Paul | Guitar Lessons and Performance - Paul Elwood

Kettle Drum Boogie

Here’s another example of playing MIDI guitar using the MIDIPLUS Piano Engine. MIDIPLUS website is here: https://www.midiplus.com.tw/en/product-detail/PianoEngine/. You can get it from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/MIDIPLUS-PianoEngine-host-sound-module/dp/B09HXQQKGJ

My guitar MIDI setup uses the TriplePlay divided pickup from Fishman https://fishman.com/tripleplay/. I’m very happy with the responsiveness of the MIDI and the various settings you can apply changes to optimize your sound for the way you play. I use primarily fingerstyle technique rather than a plectrum and the settings in the TriplePlay interface will accommodate that, as well as changing the “strength” of the signal out of the divided pickup for each string.

In the General MIDI (GM) standard, kettle drums (timpani) do not have a dedicated, standardized percussion note. Instead, timpani are typically treated as a melodic instrument and assigned to MIDI Note 47 (B2) or mapped chromatically depending on the specific orchestral sound library or synth you are using. In this case, the guitar input and the MIDI sound are both available and mixed to make the timpani a little more guitar-ish.

MIDI for guitar is a ton of fun, and the technology is such these days that you might get away with letting your laptop process the audio file into midi rather than using a dedicated pickup-to-midi like what the Fishman technology offers. Try it out for yourself and see if it fits your style […]

Paul2026-05-25T18:26:39-04:00

MIDI guitar, changes in D

Here’s an example of playing MIDI guitar over changes in D.

This backing track comes from Andy Usher (https://www.andyusher.com/). He has a ton of this stuff available on bandCamp and YouTube, all good and imho, worth spending some time with. Here’s the link to his bandcamp presence: https://aushertracks.bandcamp.com/

My MIDI setup uses the TriplePlay divided pickup from Fishman https://fishman.com/tripleplay/. I’m very happy with the responsiveness of the MIDI and the various settings you can apply changes to optimize your sound for the way you play. I use primarily fingerstyle technique rather than a plectrum and the settings in the TriplePlay interface will accommodate that, as well as changing the “strength” of the signal out of the divided pickup for each string. MIDIPLUS website is here: https://www.midiplus.com.tw/en/product-detail/PianoEngine/.

You can get it from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/MIDIPLUS-PianoEngine-host-sound-module/dp/B09HXQQKGJ

The particular voice that gives the gives the guitar that odd sort of “ethereal” quality comes from the choice of the midi voice. This is a “pad”; there’s no attack to speak of and the “swell” sound becomes louder and more apparent as the guitar note is held longer. To end the midi sound, I just relax or mute the input note on the the guitar.

MIDI for guitar is a ton of fun, and the technology is such these days that you might get away with letting your laptop […]

Paul2026-05-25T11:17:27-04:00

that old black magic

Download the lead sheet PDF

“That Old Black Magic” is a 1942 popular song written by Harold Arlen (music), with the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. They wrote it for the 1942 film Star Spangled Rhythm, when it was sung by Johnny Johnston and danced by Vera Zorina. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1943 but lost out to “You’ll Never Know”.

The song was published in 1942 and has become an often-recorded standard, with versions that include the original single release by Glenn Miller, by the singers Margaret Whiting, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Mercer himself, and others. Mercer wrote the lyrics with Judy Garland in mind. Garland recorded the song for Decca Records in 1942. Mercer recalled wanting to write a song about magic, and while composing, asking Arlen to write more music so the song could go on longer, but that they still wrote the whole song in about three hours. Billy Daniels recorded the song in 1949 and it became his trademark recording.

“The most powerful music is music with purpose.” – Tom Morello

Paul2026-05-24T14:22:00-04:00

The Role of Patience and Consistency

My missus brought this home from her Tai Chi class and I was struck by how well it works if you substitute “learning guitar” for “Tai Chi”. Well, for guitar students, anyway. From an article by Luo Shiwen in Qi magazine:

Throughout the long path of learning Tai Chi, “patience” becomes one of the most reliable companions. Advances rarely come in sudden bursts. Instead, they appear quietly after months of steady practice. A student who returns day after day, every for a short period, begins to notice change in how the body aligns, how the breath settles ad how intuition moves through the structure. These developments cannot be rushed because the nervous system needs time to release old patterns. Muscles that have held tension for decades do not relax because we command them to. They relax because we cultivate new habits.

Consistency, more than intensity allows these lessons to take root. Practicing for a half an hour each day is often more transformative than devoting several hours once a week. The body responds well to frequency. It remembers small, regular corrections, especially when combined with a sincere willingness to relax unnecessary tension. When students approach practice with patience and consistency, they begin to absorb the art in a way that feels natural and balanced. This way of learning mirrors how the early masters trained, even if modern […]

Paul2026-05-23T08:09:52-04:00

Georgia on My Mind

Georgia On My Mind

The chords and lyrics are below, and the video illustrates some fairly easy fingering for the changes on this lovely Hoagy Carmichael song, made famous by the great Ray Charles. Georgia was written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Stuart Gorrell (lyrics). Gorrell wrote the lyrics for Hoagy’s sister, Georgia Carmichael. The lyrics of the song are ambiguous enough to refer either to the state or to a woman named “Georgia”, a fact I only came to realize recently.

Please Enjoy! And if you’re interested in guitar lessons online, give me a shout.

[Intro] C C#dim | Dm7 G (2X)

CM7 | E7 | Am Am7 | D7 Fm
Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through

C Am | Dm G | C C#o | Dm7 G
Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind (on my mind)

CM7 | Bdim E7 | Am Am7 | D7 Fm
I said Georgia, Georgia, a song of you

C A7 | Dm G7 | C6 F Fm | C E7

Comes as sweet and […]

Paul2026-05-27T10:51:49-04:00

Fly Me To The Moon

Fly_Me_To_The_Moon chord changes
How to play fly me to the moon. A great tune made famous by Frank Sinatra.

“Fly Me to the Moon”, originally titled “In Other Words”, is a song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. The first recording of the song was made in 1954 by Kaye Ballard. Frank Sinatra’s 1964 version was closely associated with the Apollo missions to the Moon.

In 1999, the Songwriters Hall of Fame honored “Fly Me to the Moon” by inducting it as a “Towering Song”.

In 1954, when he began to write the song that became “Fly Me to the Moon”, Bart Howard had been pursuing a career in music for over 20 years.He played piano to accompany cabaret singers, but also wrote songs with Cole Porter, his idol, in mind. In response to a publisher’s request for a simpler song, Bart Howard wrote a cabaret ballad which he titled “In Other Words”. A publisher tried to make him change some words from “fly me to the Moon” to “take me to the Moon,” but Howard refused. Many years later Howard commented that “… it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes.”

Enjoy!

“That’s the cool thing about the guitar–there’s always more to learn.” – Jim Heath

[…]

Paul2026-05-20T09:10:48-04:00

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.

Paul2026-05-13T11:40:52-04:00

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

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Summertime