Bb Blues

Part of my practice regimen is to play extemporaneously – that is, just by ear- over a backing track, and here’s an example of that. Andy Usher’s tracks are just excellent for this kind of thing, and if money’s tight, he has lots of quality tracks that are available for free. You can hear his stuff on YouTube, Patreon and BandCamp. here’s his site: https://www.andyusher.com/ausher-tracks

If you’re interested in playing blues guitar, just reach out! First lesson’s free.

“I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play every day and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it and you need them to hear it.” -James Taylor

Paul2026-04-16T16:18:44-04:00

First Principles

January 16, 2026

First Principles

This article is aimed at a very specific audience- that is, guys who play guitar and want to get better at it. There are a lot of guys like us! If that’s you too, well, you’re in my tribe because that’s what I like to do too.

But here’s the thing. The guy that I’m talking about in my audience wants to get better but he’s not exactly sure how to do that. He keeps going back, over and over to the same stuff that he already knows. He knows it really well! Man, does he know it well! But he’d like to try something different.

Maybe he’s looking at online video or a guitar lesson program or an online teacher or an in-person teacher… but it’s hard to find a good fit. That might be because half of the fun of playing guitar is teaching yourself how to play a tune! And sorry -being told how to do something is not the same as figuring it out for yourself. Teaching yourself how to play is the best, and you know what? I can help you figure out how to do that.

As a guitar student myself, I always thought […]

Paul2026-04-16T16:19:11-04:00

Night In Tunisia

“Night In Tunisia” Dizzy Gillespi, Dm120

“It’s been very important throughout my career that I’ve met all the guys I’ve copied, because at each stage they‚ said: ‘Don’t play like me, play like you.’” – Eric Clapton

Paul2026-04-16T16:19:43-04:00

Teddy Bear’s Picnic

“Teddy Bear’s Picnic”, Bratton/Kenney in C at 75 BPM.

Download the PDF: Teddy Bears’ Picnic

“The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” is a song consisting of a melody written in 1907 by American composer John Walter Bratton, and lyrics added in 1932 by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy. It remains popular in Ireland and the United Kingdom as a children’s song, having been recorded by numerous artists over the decades. Kennedy lived at Staplegrove Elm and is buried in Staplegrove Church, in Taunton, Somerset, England. Local folklore has it that the small wooded area between the church and Staplegrove Scout Hut was the inspiration for his lyrics

Bratton composed and personally copyrighted it in 1907, and then assigned the copyright to M. Witmark & Sons, New York City, who published it later that year as “The Teddy Bears Picnic: Characteristic Two Step”, according to the first page of the published piano score, as well as the orchestral parts Witmark published in an arrangement by Frank Saddler. However, the illustrated sheet music cover gives the title as THE TEDDY BEARS’ PICNIC, with apostrophe on “BEARS” and no genre descriptor. Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy wrote the now familiar lyrics for it in 1932.

After Bratton wrote “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”, however, many people felt that the composer plagiarized portions of the melody. […]

Paul2026-05-02T11:15:51-04:00

Honeysuckle Rose

Honeysuckle rose leadsheet

“Honeysuckle Rose” is a 1929 song composed by Thomas “Fats” Waller with lyrics by Andy Razaf. It was introduced in the 1929 Off-Broadway revue “Load of Coal” at Connie’s Inn as a soft-shoe dance number. Waller’s 1934 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

During a visit to the West Side of Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1928, Waller wrote the song with Razaf at 119 Atkins Avenue in a home that still stands today.

Renditions

Fletcher Henderson (1932)
Fats Waller (1934), (1937) and (1941)
Red Norvo (1935, originally issued on COL 3059-D)
Mildred Bailey (1935)
Count Basie (1937)
Ella Fitzgerald (1963) on Ella and Basie!
Coleman Hawkins, with Benny Carter, Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli and others (1937)
Fats Waller, Bunny Berigan, Dick McDonough and George “Georgia” Wettling, on A Jam Session at Victor (1937)
Earl Hines (1937)
Louis Armstrong (1938), Satch Plays Fats (1955, Columbia Records)
Fats Waller, […]

Paul2026-04-18T13:51:41-04:00

While My Guitar

“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the “White Album”). It was written by George Harrison, the band’s lead guitarist, as an exercise in randomness inspired by the Chinese I Ching. The song conveys his dismay at the world’s unrealised potential for universal love, which he refers to as “the love there that’s sleeping”.

