Wavin’ flag guitar lesson
wavin flag guitar lesson for part 1. hand-friendly chords.
how to play pink houses part 1
Little Pink Houses John Mellencamp. F,C and G. This is just the first part.
Pink Houses” is a song written and performed by John Cougar Mellencamp. It was released on 23 October 1983 as the second single from his album Uh-Huh. It reached No. 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1984 and No. 15 in Canada. “Pink Houses” was ranked No. 447 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Recorded in a farmhouse in Brownstown, Indiana, the song was inspired when John Mellencamp was driving along an overpass on the way home to Bloomington, Indiana, from Indianapolis International Airport. Mellencamp observed an old black man sitting outside his small pink shotgun house with his cat in his arms, completely unperturbed by the traffic speeding along the highway in his front yard. “He waved, and I waved back,” Mellencamp said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “That’s how ‘Pink Houses’ started.”
Mellencamp has stated many times since the release of “Pink Houses” that he is unhappy with the song’s final verse. At an October 2014 press conference, he stated: “A long time ago, I wrote a song called ‘Pink Houses.’ Now when I hear that song, all I can think is: ‘Why didn’t I do a better job on the last verse?’ If I had written it today, the last verse […]
How to play the Ukrainian National Anthem
Ukrainian National Anthem for guitar with chord shapes and tabs for the melody. Click on the flag for the link. MP3 file below plays a midi file of the score.
Little Wing changes
“Little Wing” is one of Hendrix’s most popular songs and has become a standard, with interpretations recorded by musicians in a variety of styles. It is ranked number 188 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
How to play blues patterns over “little wing” changes. Once you have the chord changes under your hand and some sense of the blues/penta patterns in a couple of positions, the next hump to get over is your phrasing. I like students to start simply with just two or three note phrases that respond to the chord and resolve back to the target note. If this sounds interesting, just reach out- the first online lesson is free!
“To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also. ” -Stravinsky
Come Rain Or Come Shine”
“Come Rain or Come Shine” is a popular music song, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It was written for the Broadway musical St. Louis Woman, which opened on March 30, 1946, and closed after 113 performances.
It became a modest hit during the show’s run, making the pop charts with a Margaret Whiting (Paul Weston and His Orchestra) recording rising to number seventeen, and, shortly after, a Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes recording rising to number twenty-three.
Lead sheet with lyrics and chords
“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” – Confucius
How to play Someone to Watch Over Me
someone to watch over me. A great tune to play fingerstyle and not too hard to get under your hand.
Lead sheet with chords and lyrics for “Someone to Watch Over Me”.
Someone to Watch Over Me from “Nice ‘N Easy” July 1960
“Someone to Watch Over Me” was composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin in 1926 for the Broadway musical Oh, Kay. First recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1946 for his first album the Voice of Frank Sinatra and in 1954 for the film Young at heart.
Sinatra’s popular recordings of the song helped cement the standard slow style, and was notably covered by Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, Sarah Vaughan, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Rickie Lee Jones, Elton John and Amy Winehouse.
Nelson Riddle arranged two lush orchestral versions, one backing Keely Smith (sang with and married to Louis Prima) and the other for Linda Ronstadt which won a Grammy Award. The song was also used prominently in the film Mr. Holland’s Opus
“The song tells me what to play.” – Joe Walsh
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How to play Eyes of the world on uke
how to play eyes of the world on uke. Sounds pretty cool on the uke to me!
How to play Eyes of the World for Ukulele: Here are tabs, lyrics, chords and notation for “Eyes of the World” and chord charts too. The audio file below is a midi representation of the notation in the file linked above. It’s not perfect certainly but it will give us a place to start!
Guitar Lesson: strumming guitar
Strumming guitar is one of the first skills most guitar players start with. No matter what stage we’re at with our playing though, we can all learn to strum more accurately… and more interestingly! Below are some resources you might find helpful. Take a look at the video and print out the two pdf files for your own use. Practice the strumming patterns slowly and once you see how this works, you can easily understand how to strum songs you hear. Or even better, you can make up your own strumming patterns!
Start with the simple concept of “down strums” and “up strums”. In 4/4 time there are four beats per measure, so to start, we only need to count to four over and over again. Practice counting without pausing between any of the numbers and especially between “4” and “1”. So we’ll count “one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four” etc. The thing to avoid is counting “one, two, three, four……. one, two, three, four”. So no pause between any numbers and especially not between four and one.
Next, hold any chord that’s comfortable for you and count while you strum down across the strings. Often we might start with a G chord in the first position, and don’t worry about the 1 string too much- this exercise is more about working the right-hand […]
Keeping a Guitar/Ukulele journal
Guitar/Ukulele journal
Or bass… or whatever you want to keep track of your effort on, really.
One way that I know to stay on top of your practice and tacking in the right direction is to keep a guitar journal. You can use that to track your practice dates, length and frequency. Use it to note any questions you might have that you can bring up later with your teacher or jot down some interesting lyrics or chord changes… It’s pretty valuable to keep notes for yourself about your playing and practicing in one place!
Whether you’re using a loose-leaf binder and 3 hole punch (I can’t believe how archaic that question sounds) or simply keeping notes on your tablet or phone, there’s some real value to tracking and noting your progress!
Here are a couple of pages to get you started, Blank chord sheets and tab sheets for uke and guitar both, a “circle of fifths” sheet and a page on strumming patterns:
“Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.” ― John Erskine
Ripple
How to play Ripple on ukulele… the first part of “Ripple”, anyway.
“Ripple” sounds pretty cool on the uke to me!
You can do this! Just be patient with yourself and go slowly. There’s a tab, video and an audio file of the tablature to follow along with. I would start with just the first phrase- “if my words did glow”- just that one part. Get it so it sounds as nice as you want it.
You’ll notice in the video you can hear two notes at at time which makes the playing sound a little fuller. That is the melody note and a harmony note which is generally just a chord tone! what that means is that we’ve found the melody note in a chord… and in some cases the adjacent melody notes are all in the same chord, which is pretty convenient because your hand is already in the right place.
The MP3 file below is exported from the MuseScore file that made the tab/notation so follow the tab to see exactly what is happening in the audio file. The video file, I took some liberties (and made a few errors). It is a great song though so give it a try!
PDF tabs and notation
“A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.” – Benny Green
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