Advanced Fingerpicking Solos Volume 2

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Eye In The Sky Solo Arrangement - Guitar Lesson

  A few years ago we put up a lesson on Eye In The Sky by The Alan Parsons Project which was a version designed to incorporate the accompaniment parts for the vocals. This lesson is for solo guitar, bringing in the melody lines, as well as some harmony and even background vocals.
  
  It starts with the opening bass line, adds the keyboard fill, then runs through a few verses and choruses with slight variations each time, and ends with a little improve before fading out. It will prove to be quite challenging but should be a lot of fun to tackle, even if you want to work on some of the parts.

• Lesson 2: The Great Gate At Kiev

  Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition entered my teenage world with Emerson, Lake & Palmer's live recording from their early days. I remember buying a copy of the original piano score which has followed me around for years. I recently thought I would work on a solo arrangement of a bit of it. The finale was particularly appropriate for the guitar (well, at least some of it) and here is the result.

  There are a couple different sections, starting with the main theme, which is very accessible to the guitar. It then moves into a slightly spacey series of chords before blasting into a cascading section which includes the main theme in the bass, underneath what are really scale exercises. This part is particularly challenging, and can be omitted, as explained in the lesson.

   

• Lesson 3: Trilogy Solo Guitar Arrangement - ELP, Greg Lake

  I recently posted a lesson on the way Greg Lake accompanies himself now in their classic ballad Trilogy. As it evolved I messed around with the melody and got a few requests to do a solo guitar arrangement.
  
  The song is very free form, as far as the rhythm is concerned, and this lends itself well to playing very freely and with quite a bit of improvisation. It is really just a matter of playing the melody and embellishing it with chord tones in the breaks between notes.
  
  This approach makes the lesson a bit non-specific as far as exactly what to do. It is more suggestions of things to consider and think about. I do not really address the right hand technique much, you just need to “feel” it.

• Lesson 4: Clap - Acoustic Guitar Lesson

  Steve Howe joined Yes in 1970 and significantly changed their direction into the developing progressive rock genre. The transformation was completed in 1971 with the addition of Rick Wakeman and their 4th album Fragile. Steve's contributions to their 3rd album, The Yes Album included his solo instrumental Clap.

  The piece was written quickly around the time of the birth of Steve's son Dylan and pays homage to ragtime guitar, Chet Atkins, and even a quote from Mason Williams' Classical Gas.

  After playing and messing with this piece for about 20 years, I have finally been able to come up with an approach to teaching it to advanced fingerpicking students. Steve plays Clap with a flat pick using the hybrid technique of adding the middle and ring fingers to play many of the notes. I approach this with a thumb pick and 3 fingers, which also lets me strum parts using the fingers. I think this will be more accessible to most students.

  A turning point in my getting a picture of the piece was finding what was almost a treatise on it by Conall Gallagher, published around 2000. His breakdown compared at least 3 separate audio and 5 video recordings, looking at every measure and every little difference. This fabulous doc (all of 39 pages) is included in the attachments for anyone who would really like to do a deep dive into Clap.

• Lesson 5: Mood For A Day - Guitar Lesson

  Mood For A Day is a retro/neo/quasi-classical piece by Steve Howe which first appeared on Yes's landmark album Fragile. It includes many techniques that are very challenging- flamenco strumming, rapid scales and variations, trill-like hammer-ons and pull-offs, and even a trace of romantic expression from the late nineteenth century. It is a veritable smorgasbord of guitar delights, all of which make it a virtuosic endeavor for any guitar player. This lesson is presented in our old drip-feed manner to help simplify and isolate parts, many of which require pyrotechnic chops to be effective.

• Lesson 6: Jerusalem - Solo Guitar Arrangement

  Jerusalem was written in the early 1900s by Hubert Parry, who set the poem 'And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time', by William Blake to a beautiful melody. The song has been an anthem of sorts in the U.K. for over 100 years. It was used in the London Olympics, and was the opening track on Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1973 album, Brain Salad Surgery.

