Paul | Guitar Lessons and Performance - Paul Elwood

Angel Eyes

“Angel Eyes” is a jazz standard which has inspired many interpretations. Many singers have recorded versions of the song, including Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, June Christy with Stan Kenton, Chet Baker, Shirley Bassey, Neil Sedaka, Willie Nelson with Ray Charles, and Sting. Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded “Angel Eyes” at least four times, named it her favorite song.

Instrumental versions were recorded not as often as vocal takes, by the likes of Benny Carter, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck, Kenny Burrell, Joe Albany, and more recently by McCoy Tyner, Gary Thomas and Joe Lovano.

Paul2024-03-03T07:59:35-05:00

How to play “Sloop John B” for solo guitar

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 […]

Paul2022-03-30T17:35:46-04:00

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.

ukranian_national_anthem

Paul2022-03-17T10:36:41-04:00

How to play blues patterns over 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 ad resolve back to the target note.

Paul2024-08-22T08:00:43-04:00

How to play “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

Paul2022-02-05T13:51:41-05:00

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

Paul2022-06-06T18:32:10-04:00

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!

Paul2023-09-22T21:29:48-04:00

How to play “Waltzing Matilda” on guitar

How to play “waltzing Matilda” on guitar. Pretty cool song I’ve been playing since I was a kid. In the key of D, not too hard to do.

It is a great song though so give it a try! A link to a PDF with chords and lyrics is below. “Once a jolly swag man….”

PDF chords and lyrics

Paul2022-05-26T10:07:09-04:00

How to play “Ripple” on ukulele

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

Paul2023-09-20T12:10:02-04:00

How to play auld lang syne on guitar

If you’re hanging with friends for New Years and a guitar is handy, you’re pretty much obligated to do this tune :-)

The pdf below is the notation for Auld Lang Syne and will show you how to play auld lang syne on guitar. The notes are written in MuseScore and we can output a pdf of the sheet music/tablature and an audio file directly from that! The video on this page is in the key of F but if you’re looking for an easier version, use the chord, tab and lyric sheet in C below.

Musescore, btw is an excellent tool for any guitarist and it is completely free, which is amazing to me considering what you can do with it. Find out for yourself- download the program from musescore.org

Auld Lang Syne tabs and chords part 1 in F

Auld Lang Syne in C audio file from musescore (same as above)

Auld Lang Syne in C, chords, tabs and lyrics

Here’s a version we did for a holiday party at Laurel Circle this year. Very fortunate to play with the trio, plus drums, baritone and tenor sax.

Paul2023-06-06T08:19:15-04:00