete Ham
and Tom Evans. These talented songwriter and musicians came up with
many great songs in their years together. We also had a Fly On The
Wall video with Fred working through the chord progression and
thinking about it in different keys.

While we are in the Fly On The Wall department, we had a real surprise
with a R&B type tune from Akon called Don’t Matter. Kevin wanted to
put a reggae spin on it and we basically came up with a simple
campfire arrangement that almost any student could play.

We ended the week with a composition of mine called Tears On The Moon.
It is a slack key piece done in C Wahine Tuning (C G D G B E), also
known as Keola’s C as it is commonly used by Keola Beamer. There are a
few more like this in the pipeline so don’t be afraid to tackle songs
in this tuning that really only requires lowering the 5th and 6th
strings.

Of course, all the stuff I have mentioned above is part of the Target
Program but we also added a couple of song packs for our members who
like their lessons bundled. We started the week with a 10-Pack of
songs by John Lennon and followed with a 5-Pack of America songs.

Today’s News also included a bit of a trivia puzzle, as well as a lot
of playing, maybe too much. At the last minute I decided to carry the
puzzle over until next week rather than give the answer. Check it out
when you can and let us know what you think.

Stay Tuned& Touch,

Neil