  James Taylor did a short arrangement of it in his bio 'Break Shot', available as an Audible book. That is where this lesson came from and it includes much of James' stylings and sound. It is challenging and the lesson goes into precise details of thinking of every notes' role in the play.

   

• Lesson 7: Vincent Guitar Lesson by Muriel Anderson

  Muriel Anderson has an instrumental arrangement of Don McLean’s *Vincent*that was mostly taught to her by Chet Atkins. On one of her visits to TG Central she sat down with Neil and they went through it together. It is done in Dropped G Tuning, where the 5th and 6th strings are lowered 1 step each (DGDGBE). The tab is available at murielanderson.com. Part 1 is Muriel's Play Through and in Part 2 they work through the verse.

• Lesson 8: Ruby’s Eyes - Tommy Emmanuel - Guitar Lesson

  After a recent test drive on Ruby’s Eyes, I figured it was about time to get to an instrumental piece by Tommy Emmanuel. There are a few big obstacles to playing this song. One is that it never needs to be played note-for-note exactly, it is simply a chord progression with a beautiful melody played over it.
  
  Another is Tommy’s extensive use of using the left thumb to fret notes on the sixth string. The lesson shows alternate ways of playing most of those part, as well as some of the variations you can use to pull the melody out of the chords. You must be comfortable with free-form right hand technique, like we find in James Taylor songs for example, before tacking this piece.

• Lesson 9: Nola Guitar Lesson by Muriel Anderson

  We recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Muriel Anderson and were thrilled that she was gracious enough to put together a couple of short lesson for TG. Here we have her arrangement of Nola, a 1915 novelty piano piece composed by Felix Arndt for his fiancee. This beautiful, ragtime-like tune in 12/8 time has been very popular with guitarists over the years. Muriel's version is done in a G6 or Dropped G Tuning (DGDGBE). There are multiple sections to the song and Muriel's lesson goes over the main section, which reoccurs between all the other sections, like a chorus would with multiple verses. If there is enough interest, we would consider having Neil continue with the other sections somewhere down the line.

• Lesson 10: Franco Mussida – Leonardo’s Dream - PFM - Guitar Lesson

  The guitarist in PFM was Franco Mussida from their start in the 1960s until 2015. He wrote many classically influenced pieces over those years. In 2006 they released Stati Di Imaginazione whick included the beautiful instrumental ballad Il Sogno Di Leonardo (Leonardo’s Dream).
  
  The piece opens with a solo guitar section before heading into more orchestrated parts. In this arrangement I tried to incorporate as much of the original as possible and create a compelling solo version.
  
  It is very slow but may prove to be deceptively difficult in terms of making it flow seamlessly. There are quite a few technical challenges and advanced techniques as well but a patient and diligent approach should prove very rewarding for anyone looking for a challenge.
  
  We continue the lesson on Franco Mussida’s piece Leonardo’s Dream with Section B. The music has been modified since the first post so be sure to download the tab again if you did earlier.

• Lesson 11: God Only Knows – Solo Guitar Arrangement - Beach Boys

  The Beach Boys landmark album Pet Sounds included God Only Knows, a musical masterpiece written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher.
  
  Many years ago I put together this solo arrangement and, after enough requests at TG, figured it was time. I tried to be as accurate as possible to many of the voices and nuances Brian included, which makes for some unusual chord voicings and difficult transitions and stretches but if you take it in small doses I think you’ll enjoy the challenge.
  
  God Only Knows includes a beautiful instrumental interlude that features vocal counterpoint that feels like weaving melodies. I tried to capture a bit of that with the arrangement which creates a couple more unusual chord shapes and finger stretches.
  
  The outro focuses on the last two measures at the top of 17 & 18, which jumps to the coda and cycles over the overlapping voices.
  
  Finally we wrap up with an overview of the arrangement and how the repeats work throughout the song, paying close attention to the instructions outlined throughout the tab.