Paul | Guitar Lessons and Performance - Paul Elwood

My Favorite Things

Download the my favorite things chart

“My Favorite Things” is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music.

In the original Broadway production, the song was introduced by Mary Martin playing Maria and Patricia Neway playing Mother Abbess. Julie Andrews first performed the song in a 1961 Christmas special for The Garry Moore Show, recording it again when she starred as Maria in the 1965 film adaptation of the musical.

Many of the favorite things evoke winter time imagery including warm mittens, packages, sleigh bells, snowflakes, and silver white winters. The song’s cozy lyrics inspired its adoption as a staple of the holiday season, significantly bolstered by the movie’s popularity.

This version for solo guitar is in Em. Refer to the tab/chord/notation/lyrics sheet at https://www.paulelwood.com/my-favorite-things The first part of the lesson talks about Em as the “relative minor” key of G so if you want to skip directly to the song lesson, that starts at about 2:38. The mp3 on the web page is the midi output from musescore of the notation so that may be helpful for you too.

The movie version of the song was ranked number 64 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs, a 2004 survey of top tunes in American cinema.

“How is it that music can, without words, evoke our laughter, our fears, our highest aspirations?” […]

Paul2026-05-18T15:49:32-04:00

Stars Fell on Alabama

Stars Fell On Alabama

iReal backing track in the audio player and you can download the chord chart DF here.

Video of my own treatment of playing over the changes below.

The title of the song appears to have been borrowed from the title of the 1934 book of the same name by Carl Carmer. It refers to a spectacular occurrence of the Leonid meteor shower that was observed in Alabama in November 1833, “the night the stars fell.” As reported by the Florence Gazette: “[There were] thousands of luminous bodies shooting across the firmament in every direction. There was little wind and not a trace of clouds, and the meteors succeeded each other in quick succession.”

One of the earliest popular recordings of “Stars Fell on Alabama” was by the Guy Lombardo Orchestra; Guy Lombardo’s brother Carmen performed the vocals. Recorded on August 27, 1934, it was issued by Decca Records as catalog number 104. Richard Himber and His Ritz-Carlton Orchestra (vocal by Joey Nash) also had some success with the song in 1934.

The song has been recorded by over 100 artists. Among them are: Al Bowlly; Bing Crosby; Lee Wiley;

Paul2026-05-15T17:29:04-04:00

Summertime

summertime

Deb and I went with some friends to see “Porgy and Bess” last weekend at the Ritz in Haddon Township. what a great show! I’ve always loved Gershwin music and “Summertime” has been in the repertoire for quite a while. A great tune! Here’s a version I like to do.

Here’s a version with the vocal melody rather than instrumental. Same key.

Paul2026-07-14T10:14:49-04:00

Hot Dog

big mac (hound dog)

Here’s a fun little 1/4/5 tune I use sometimes to introduce guitar students to the 12 bar blues. We can call it “1/4/5” because it uses the first, fourth and fifth chords in a key. In this case, we are in the key of E, so E is 1, A is 4 and B is 5.

That only makes sense of course if you can see how the E major scale is spelled. Following the pattern of whole and half steps in a major scale (W/W/H/W/W/W/H) from E we get: E | F#| G#| A | B | C# | D# | E . E is one, F# is two, and so on. 1,4 and 5 in E are E, A and B and so those are the chords that fit our 1/4/5 pattern in E.

The cool thing is, if you know what numbers you are playing you can easily move them to a different key! This 1/4/5 pattern in the key of C, for instance is C, F and G, or 1/4/5. C major scale is spelled C | D | E | F | G | A | B | C . C is one, D is two and so on; 1/4/5 in C will be C, F and G.

The […]

Paul2026-05-11T11:43:22-04:00

Across the Alley (from the Alamo)

Across the ally from the alamo- backing track, example video, history, audio file and pdf sheet of chord changes

Paul2026-05-09T17:11:07-04:00

Margaritaville

Margaritaville chords and lyrics

How to play margaritaville- a well-known parrothead tune. This part 1 lesson is for solo guitar fingerstyle or voice accompaniment. A great tune, with a cool, identifiable and easily playable lick

Interested in learning how to play margaritaville? This video may help. “Margaritaville” is a 1977 song by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett from the album Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes. This song was written about a drink Buffett discovered at Lung’s Cocina del Sur restaurant (where High 5 is located today) at 2700 W. Anderson Lane in Austin, Texas, and the first huge surge of tourists who descended on Key West, Florida, around that time. He wrote most of the song one night at a friend’s house in Austin, and finished it while spending time in Key West. In the United States “Margaritaville” reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and went to number one on the Easy Listening chart, also peaking at No. 13 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Billboard ranked it number 14 on its 1977 Pop Singles year-end chart. It remains Buffett’s highest charting solo single.

