Carole King - Tapestry Pack

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Way Over Yonder

  Way Over Yonder is a song by American singer-songwriter Carole King. It appears on her multiple Grammy Award winning 2nd studio album ‘Tapestry’ (1971), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

  The arrangement and progression are far from straightforward. It starts in the key of C, and moves up a whole step to D later in the song. For that, there are many chords, including a lot of different inversions (slash chords).

  The strumming is with swing feel, really slow, and picking out the bass notes is a must.

  This lesson doesn’t necessarily teaches how to copy King’s amazing piano playing. This is rather a way of how I would accompany myself on the guitar, instead of the piano. In my opinion copying the overall feel of the song is the most important aspect, with still enough room to dress it up too.

   

• Lesson 2: Home Again

  Home Again is another little pearl on singer-songwriter Carole King’s multiple Grammy Award winning 2nd studio album ‘Tapestry’ (1971), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

  The lesson teaches a finger style arrangement in the key of G, where the guitar is capoed on the 2nd fret.

  We take a close up look at the right hand, in order to have a starting point, but one should be really comfortable fingerpicking in general.

  It is strongly encouraged to play the song as free form as Carole King does, but the arrangement does include a few parts in which we try to somewhat copy her piano playing, like the intro/interlude/outro and in particular the instrumental part.

  Again, anyone trying to tackle this song needs to be comfortable fingerpicking and for example shift positions on the fly. 

   

   

• Lesson 3: It’s Too Late - Guitar Lesson

  It’s Too Late is obviously a song most people would associate with piano playing, as it was written and released by Carole King on her album Tapestry. Most piano songs can be easily adapted to the guitar and this lesson shows that the instruments are not that dissimilar. The main vamp, and the piano solo are covered in the lesson, as well as the basic accompaniment, using some standard strumming techniques.

• Lesson 4: Will You Love Me Tomorrow? - Carole King - Guitar Lesson

  Carole King’s 1971 album Tapestry included a bunch of great songs, most of which were written in 1970. They wanted to include an older song of hers and Will You Love Me Tomorrow became the ‘oldie’, a song she had written as a teenager with lyrics by Gerry Goffin. The recording also featured James Taylor and Joni Mitchell backing her up.
  
  This lesson is an attempt at playing a piano-type accompaniment on the guitar, which can make for some unusual chords and difficult moves. It also includes a simple strumming version and some ways of fingerpicking it, combining arpeggios with some percussive playing.
  
  The level is based more on those versions as the piano version could prove somewhat challenging.

• Lesson 5: So Far Away - Carole King - Guitar Lesson

  Carole King will be remembered historically as one of the greatest writers of our day. Her early tunes, written with then husband Gerry Goffin, became huge hits for many groups in the early sixties. At the end of the decade she started a solo career leading to her second album, Tapestry.
  
  With the help of James Taylor and much of his circle of musical friends, Tapestry became a signature album of the seventies. So Far Away is a delicate, wistful song that she wrote having left the East Coast.
  
  The lesson tries to create the piano arrangement on the guitar, which brings in some unusual chord voicings and shapes.
  
  The accompaniment is mostly using the right hand like the two hands on a piano, the thumb playing a simple bass pattern and the fingers grabbing chords, mostly on the quarter note beats.

• Lesson 6: You’ve Got A Friend - James Taylor - Guitar Lesson

  Carole King’s song, You’ve Got A Friend has been the most requested lesson here at TG for a long time. Of course, we are talking about James Taylor’s definitive version as heard on his album Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon. Like most of James’ arrangements, this showcases his beautiful fingerpicking style at its best.
  
  The lesson goes over the chord progression and the specific way to play many of his embellishments but, as with most of his songs, the variations are endless and really need to be created or recreated every time the song is played. The student must already be comfortable with standard patterns and random altering of them, as well as random arpeggio patterns to get the most out of this lesson.