Paul | Guitar Lessons and Performance - Paul Elwood

Cry Me a River

Arthur Hamilton later said of the song: “I had never heard the phrase. I just liked the combination of words… Instead of ‘Eat your heart out’ or ‘I’ll get even with you,’ it sounded like a good, smart retort to somebody who had hurt your feelings or broken your heart.” He was initially concerned that listeners would hear a reference to the Crimea, rather than “..cry me a…”, but said that “..sitting down and playing the melody and coming up with lyrics made it a nonissue.”

A bluesy jazz ballad, “Cry Me a River” was originally written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in the 1920s-set film Pete Kelly’s Blues (released 1955). According to Hamilton, he and Julie London had been high school classmates, and she contacted him on behalf of her husband, Jack Webb, who was the film’s director and was looking for new songs for its soundtrack. After the song was dropped from the film, Fitzgerald first released her version on Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie! in 1961. The song was also offered to Peggy King, but Columbia Records A&R chief Mitch Miller objected to the word “plebeian” in the lyric.

The song’s first release was by actress and singer Julie […]

Paul2026-07-27T13:38:22-04:00

It All Depends On You

it all depends on you chart

“It All Depends on You” is a 1926 popular song with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Buddy G. DeSylva and Lew Brown. The song, written for the musical Big Boy, was published in 1926. It was featured in the hit 1928 Warner Bros. film The Singing Fool, starring Al Jolson, Betty Bronson and Josephine Dunn, and directed by Lloyd Bacon. This is a lovely Great American Songbook tune to learn and it’s not too difficult to get under your hand.

“Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” – Leonard Bernstein

Paul2026-07-01T19:27:05-04:00

Fields of Athenry

Fields_of_Athenry

“The Fields of Athenry” is a song written in 1979 by Pete St John in the style of an Irish folk ballad. Set during the Great Famine of the 1840s, the lyrics feature a fictional man from near Athenry in County Galway, who stole food for his starving family and has been sentenced to transportation to the Australian penal colony at Botany Bay. It has become a widely known, popular anthem for Irish sports supporters.

“The Fields of Athenry” was written in 1979 by Pete St John, who stated he heard a story about a young man from the Athenry area who had been caught stealing grain to feed his family during the Irish famine years, and was deported to Australia. A claim was made in 1996 that a broadsheet ballad published in the 1880s had similar words; however, the folklorist and researcher John Moulden found no basis to this claim, and Pete St. John stated that he wrote the words as well as the music.

In 1979, the song was recorded by Danny Doyle, reaching the top ten in the Irish Singles Chart. The song charted again in 1982 for Barleycorn, reaching […]

Paul2026-07-20T14:36:04-04:00

parts of the guitar

Parts of the guitar

There are a lot of variations on the names of the parts of the guitar! Basically though, from the top to the bottom:

the headstock is where one end of the strings terminate, wrapped around
tuning pegs which are rotated by
“tuners”. The headstock is attached to the
neck and right where the strings pass over that spot is the
nut– usually a white piece of material with notches that the strings fit in. The neck is attached to the
body and that lovely curve where it flares out at the bottom is called the
heel. On the front of the neck is a
fingerboard and that is divided into
frets which are separated by
fret wires. On the face of the fingerboard and the side of the neck are
fret markers– visual cues to orient the guitarist’s hand position. On the front of the body of the guitar is the
soundboard (or topboard). That has a big opening called a
sound hole that the strings pass over. […]

Paul2026-07-22T14:26:27-04:00

Tangerine

“Tangerine” is a folk rock song by the English band Led Zeppelin. Recorded in 1970, it is included on the second, more acoustic-oriented side of Led Zeppelin III (1970). The plaintive ballad reflects on lost love and features strummed acoustic guitar rhythm with pedal steel guitar.

The Yardbirds, with guitarist Jimmy Page, recorded an early version of the song in 1968, titled “Knowing That I’m Losing You”. When it was released on the Page-produced 2017 album Yardbirds ’68, Keith Relf’s vocal was left out. “Tangerine” has been performed in concert by Led Zeppelin at different points in their career and has been recorded by other musicians.

