John Prine 6-Pack

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Illegal Smile

  John Prine is an American treasure as a songwriter and entertainer. His debut album in 1971 introduced the world to a handful of poignant classics. John's fingerpicking is very basic but melodic and effective.

  Illegal Smile is typical for his style, with a catchy hammer-on in the bass followed by what I call generic picking, meaning it never has to be the same but there are some simple parameters, which are described in the lesson.

  The song changes into a 3/4 strumming pattern in the chorus, then kicks back to the intro before each next verse. The transitions are also very basic.

• Lesson 2: Hello In There

  John Prine's debut album in 1971 included at least a half dozen songs that went on to be classics and heavily covered by many artists. Hello In There is a great example of his brilliant songwriting and poetry. His guitar technique is very accessible to intermediate guitar players and leaves room for lots of variations.

  This lesson goes into detail about John's intro, as well as the progression and arrangement, and even has a couple verses and the chorus played through.

• Lesson 3: It's A Big Old Goofy World - John Prine - Guitar Lesson

  Most John Prine songs use a very basic fingerpicking accompaniment and Big Old Goofy World is no exception. The song first appeared on John’s 1991 album The Missing Years and can also be found on his 1993 Anthology.
  
  The lesson encourages the student to figure out as much as possible with a little direction on the fingerpicking patterns and chord progression before going into the details. This is a great song for students just getting to alternate bass picking.
  
  After requests to get a little more specific on the picking we added another attachment that has tab examples of the patterns described in the "Details" segment.

• Lesson 4: All The Best - John Prine - Guitar Lesson

  John Prine is a master at taking something somewhat simple and turning it into a really enjoyable, poignant piece. Most of the time this is due to the lyrics he comes up with but his guitar playing can be interesting too. In spite of the fact that he only uses his thumb and one finger to pick, he comes up with nice embellishments many times.
  
  All The Best is played in the key of G, like most of his songs, capoed at the fifth fret, or wherever suits the players voice, and includes one of these embellishments that might prove a bit challenging. Otherwise the song is what I would consider generic fingerpicking. If you have a good command of alternating bass techniques you should be ready to add this tune to your repertoire.

• Lesson 5: Angel From Montgomery - Guitar Lesson

  Angel From Montgomery is one of John Prines most famous songs, partly due to numerous covers, most notably one by Bonnie Raitt. Prines progressions are generally very basic and this is no exception. The lesson is presented in our Work It Out format to improve ear training. This has a couple of interesting twists so dont‚ take a look at the chart until youРІР‚ gone through a few segments of the lesson.

• Lesson 6: Souvenirs

  John Prine's Souvenirs was originally released in 1972 on his second album Diamonds In The Rough, but then rerecorded for his 2000 release, Souvenirs. Like many of his songs, there is a distinctive guitar intro in his signature fingerpicking style, which is explained in great detail in this lesson.

  The song is played with a capo at the second fret, using just the three chords in the key of D - D, G and A7, with a couple passing bass runs and nice hammer on fills.