Wildwood Flower -April 2023 Patreon

Bluegrass classic by the Carter family.

Post features audio jam tracks & video for play-along.

Also a new feature from an app called Strum Machine, that gives a chord chart for the tune and an in-rhythm audio of the chord progressions.

Below is the link to the video on my YouTube. It's just 1 rep. But you can loop the video keep repeating thru the mini-player function:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP5cl8uOnHs&list=PLgbH3RzNEUKWw98-1CL33hE83nPe178k9

Here's the link to the full Patreon post:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/wildwood-flower-82077045

This unit used the arrangements in Steve Kaufman's 'Bluegrass Instrumentals' Band in a Book series. Highly recommend for fairly easy to work up ensembles. Also great for family practicing.

Be thou my Vision - final March Patreon post

This beautiful hymn is based on an Irish folk tune, Banks of the Bann.'

 The sacred lyrics are old enough. There are also original folk lyrics.

Regardless of how you know this tune, it's a great one to add to your repertoire.

I used an arrangement in drop D tuning for this study unit.

Patreon post features links and attachments for: audio jam tracks for playing along. short technique videos. video fingerstyle solo, tips on chording along with it. Link below:

Be thou my vision lesson on Patreon

Kesh Jig - Patreon Post, March 2023

Mid-March Patreon Post is up. 

Kesh Jig,  to give you a tune for St. Patrick's (month).

This is from a series of books by Hal Leonard that has parts for 3 guitars. (There are more books in the series - Beatles, Bach, more.)

The post has the main tune you can strum along with, also tips on chording. It's in F major which has Bflat as the 4th, so you can't really avoid it.

There are some technique videos. Also chord maps, including for uke (which handles F major easier than guitar tbh).

Here's the link to the Patreon:

KESH JIG

Harfoot Song YT post explainer

  

Couple of explanatory notes about this arrangement/production.

As discussed in MY PATREON POST  on this, the Harfoot Song is a working song.

That means it comes from the fine tradition of music that helps people to accomplish a tedious or physical task. Think sea shanties that help sailors haul ropes. Or I'm picturing a film doc I saw once of women felting cloth singing together in Gaelic.

In 'Rings of Power,' Harfoot Nori sings this while she pulls the family's belongings in a hand cart on their  migration.

She's going thru a lot of exertion to pull it, so her breathing is irregular - physical labour is baked into the song.

So try not to rush it - it should go slow.

Also it's a cappella. One small voice travelling into the unknown.

Applied to an instrument, it makes sense for it to be a small portable one. Think  of the violins settlers brought to the New World a la movie 'Red Violin.' Or mandolin. Small guitar could work. Ukulele works for size. It looks like uses were based on a small Portuguese proto-guitar. Small folk instruments could also work, like wooden flute or recorder.

(*This tune adapts well to uke for strumming, in the sense that it doesn't need fully barred chords.)

The song is long, the way a lot of shanties are with multiple verses. But it can get tedious to play on its own. So I made the 3 verses a little different for a guitar solo. V1 is straight up, V2 is in lower register, V3 has trills, lightening the tune as the day's labours reach an end. 

This piece ends up being more of a solo version.

Why Cathedral effect? The lyrics that first stuck with me were: 'My legs are so short and the way is so long.' Cathedral, which is an effect found in iMovie, gave the small voice in big universe I wanted. 

The visual filter also comes from iMovie - 'Dreamy.' The video shot in my home studio in 2023 just didn't work. I felt the Dreamy filter gave the idea of how the impulse to migrate comes from deep cultural memory.

The tune is in Bb major. So you have to practice your chording in these barred chords to strum along.

Recorded on a Denver 3/4 classical guitar. 

If you want to dig deeper into this tune, I tons more support files in the Patreon above - slower audio jam tracks without the effects, short how- to videos, sheet music marked up for guitar, more.

I've been trying to post a freebie element from each Patreon strudy. This is it!

Here's the link to it on YouTube: Harfoot Song on YouTube, LTG

Harfoot Song - Patreon post Feb 2023

Mar 3 is basically Feb 31, right?!

Finally got around to developing a lesson on Nori's song, 'This Wandering Day,' from the Rings of Power series on Amazon, prequel to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Song composed by Bear McCreary.

There's sheet music available out there for piano with guitar chords and piano melody. But not specifically for guitar. Or that break down strum, fingerings etc. for guitar.

My Patreon study has links to sheet music marked up for guitar, audio strum & melody jam tracks, short demo videos for guitar and soprano uke.

