Neil’s Top Strumming Songs Volume 2

Lessons

• Lesson 1: We Can Work It Out - Guitar Lesson

  Many of the Beatles songs make great Campfire songs and We Can Work It Out is today's addition to our library. As simple as many of their tunes are, pretty much every one has some unusual twists and turns that offer great learning opportunities. We Can Work It Out has a very interesting rhythmic change, as well as some chords with unusual bass notes. We even attempt a multi-fret barre at one point.

• Lesson 2: Polly Guitar Lesson

  Kurt Cobain's guitar playing was very basic and he wrote a lot of songs that are accessible to beginners. *Polly* is a great example of just the type of song. It was released in 1991 on their album Nevermind and really just uses a basic set of power chords, although the lesson looks at how Kurt played slightly expanded versions of them. It also includes some ideas about syncopated changes and how to make them smoother.

• Lesson 3: Crazy Mama - J.J. Cale - Guitar Lesson

  J.J. Cale was a struggling songwriter until 1970 when Eric Clapton recorded his tune After Midnight. Shortly after that Cale’s album Naturally was released which included his biggest hit, Crazy Mama. His style is very relaxed and laid back.
  
  Crazy Mama is a simple blues progression with a slightly syncopated instrumental break. This short lesson looks at the riff and keeping the changes smooth. There is no tab or chart but you might even get it just from the Play Through in Part 2.

• Lesson 4: Teach Your Children - Guitar Lesson

  Graham Nash is a master songwriter of tunes that require only some basic guitar techniques but ones that are really fun to play and sing. Teach Your Children is a classic example of this. The song is a 3-chord progression in the key of D, with a step out into a 4th chord in the chorus. A simple country-style strumming pattern is all that is necessary to make this a great song for beginners to sit around the campfire and play with friends.

• Lesson 5: Take Me Home, Country Roads

  This is a basic version of John Denver's classic tune, perfect for beginners.

• Lesson 6: Mr. Bojangles

  Mr. Bojangles, written by Jerry Jeff Walker is a classic American folk- country tune, even though the subject matter and time signature are a bit unusual. It is in 3/4 time and features a descending bass line similar to These Days by Jackson Browne and America by Paul Simon. This is a great lesson for improving the accuracy of hitting individual bass notes as part of a strumming pattern. It has been covered by hundreds of artists, most notably the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Sammy Davis Jr., and even Bob Dylan.

• Lesson 7: American Pie - Guitar Lesson

  *American Pie*was the song that put Don McLean on the map of great songwriters forever. Released in 1971, on his second album, the song tells the story of "The Day The Music Died", along with dozens of pieces of 1960s Americana. The song is a basic strumming one with fairly easy chords. It is just a matter of learning the progression and tying in the lyrics,

• Lesson 8: You Really Got Me

  You Really Got Me was the 1st big hit for the Kinks, just when they were on the verge of being dropped by their record company. Neil considers it one of the 1st, and best examples of 'Caveman Rock'. It uses 2 power chords in a very simple theme that is then repeated at 3 different spots on the neck. This is a great place to start your excursion into sliding power chords.

• Lesson 9: Locomotive Breath

  Locomotive Breath, from Aqualung by Jethro Tull, is a great song to learn to strum using the constant right hand motion technique. You really just need to hit an accented chord on the 1st beat of the measure and then keep a steady flow of eighth notes played percussively (muting the strings). It also gives you a chance to practice barre chords from the A Major shape, one of the most difficult for many people.

• Lesson 10: Mrs. Robinson Guitar Lesson - Simon and Garfunkel

  Mrs. Robinson was originally written for the movie 'The Graduate', starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. Paul Simon later wrote more lyrics and polished the few that he had before they included it on their 4th album, Bookends. This lesson starts with a Campfire Version, then adds the main riff ,a fill and some passing bass notes, before ffinishing up with a flashy instrumental flatpicking arrangement of the intro. The Campfire Version is a level 4, the addition of the riff and such pushes it to a 5 or 6, and the instrumental intro bumps it up into the level 8 range.

• Lesson 11: Wild World - Guitar Lesson

  Cat Stevens made a couple of albums that were not particularly notable, until he found a style and a bit of direction with Mona Bone Jakon in 1970. The follow up, Tea For The Tillerman included Wild World, as well as Father And Son, and really established Cat as a star on the acoustic music scene. This lesson includes a couple of the fills that made this simple song very captivating.

• Lesson 12: Stray Cat Strut - Acoustic Guitar Lesson

  The Stray Cats came on the scene in the early 1980s with a sound that was more 1950s and brought new life to the Rockabilly style that was so popular then. They found better acceptance in the UK than the US before an American record company would talk to them but then had quite a string of hits over the next few years. *Stray Cat Strut*is one of their signature songs, and although Brian Setzer is partial to the electric guitar, it transfers very nicely to the ‘unplugged’ version that Neil does in this lesson. The lesson goes over the rhythm guitar accompaniment to the vocal sections, as well as acoustic versions of all the main leads.

• Lesson 13: Beginnings - Guitar Lesson

  Beginnings is one of a handful of tunes by Chicago that features an acoustic guitar being strummed. It was written by keyboardist Robert Lamm and released in 1969 on their debut album, Chicago Transit Authority. The song uses one main chord shape, AMaj7 that moves through various barre positions on the neck. The main focus of the lesson is to work on different sixteenth-note strumming groups and patterns.

• Lesson 14: Friend Of The Devil

  Jerry Garcia and John Dawson, of New Riders Of The Purple Sage, wrote the music to Friend Of The Devil, and lyrics were added by Robert Hunter. It was released on the Grateful Dead album American Beauty in 1970. Friend Of The Devil is in a simple 4 time but better counted in 2, making it in cut time (2/2). This is mostly due to the quick tempo of the song. The feel is mainly a folk style, although there are definite leanings toward bluegrass, partly due to the addition of the mandolin. It is played in the key of G, and features the descending major scale as the main theme.

• Lesson 15: Question Guitar Lesson

  *Question*, from The Moody Blues album A Question Of Balance, has been an elusive song to many guitar students for years. It was played by Justin Hayward on a 12-string guitar in Open C Tuning (C-G-C-G-C-E), and included a very quick strumming sequence in the first part of the song. The second part was actually a different song until Justin realized they went well together, being in the same tuning. This lesson looks at a way of simplifying the strumming, as well as doubling the speed for the original sound.