March 19, 2021

Once again, I started the day with the lap steel, which I promise to re-retire again soon. But it has been fun to mess with. I opened with just some improvising, then a bit of Running On Empty (with a nod to this week’s lesson addition to Vanessa’s great take on the Jackson Browne classic). The next move should have been better thought out as I attempted The Water Is Wide on it thinking of Doug’s lesson this week in DADGAD. As John Fahey once said about the lap steel, “you can only play a few songs on it, it is not very versatile.” This will be evident as you hear me mess up parts where we need minor chords. My better judgement took over then and I grabbed the other guitar in standard and noodled around with something that sounded a bit closer to Doug’s lesson.

The Hummingbird story continues just outside, probably for just about another week, and I have gotten in the habit of posting 10 to 15-minute parts every couple days with some action scenes. The latest shows them jostling and flapping a bit and I am sure they will get a little lift today or tomorrow. The live feed and the edited parts will always be on the TG Forum.

Next week will have an unscheduled surprise lesson that just materialized organically a couple days ago as some of my students started working on a standard that I was never clear on what was happening, until I broke it down for them. Then it took over my whole world for a short time and turned into a lesson that will appear next week. It will have a different approach to most everything else I have done in the past. So stick around till the end, I think you’ll be glad you did.

Neil