Also the usual performance notes, tips and list of gear, apps.

One thing I discovered while working this up is that the chord fingerings in this Bb major key signature is probably easier on uke than on guitar. 

The background on this song is that it's a working song to provide motivation for these tiny denizens of 2nd age Middle Earth, progenitors of the Hobbits, for loading up their belongings & migrating by push or pull cart. So a small portable instrument like a uke works well.  Even tho the song is an a cappella solo, for some reason I'm hearing a small ukulele orchestra in my head. Maybe a few around a Harfoot campfire at end of a travel day. Or perhaps a tribute in later generations to the endurance of their ancestors.

Here's the link to the Patreon post: 

Harfoot Song lesson, LTG Patreon

I've put a stylized variation up on YouTube as a playalong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGOxPUnl7W0&t=3s

Diy strap button hack - no drilling required

Guys - here's an idea for a way to attach a guitar strap if your guitar doesn't have a strap button at the base. Command hooks, the kind for apartment walls that come unstuck easily & don't leave a mark, have a product called a 'crystal hook.' It's basically a clear plastic faceted knob.

So, yep, attach the Command knob to the bottom of your guitar & voila, strap button, no drilling or trip to luthier.  $8 amzn. 

You don't have to do a lot of gigging on stage to get value from a strap. A strap will perform the function of holding or stabilizing the guitar so that your left hand only has one job left, which is moving around the neck, either up and down frets or across strings.

Remember with Command hooks, you get more sticking power if you let them sit for a while before putting weight or stress on them. I left mine over night.

The knob was big for the slot on my strap, so I had to cut the slot deeper.

Also the leather (or faux leather, not sure) isn't soft. So I crushed and bent it quite a bit to make it more flexible.

I put a lot of pressure on the knob to get it thru the slot, so it did initially come off. Also there was a lot of packing tape glue on my guitar from attaching my classical guitar pickup. 

Should have done it right the first time anyway. I really went after the glue with  some Goo-Gone to give a cleaner surface to adhere to. 

I did place the knob in a way that leaves room to re-attached the pickup when needed.

I also discovered thru this that it's maybe best to get the knob thru the slot first, and then adhere the knob base with strap already on it to the guitar as a second step.

My poor old reliable Denver classic 4/4 ends up being a guinea pig for a lot of my kooky adaptive ideas. But I think this is a good workaround to suggest to a student with a not super expensive guitar. No harm, lots of advantage.

Here's a little ALBUM OF PICS. Also shows is the quick release strap mechanism I added. (It's pretty cheap too- about $15 amzn.)

Update on Thrawn Lesson - new fingerings

I went over the fingerings from my ORIGINAL POSTING of  General Thrawn's theme from the Star Wars universe with student who requested this tune. The fingering up in fret 18 didn't work for him. 

So I've revisited, added some new fingering charts & a slowmo demo video. JPGs sheet music plus link to video found here

Personally I prefer locking on to one string vs introducing string crossings.  But maybe there's an advantage for new learners in prioritizing close finger placements.

The original tabs i found showed the frets 18>10 sequence (Bar 44) on string 1. So that's high Bb note to D note (2 ledger lines above staff). My previous instruction was to anchor the sequence on the D note on String 2, Fret 15.  He felt Frets 18: 15 was too hard to get fingers around.

The second way is to use String 1 as anchor, slide it up from 17>18, and place index on Fret 19 of String 3 to play the D. That only gives a 2 fret spread, and a minimal difference in string spacing between String 2 vs  3.

Taking another look at this has given me a chance to refine the closing sequence at Bar 49. Original tabs show all on String 1, 10>3,6>11,10>3,6>11, 10,9, 3-3. 

Ok, so 3 & 6 are a G note and Bb note (1 ledger line above staff). 10 is D note, 2 ledger lines. We know that G note  is Fr 12, Str 3, and Bb is Fr 11, Str 2. That let's make a sort of squeezed C chord formation over the 3 high strings. 

After playing the Bb, flatten the middle finger to catch Fr 11 on Str 1 for the D# note, which is the Tab 11.

Then you might as well play the  final descending line as written in the Tabs. You need to move to a C# for Tab 9, which is a simple slide down of 1 fret.  Then just keep going down to the Bb & G notes on Str 1. The 3-3 formation comes pretty easily as a 1st position fingering, so just keep as is.

Here's the DEMO VIDEO (thumbnail at left). I've tried to find an angle that shows left & right hands. Slow tempo, but actually the theme is super slow any way.