John Renbourn & Friends

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Lord Franklin

  Lord Franklin is an English ballad about the doomed mission of John Franklin trying to navigate the Northwest Passage in the 1840s. There are many versions and this one is based on the way John Renbourn did it with Pentangle on their Cruel Sister album, as well as some additions and modifications John brought to it over the next 40 years.

  The lesson goes into the interesting chord shapes and sounds John got by using the top two strings (E and B) as droning notes over most of the chords. You should have some experience with alternate bass picking patterns before tackling this tune.

• Lesson 2: Snap A Little Owl

  Snap A Little Owl was the opening cut on the first album John Renbourn made with Stefan Grossman in 1978. This lesson looks at Stefan's part, written by John, which already sounds like two guitars as there is a walking bass line underneath a jazzy melody. It is quite challenging to keep both part flowing but a lot of fun to play.

  
  It was the first song Neil and John played together when he did a workshop at Neil's store in Los Gatos in 1998. 

• Lesson 3: The Earle Of Salisbury

  The Earle Of Salisbury is a Pavane by William Byrd around 1612. It was written for the keyboard of the day, the virginal and dedicated to Robert Cecil, an associate of King James I. This solo guitar arrangement was done by John Renbourn and was the opening piece on his 1968 album Sir John Alot...

  This stately piece is quite challenging for guitar players as there are many measures that include three independent voices, each of which must be sustained as if they were being played by separate instruments. We go over some fingering options but pay closes attention to the length of every note. The entire tune is only 16 measures long and moves slowly, but don't let that fool you into thinking it should be easy.

• Lesson 4: Judy

  Judy is a classic guitar instrumental from John Renbourn's debut album, released in 1965. It is 3 short sections that cover a range of techniques and textures. It was modeled after some of the ideas in Davey Graham's Anji and is representative of what many English guitarists were doing in the mid 1960s.

• Lesson 5: Bicycle Tune

  John Renbourn’s 1976 solo guitar album The Hermit is a masterpiece of instrumental playing that is essential listening for every guitarist. Bicycle Tune is a short, 4-part piece done in lute tuning (E-A-D-F#-B-E).
  
  Each section gets a little more difficult than the previous one so I encourage students to put a lot of time into them individually before moving onto the next.
  
  Section A is simply a 7-beat phrase played a few times but it is very challenging from a sustaining angle, making each note ring as long as possible as voices overlap.
  
  Section B includes a couple unusual fingerings so be sure to check the notation for those. It also introduces a hinge barre in the last measure, which is also used in upcoming sections.
  
  Section C includes quite a few slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, as well as an unusual technique of adjusting the placement of a finger after you’ve played the note to make room for the following one. It also includes the same hinge barre ending as Section B.
  
  Section D of Bicycle Tune brings in a few more new moves and techniques, and a couple barres that are hard to get clear, before wrapping up with an ending similar to earlier sections.
  
  The last two parts include a walk through of things to think about as you work through the arrangement, as well as a complete play through demonstrating some of the ideas.

• Lesson 6: Sandwood Down To Kyle

  Sandwood Down To Kyle is a ballad written by Dave Goulder and popularized by John Renbourn whose arrangement first appeared on his Ship Of Fools album in 1988. The tune is played in DADGAD, a tuning first made popular by John's contemporary English guitarist Davy Graham.

  A bonus added to this lesson, for a limited time, is the audio recording from Neil's concert with John Renbourn in 1999. This was the first in a series Neil did there annually, each year sharing the stage with some of his favorite musicians. Later ones included Al Stewart, Laurence Juber and Keola Beamer.

• Lesson 7: Cruel Sister

  Cruel Sister is the title tune from Pentangle's fourth album, released in 1970. It is a traditional English Ballad with the usual jealousy, murder and supernatural themes. There are dozens of renditions of the story, also known as The Two Sisters, but Pentangle's is one of the best known.

  Their arrangement featured Jacqui McShee's haunting vocals over John's fingerpicking guitar accompaniment, as well as an overdubbed sitar part.

  This lesson breaks down Renbourn's picking, which is fairly straightforward through the verse, but gets more involved in a short refrain, as well as an occasional instrumental interlude.

• Lesson 8: Bermuda Triangle Exit

  This instrumental from the first duet album by Stefan Grossman and John Renbourn has been a staple of my teaching since it came out, 35 years ago. It is a bluesy, ragtime, swing tune that features a chromatic, descending bass line in one section, a simple progression with a catchy melody in the second, and a lot of percussive effects in the third. Those parts are book ended with an Intro and Outro that have a couple of their own challenges. It also lends itself to a bit of improvisation.

• Lesson 9: Angi

  After many years of wrestling with the best way to approach a lesson on Davey Graham’s classic acoustic masterpiece Angi, I finally found a path that I think will work.
  
  In this lesson we start at the beginning, the way Davey (Davy at the time) recorded it on his 1961 EP with Alexis Korner, 3/4 A.D.
  
  Most people play this with lots of variations and improvising but this lesson starts with the basic techniques needed to play the three sections Davey laid out, all of which are pretty basic. Some of the challenges include the pounding, muted bass, a la Big Bill Broonzy, and the syncopation in Section C, where it is very easy to lose track of the beats.

• Lesson 10: Black Waterside

  Black Waterside is a traditional ballad made famous by the early English folkies in London in the early 1960s. Bert Jansch's arrangement is the most popular with fingerstyle guitarists. His is done in Dropped D Tuning and includes many embellishments and ornaments that can be challenging.

• Lesson 11: Ladye Nothinge’s Toye Puffe

  Ladye Nothinge’s Toye Puffe is a great example of modern counterpoint writing for acoustic guitar.
  
  The piece shows John Renbourn’s brilliance as a composer, as well as his mastery of the guitar. The lesson is broken down into manageable chunks and today we start with the first 24 measures.
  
  The second section starts with a slide up to the seventh fret and includes some of the trickier connections, particularly the jump to the barre at the seventh and holding down the F# in measure 31. We also look at the Coda, which is just a little different than measure 31.
  
  This short segment starts of easily but has a big stretch with some hard to sustain notes at the end.
  
  Part 5 looks at the last measures of the song, which include some tricky barres and partial barres turning into full ones.
  
  Part 6 contains some random and closing thoughts.