Background
“Tangerine” dates back to Page’s time as lead guitarist with the Yardbirds. In April 1968, the group recorded demos for several songs at the Columbia Studios in New York City. Page biographer George Case notes that “Knowing That I’m Losing You” is very similar to “Tangerine” and suggests that Jackie DeShannon inspired the tune. Recordings from these sessions (with producer Manny Kellem) and the concert performance later used for Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page were rejected for release at the time,[9] but were issued in 2017 on the Yardbirds ’68 compilation album produced by Page. While the demo recorded by the Yardbirds featured a vocal by Keith Relf, the 2017 […]

Paul2026-07-22T18:30:40-04:00

Dream Dream Dream

Download the PDF: Dream Dream Dream

The best-known version was recorded by the Everly Brothers at RCA Studios Nashville and released as a single in April 1958. It was recorded by them in only two live takes on March 6, 1958, and features Chet Atkins on guitar. It was the only single ever to be at number one on all of the Billboard singles charts simultaneously. On May 12, 1958, it became number one on the “Best Sellers in Stores” chart, then it reached number one on the “Most played by Jockeys” and “Top 100” charts on May 19, 1958, and remained at the top on each chart for four, five, and three weeks, respectively. With the August 1958 introduction of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the song ended the year at number two. “All I Have to Do Is Dream” also hit number one on the rhythm and blues chart, and became the Everly Brothers’ third chart topper on the country chart. The Everly Brothers briefly returned to the Hot 100 in 1961 with this song.

Outside the United States, “All I Have to Do Is Dream” had massive success in various countries, most notably the United Kingdom, where it topped the UK’s New Musical Express chart in June 1958 and remained there for seven weeks (including one week […]

Paul2026-07-21T09:22:24-04:00

When I Fall In Love

When I Fall In Love

“When I Fall in Love” is a popular song written by Victor Young (music) and Edward Heyman (lyrics). It was introduced in Howard Hughes‘ final film, One Minute to Zero, as an instrumental titled “Theme from One Minute to Zero”. Jeri Southern recorded the first vocal version, released in April 1952, with Young handling the arrangement and conducting duties. The song went on to become a standard, recorded by many artists; the first hit version was sung by Doris Day and released in July 1952.

Day’s recording was made on June 5, 1952. It was issued by Columbia Records as catalog number 39786, backed with “Take Me in Your Arms”. The single reached number 20 on the Billboard chart. A 1993 duet version by Celine Dion and Clive Griffin, recorded for the film Sleepless in Seattle, brought the song renewed international attention and won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). A 1996 recording by Natalie Cole, performed as a duet with her father Nat King Cole using vocals from his 1956 version, won two awards at the 39th Annual Grammy Awards: Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and Best Instrumental Arrangement with Accompanying Vocal(s).

“Success is nothing more than […]

Paul2026-07-21T09:21:31-04:00

How to play “Yesterday”

download the pdf file with notation, chord charts, lyrics and tabs Yesterday-tabs

Download tabs, chords and lyrics for Yesterday

“Yesterday” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first released on the album Help! in August 1965, except in the United States, where it was issued as a single in September. The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It subsequently appeared on the UK EP Yesterday in March 1966 and made its US album debut on Yesterday and Today, in June 1966.

McCartney’s vocal and acoustic guitar, together with a string quartet, was essentially the band’s first solo performance. It remains popular today and, with 2,200 cover versions, is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. “Yesterday” was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century.

“Music — what a powerful […]

Paul2026-06-29T15:43:22-04:00

Kettle Drum Boogie

Here’s an example of MIDI guitar using the MIDIPLUS Piano Engine and Fishman Triple-Play MIDI guitar divided pickup. 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 pick 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 separately, which is handy for balancing the volume of struck notes somewhat.

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 […]

Paul2026-07-19T08:27:36-04:00

Pennsylvania 6-5000

How to play “Pennsylvania 6-5000” A fun tune and not too hard to get under your hand.

Pennsylvania 65000 chord chart- iReal Pro

Pennsylvania 6-5000 chord lyrics

The song became a jazz and big band standard also recorded by the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland and Martha Raye in a duet, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Jimmy Mundy and His Orchestra (1959), Louise Gold, Kathy Miller, Martin Brushane Big Band, the Blue Moon Big Band (1999), in a 1976 Carol Burnett Show episode in a tribute to Glenn Miller, Syd Lawrence, Michael Maxwell and His Orchestra, Richard Hunt and Jerry Nelson (Bobby Benson and the Baby Band) in The Muppet Show (1979, Episode 319), Fud Candrix and His Orchestra, Jerry Gray, Mina, Lou Haskins, Jack Livingston, Raquel Rastenni (1941) in Copenhagen, Starlight Orchestra, Klaus Wunderlich, New 101 Strings Orchestra, Heptet, Meco, Tex Beneke, The Modernaires, Jack Million Band, Al Pierson Big Band, BBC Big Band Orchestra, SWR Big Band, and by Captain Cook und seine singenden Saxophone in 2012.

Fats Waller’s arrangement of the song for piano was published in the UK songbook Francis & Day’s Album of Fats Waller: Musical Rhythms in the 1940s.

“Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.” – Jimi Hendrix

looking for online guitar lessons? First one is […]

Paul2026-06-29T13:39:30-04:00

About Paul

Parts of the guitar