June 27, 2025,

Today’s Update started with some improvising in the key of D. This led me to talking about chord progressions that use secondary dominant chords, which related to the progression I started with. It was a string of sub-dominant chords. Each chord was followed by its sub-dominant (IVmaj7) chord. It got a bit involved but hopefully some of it will click.

New stuff this week included Roy Orbison’s Only The Lonely and my visit in Hawaii a couple weeks ago with John Keawe. It was certainly a pleasure to sit, play and talk with him.

Neil Young was on my mind this week and that led to some ramblings on his early tune I Am A Child. I also ran across an old book of John Renbourn pieces (aptly titled ‘Guitar Pieces’), which inspired me to share a couple of those with you. Both ‘A Day At The Seaside’ and ‘Debbie Anne’ have some challenging moves. There is a big stretch on a G7 chord in the first one and the second has some very fast hammer-ons and pull-offs. I go over a couple technical tips that you might find helpful.

Other than that – on to July!

Neil