Well, I’m going to be honest with you – this week’s update almost didn’t happen.

I’ve been sick. Really sick. The kind where brain fog sets in and even picking up the guitar feels like too much. We were in New York for a wedding – had a wonderful time – and somewhere over the Atlantic on the way home, the fever showed up. Five and a half hours of misery trying not to infect the people around me. Not my finest moment.

And then I remembered something I told all of you not long ago.

Don’t let it get too long between picking up the guitar.

Here I was, nearly a month later, finally reaching for mine again. Guilty as charged.

The Drop D Lesson Nobody Talks About

Since I was already in a reflective mood, I found myself gravitating toward Drop D tuning – some of my favorite pieces live there. But before I get into what I played, there’s something important about Drop D that most guitar players get wrong.

When you drop that sixth string down to D, your other strings don’t stay in tune. They go sharp. Every time.

Here’s what to do instead:

Get your low string down close to D first. Then check the rest of your strings. Then recheck the D. And here’s the part people miss – take that D string below the pitch you want before you bring it back up. If you stop right at D, it will creep back up on you.

The same principle applies when you’re using a capo. Even if your guitar is perfectly in tune, put that capo on and check your tuner again. A slightly crooked capo can throw everything off, and you’ll spend the whole song wondering why something sounds slightly wrong.

Songs That Come Back To You

Something unexpected has been happening in our house lately. Our grandson spends several nights a week here now, and we’ve been putting on Papa’s guitar music while he falls asleep.

Which means I’ve been sitting in a dark room listening to albums of mine I haven’t thought about in twenty years.

And every so often a tune comes through and I think – God, that’s really something.

One of them is a piece called Montana de Oro – named after a beautiful park outside of Morro Bay. I wrote it when my son was in eighth grade, on a bike field trip where I started feeling feverish about fifteen minutes in and had to go sit in the car for hours. The fever wrote that song. I’d completely forgotten that until I started talking about health problems this week and suddenly the whole memory came flooding back.

That’s what music does. It stores things.

I also played one of my favorite John Renbourn pieces – Lady Nothing’s Toy Puff – in Drop D. No guarantees on how it went, but it felt good to be back.

And I closed with a piece of mine called Imagine That – named after my wife’s grandfather, who whenever you’d tell him about some new technology or change in the world would just slowly shake his head and say, “Wow… imagine that.” A man in genuine awe of everything he’d witnessed in ninety years. That feeling deserved a song.

JOHN RENBOURN LESSONS

Camp Is Almost Here

One more thing before I go – our final International Guitar Camp of 2026 starts September 10th, just over a week away. We had a couple of cancellations and still have two spots open.

If you’ve been thinking about it, now is genuinely the moment.

IGC REGISTRATION/INFO

And for those already looking ahead – we’re planning our Spring 2027 camp for April 7th through 11th. Mark it down.

I should be fully recovered by September 10th. The guitar is already sounding better than it did three days ago. And I’m reminded, once again, why you should never let it sit too long.

Pick it up today. Even for three minutes.

— Neil