Named for the cocktail margarita, with lyrics reflecting a laid-back lifestyle in a tropical climate, “Margaritaville” […]

Paul2026-05-09T12:45:47-04:00

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Leaves for two guitars

Autumn Leaves chart

Autumn Leaves chart with bass line

“Autumn Leaves” is a popular song and jazz standard composed by Joseph Kosma in 1945 with original lyrics by Jacques Prévert in French (original French title: “Les Feuilles mortes”), and later by Johnny Mercer in English. An instrumental version by pianist Roger Williams was a number one best-seller in the US Billboard charts of 1955.

Kosma was a native of Hungary who was introduced to Prévert in Paris. They collaborated on the song Les Feuilles mortes (“The Dead Leaves”) for the 1946 film Les Portes de la nuit (Gates of the Night) where it was sung by Irène Joachim and Yves Montand. The poem was published, after the death of Jacques Prévert, in the book “Soleil de Nuit” in 1980. Kosma was influenced by a piece of ballet music, “Rendez-vous” written for Roland Petit, performed in Paris at the end of the Second World War, large parts of the melodies are exactly the same, which was itself borrowed partially from “Poème d’octobre” by Jules Massenet. The first commercial recordings of “Les Feuilles mortes” were released in 1950, by Cora Vaucaire and by Yves Montand. Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyric and gave it the title “Autumn Leaves”.

The song is in AABC […]

Paul2026-06-19T12:38:49-04:00

Scotch and Soda

How to play scotch and soda on guitar, A stand-up member of the great american song book with a mysterious past. Lead sheet here

This great Kingston Trio song “Scotch and Soda” was discovered by the Trio through the parents of the baseball player Tom Seaver, who had first heard it in a hotel piano lounge in 1932 when on their honeymoon in Phoenix, Arizona. They liked it so much that they had the piano player write it down for them so it would be “their song.” One member of the trio (Dave Guard) was dating Seaver’s older sister (Katie) at that time, and heard the song on a visit to the Seaver home. Although it is credited to Guard (he had it copyrighted in his name on March 30, 1959), the trio never discovered the real songwriter’s name, though they searched for years.

Here’s Scotch and Soda by the Kingston Trio:

“To be creative and spontaneous, you have to live with imperfection.” – John Abercrombie

Paul2026-06-24T06:41:22-04:00

Honey Don’t

Honey Dont

“Honey Don’t” is a song written by Carl Perkins, originally released on January 1, 1956 as the B-side of the “Blue Suede Shoes” single, Sun 234. Both songs became rockabilly classics. Bill Dahl of Allmusic praised the song saying, “‘Honey Don’t’ actually outclasses its more celebrated platter-mate in some ways.” It has been covered by more than 20 other artists, including the Beatles, Ronnie Hawkins and Johnny Rivers. The song has appeared in films such as The Prince of Tides, Diner, Perfect Sisters and Honey Don’t!

According to David McGee, author of Go, Cat, Go! The Life and Times of Carl Perkins, the King of Rockabilly, Carl Perkins first brought the song to a rehearsal with his band which at the time comprised the Perkins brothers and W. S. Holland:

Carl Perkins – lead guitar and vocals
Jay Perkins – acoustic guitar and backing vocals
Clayton Perkins – double bass
W. S. Holland – drums

When Carl first played the song to Jay Perkins, Jay protested what sounded to him like an odd chord choice, going to a C7 chord after the E instead of the natural blues progression choice of A. At first, Jay refused to go along, but Carl convinced him it was something different, and today the chord choice is one of the most interesting aspects of the song.

Perkins and […]

Paul2026-06-02T16:30:09-04:00

How to play “Sloop John B” for solo guitar

Lyrics and chords

Tab, lyrics and notation
How to play “Sloop John B” for solo guitar

Some of the chord shapes here you can see are different voicings for the same chord. The chord patterns in the lead sheet here will help you see some alternate voicings for your chords.

“Sloop John B” (originally published as “The John B. Sails”) is a Bahamian folk song from Nassau. A transcription by Richard Le Gallienne was published in 1916, and a version was included in Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag in 1927. Since the early 1950s there have been many recordings of the song with variant titles including “I Want to Go Home” and “Wreck of the John B”.

The 1966 folk rock adaptation by the Beach Boys was produced and arranged by bandleader Brian Wilson and served as the lead single from their 11th studio album, Pet Sounds. The song peaked at number three in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, number two in the UK, and number one in several other countries. It remains one of the group’s most successful recordings of their mid-1960s period, containing an elaborate a cappella vocal section not found in other pop music of the era.

In 2011, the Beach Boys’ version of “Sloop John B” […]

Paul2026-05-04T08:14:20-04:00

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Summertime