The song also serves as a comment on the disharmony within the Beatles after their return from studying Transcendental Meditation in India in early 1968. This lack of camaraderie was reflected in the band’s initial apathy towards the composition, which Harrison countered by inviting his friend and occasional collaborator, Eric Clapton, to contribute to the recording. Clapton overdubbed a lead guitar part, although he was not formally credited for his contribution.Harrison first recorded it with a sparse backing of acoustic guitar and harmonium – a version that appeared on the 1996 Anthology 3 outtakes compilation and, with the addition of a string arrangement by George Martin, on the Love soundtrack album in 2006. The full group recording was made in September 1968, at which point the song’s folk-based musical arrangement was replaced by a production in the heavy rock style. The recording was one of several collaborations between Harrison and Clapton during the late […]

Paul2026-04-16T16:21:12-04:00

All My Lovin’

PDF chord sheet linked below.

all my lovin

“All My Loving” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, from their second UK album With the Beatles (1963). It was written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney), and produced by George Martin. Though not officially released as a single in the United Kingdom or the United States, the song drew considerable radio airplay, prompting EMI to issue it as the title track of an EP. The song was released as a single in Canada, where it became a number one hit. The Canadian single was imported into the US in enough quantities to peak at number 45 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in April 1964.

Composition

According to journalist Bill Harry, McCartney thought of the lyrics whilst shaving: “I wrote ‘All My Loving’ like a piece of poetry and then, I think, I put a song to it later”. McCartney later told biographer Barry Miles that he wrote the lyrics while on a tour bus and after arriving at the venue he then wrote the music on a piano backstage. He also said “It was the first song [where] I’d ever written the words first. I never wrote words first, it was always some […]

Paul2026-05-02T10:40:22-04:00

Nearness Of You

“Nearness Of You”, Hoagy Carmichael in F at 95 BPM. PDF chord sheet linked below.

Download “Nearness Of You” PDF

“The Nearness of You” is a popular song written in 1937 by Hoagy Carmichael, with lyrics by Ned Washington. Intended for an unproduced Paramount Pictures film titled Romance In The Rough, the studio’s publishing division Famous Music reregistered and published the song three years later in 1940. It was first recorded by Chick Bullock and his Orchestra on Vocalion.

The song was also heard in the later 1940 recording “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, with vocals by Ray Eberle. Later in the 1940s and the early 1950s, many other artists covered the song, including George Shearing, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, Bob Manning, and a duet version by Louis Armstrong with Ella Fitzgerald. James Taylor joined Michael Brecker for a pop/jazz version on Brecker’s 2000 album Nearness of You: The Ballad Book. Two years later, the song closed the Grammy Award–winning album Come Away with Me by Norah Jones.

“Music lives and breathes to tell us who we are and what we face. It is a path […]

Paul2026-04-19T08:41:56-04:00

Thinking In Numbers

Looking for a nifty New Year’s guitar-playing resolution?

Try thinking in numbers!

As a new Year’s resolution, how about adopting a new way of thinking about what you already do? Adopting a numeric system for understanding how to move easily around the neck might be useful for you.

Let’s start with a core pattern that we can play over a chord progression. We can start with (1/5/6/5) played over (1/4/5) as a foundational exercise for numeric thinking.

Key Insights:

We will be using numbers to refer both to the strings (1,2,3,4,5 and 6) and the numeric value of notes in an octave (1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 1). This can be confusing so please be patient.

The guitar’s coursed strings allows for playing the same note in multiple locations, enabling the use of identical numeric patterns in different positions.

The (1 5 6 5) pattern works on string pairs 5-6, 4-5, and 3-4. It requires adjustment on pairs with the B string (2nd string) due to […]

Paul2026-03-09T15:44:36-04:00

Caught somewhere in time

introduction. This piece speaks to our focus on the Em scale, which is the relative minor for G. You can consider this tune to be written in either G or Em, as they both have one sharp.

The G major scale: G. A. B. C. D. E. F#. G
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8/1

If you check the intervals you’ll see that this follows the pattern of WWHWWWH

Now, if we leave the scale as-is and shift the beginning note to the 6th degree (E) something wonderful happens. We are playing the relative minor of the G Major scale, so starting and ending at 6. This is the pattern for playing any scale modally, btw- play the scale, starting and ending on a number other than 1. Here we start on 6 (E) and that gives us the relative minor.

1-2: whole step
2-3: half step
3-4: whole step
4-5: whole step
5-6: half step
6-7: whole step
7-8: whole step

E F# G A B C D E
6. 7. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6

See? All we did was to start counting from 6 instead of one. The intervals are the same. They don’t change, only the note we start on. This is the 6th mode of a major scale, also called the “Aeolian” mode. Very handy for rock music based in classical theory!

Here is the introduction and we’ll look at what’s happening here […]

Paul2026-04-16T16:22:26-04:00

About Paul

First Principles

Renditions

Composition

Try thinking in numbers!