Paper Roses

Anita Bryant’s version of “Paper Roses” was originally released in 1960 as a single, backed with “Mixed Emotions” (Carlton 528). Monty Kelly provided the orchestrations. It was the opening track on her 1961 album Hear Anita Bryant In Your Home Tonight! (Carlton STLP 12/127), recorded in “Provocative Stereo.” “Paper Roses” was Bryant’s biggest hit on the Billboard Pop chart, peaking at No. 5 in 1960. Bryant continued to release singles following “Paper Roses”‘ success, and although some reached the Top 40, she never had another hit as big as “Paper Roses.” Tabs, notation and chord diagrams available at https://paulelwood.com. First online lesson is free! Paper roses chords and lyrics

Paul2025-09-29T13:44:17-04:00

In Spite Of Ourselves

In Spite of Ourselves

In Spite of Ourselves is the 13th studio album of John Prine, featuring duets of classic country songs with various well-known female folk and alt-country vocalists, released in 1999.

The album was Prine’s first release since successfully battling throat cancer. The female duet partners include Iris DeMent, Connie Smith, Lucinda Williams, Trisha Yearwood, Melba Montgomery, Emmylou Harris, Dolores Keane, Patty Loveless, and his wife, Fiona Prine. In spite of ourselves chords and lyrics

Paul2025-09-12T12:58:50-04:00

Eb Rhythm Changes

Rhythm Changes
Eb rhythm changes! an excellent exercise to work out your improvisational chops.

Rhythm Changes

The Rhythm changes is a common 32-bar jazz chord progression derived from George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”. The progression is in AABA form, with each A section based on repetitions of the ubiquitous I–vi–ii–V sequence (or variants such as iii–vi–ii–V), and the B section using a circle of fifths sequence based on III⁷–VI⁷–II⁷–V⁷, a progression which is sometimes given passing chords.

This pattern, “one of the most common vehicles for improvisation,” forms the basis of countless (usually uptempo) jazz compositions and was popular with swing-era and bebop musicians. For example, it is the basis of Duke Ellington’s “Cotton Tail” as well as Charlie Christian’s “Seven Come Eleven,” Dizzy Gillespie’s “Salt Peanuts,” and Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-Ning”. The earliest known use of rhythm changes was by Sidney Bechet in his September 15, 1932 recording of “Shag” (two years after the first performance of “I Got Rhythm” on Broadway) with his “New Orleans Feetwarmers” group.

In pop culture, “Meet the Flintstones“, (c. 1960, Curtin/Hanna/Barbera) is based on the rhythm changes, thereby being a contrafact of “I Got Rhythm”.

Playing over rhythm changes is a great way to build your chops and listening skills! Rhythm Changes in Eb

Paul2025-08-22T08:16:43-04:00

Chord Construction Using Modes

Chord construction using modes. The first mode of any major scale is called the Ionian mode; “do re mi fa so la ti do”. We know the intervals for that! They go “whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step to the octave”.

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You can play C Ionian wherever you like, ascending and descending; the chart below shows it in the first position.

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From left to right, here are the notes in sequence, right from one through seven and one as the octave. Ascending and descending, those guys have a solid, dependable interval relationship! That means between 1 and 2 is always going to be a whole step, between 2 and 3 is always going to be a whole step, between 3 and 4 is always going to be a whole step, all the way up to the half-step interval between 7 and 1… but only for one particular mode of the scale, which is the Ionian mode.

Other modes are different in that the intervals between the notes are shifted. However, the note sequence doesn’t change, we just start at a different point. So let’s […]

Paul2025-08-03T20:40:29-04:00

That’s Life!

“That’s Life” is a popular song written by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon, and first recorded in 1963 by Marion Montgomery. The song has an uplifting message that, despite the ups and downs in life, one should not give up but keep positive, because soon one will be “back on top.”

The most famous version is by Frank Sinatra, released on his 1966 album That’s Life. Sinatra recorded the song after hearing an earlier recording of it by O.C. Smith; the song proved successful and reached the #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Following the success of Sinatra’s version, it was subsequently recorded by a number of artists including Aretha Franklin, James Booker, Shirley Bassey, James Brown, Van Morrison, David Lee Roth, Michael Bolton, Lady Gaga, Michael Bublé, Russell Watson, Deana Martin, and Holt McCallany. Sinatra’s version appeared in the 1993 film A Bronx Tale, the 1995 film Casper, the 2019 film Joker and its 2024 sequel Joker: Folie à Deux, the 2004 video game Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, as well as the sixth season finale of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, while a cover by Bono was on the soundtrack of The Good Thief (2002). The song was sung by Manny Delgado (Rico Rodriguez) in the episode “Bad Hair Day” of the television show Modern Family. That’s Life lead sheet in C

Paul2025-08-22T08:19:36-04:00

There can only be one… But it is also eight.
There can only be one… But it is also eight.

