John Prine Package

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 don't take a look at the chart until you've gone through a few segments of the lesson.

  We also take a short look at how Bonnie Raitt approached it – in Dropped D Tuning, with a capo at the second fret, and without the rhythmic anomalies that John Prine used.

• 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.

• Lesson 7: I Remember Everything

  John Prine is undoubtedly one of the greatest songwriters of the last half century, and an American Treasure. I Remember Everything is one of the last songs of his illustrious career, and is a perfect showcase and example of how a simple, basic fingerpicking accompaniment can be the ideal background for his poetic lyrics.

  This lesson goes into John's fingerpicking style and technique, with a few specific examples used in I Remember Everything, but encourages the student to master the patterns and use them in their own take on the song. This approach is very useful for hundreds, if not thousands of similar songs.

• Lesson 8: John Prine Intros

  We have quite a few lessons on John Prine tunes at Totally Guitars, most of which are fairly easy to play if you have some experience with fingerpicking. He usually keeps some basic patterns going while singing but many of his songs have something unique in the intro. 

  This collection of videos starts with a short mention of Paradise (which is a simple strumming song in 3/4 time), then goes in depth into-

  1. I Remember Everything
  2. Big Old Goofy World
  3. Illegal Smile
  4. Angel From Montgomery
  5. Hello In There
  6. All The Best
  7. Souvenirs

  There are complete lessons on all the above songs at TG as well. 

• Lesson 9: Souvenirs with Bill

  It has been a long time since we have done any Fly On The Wall lessons so I thought I'd experiment the way I am seeing most of my students over the last six months... Zoom. Obviously the quality is a few notches below what we are accustomed to but I figured folks might get something out of it.

  We started Jonh Prine's Souvenirs just a week before and took a look at the intro in this lesson.