There can only be one… But it is also eight.

I’ve been saying that any note can be the “one” note to guitar students for years but it occurred to me recently that if that’s true, then that one note has two functions at the same time! Number theory says that it is the tonic, because that’s what the one note is- the tonic in a sequence of notes that moves up (or down) to its octave. So at the same time, the one note is the tonic for the octave ascending as well as the octave for the descending sequence below it. The same numeric sequence, ascending or descending is available from that first note!

Here’s an example. Play one twice. Go up to flat 3 then down to 1 again. Now down to b7 and continue down to sharp 5 then down to 5…
With a little imagination you can hear the first part of the lick from “7 Nation Army”

You can see how useful it might be to understand the notes as numbers! Shifting that sequence of notes to start at a different one note simply means changing your sequence to another key.

Most guitarists, when we start, tend to think about notes and chords as patterns but I’m beginning to wonder if it might not be more […]

Paul2025-08-22T08:21:51-04:00

Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire is a song written by the American singer-songwriters June Carter and Merle Kilgore. It was originally recorded as “(Love’s) Ring of Fire” by June’s sister, Anita Carter, on her 1962 album Folk Songs Old and New. It was popularized by Carter’s husband, the country singer Johnny Cash, after it appeared on his 1963 compilation album Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash.

Cash’s version became one of his biggest hits, staying at No. 1 on the country chart for seven weeks. It was certified gold by the RIAA on January 21, 2010, and has sold over 1.2 million downloads. It was named the fourth-greatest country song by Country Music Television, while Rolling Stone called it the greatest country song and the 87th-greatest song of all time. In 1999, Cash’s version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Interested in learning this Johnny Cash song? First online lesson’s free!

Book your free guitar lesson join my patrion list!

you can see how the melody can be pulled out of the C and G chords in the first part of the song. Pretty straightforward, but when we get the the “I fell”, start on D and pluck D, then F# then shift to the 5th position for the “In […]

Paul2025-07-18T13:00:31-04:00

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

“Every Rose Has Its Thorn” is a power ballad by American glam metal band Poison. It was released in October 1988 as the third single from Poison’s second album Open Up and Say… Ahh!. The band’s signature song, it is also their only number-one hit in the US, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 24, 1988, for three weeks.

It also charted at number 11 on the Mainstream Rock chart. It was a number 13 hit in the UK. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” was named number 34 on VH1’s “100 Greatest Songs of the 80s”, number 100 on their “100 Greatest Love Songs” and number seven on MTV and VH1 “Top 25 Power Ballads”. Billboard ranked the song number five on their list of “The 10 Best Poison Songs”.

In an interview with VH1’s Behind the Music, Bret Michaels said the inspiration for the song came from a night when he was in a laundromat in Dallas waiting for his clothes to dry, and called his girlfriend on a pay phone. Michaels said he heard a male voice in the background and was devastated; he said he went into the laundromat and wrote “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” as a result.

This video lesson above shows one way to […]

Paul2025-07-17T13:53:28-04:00

Jan Jan

Paul2025-05-20T18:44:56-04:00

The Christmas Song

Home for the holidays? Play The Christmas song.

The PDF available on Patreon has notation, tabs, chord diagrams and lyrics for this song. Download the PDF and follow along with the video to play this as a ‘finger-style’ solo guitar piece. https://www.patreon.com/posts/114637555

You will notice that some of the chords that appear more than once have different diagrams in different parts of the song.Thats because the melody of the song- typically the notes that you’d hear a vocalist sing- are available on a different position on the neck.

The tabs indicate what these notes are and the chord shapes shows you one way to get the melody notes and the chord (harmony) notes at the same time.

In my opinion, finger style guitar playing is perhaps the most satisfying way to play guitar. You don’t need to sing and you don’t need a rhythm or lead instrument because you manage both of those jobs yourself!

If you’re interested in an online lesson for this song you can reserve a session at https://paulelwood.com/booking-calendar. I offer the initial online lesson for free, to see if we are a good fit.

The video song lesson for this song and printable pdf with notation, lyrics, tabs and chord diagrams are available to subscribers to my patreon channel at https://patreon.com/guitarcat at the “free” tier.

There’s […]

Paul2025-07-13T15:39:18-04:00

About Paul

Chord Construction Using Modes

Home for the holidays? Play The Christmas song.

The video song lesson for this song and printable pdf with notation, lyrics, tabs and chord diagrams are available to subscribers to my patreon channel at https://patreon.com/guitarcat at the “free” tier.