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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

2022-02-05T13:51:41-05:00
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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

2022-06-06T18:32:10-04:00
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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.

2023-06-06T08:19:15-04:00
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Building chords from the 5 string

Building chords from the 5 string!

Building chords from the 5 string. We know the C scale has no flats or sharps and also that we can play Major chords (triads) with the 1, 3 and 5 scale notes. We can figure that combination out from any note on the 5th string! For instance a C Major is made of a C, and E and a G (1,3 and 5): C D E F G A B C

major chord from the five stringWe know that the “two strings up and two frets back” rule can give us the same note but an octave up. We can do that from the 6 string and the 5 string. Let’s concentrate on the 5 string first. So C on the 5 string is at the 3rd fret and consequently, on the 5th fret of the G string. That gives us our one note in two places!

Starting with C on the 3rd fret of the A string, we can see D on the open D string, E on the 2nd fret, F on the 3rd and G on the 5th. The G on the 5th fret is important to us! Now we have 1 and 5, […]

2025-02-10T07:30:11-05:00
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How to play “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. looking for online guitar lessons? First one is free!

2023-05-02T06:57:35-04:00
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How to play Yankee Doodle fingerstyle on guitar

how to play Yankee doodle on solo guitar, left-hand, finger-style illustration. This technique is actually simpler than you might think! It involves alternating the thumb and first finger on adjacent strings and like any technique, the way to get it under your hand is verrrrrrry slooooooowly.

2024-01-03T10:10:33-05:00
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How to play funk lead on a classical guitar

There’s nothing quite like jamming out over the top of funk changes and you don’t even need to be plugged in to do that! Once you understand the blues scale- even in one spot on the neck- well, you can either look at it like it’s easier to play reasonably decent lines, or harder to make mistakes. Or both, I guess!

This tune is in C#m, so that’s the 1 chord. Since its a minor chord, the 3rd of the chord is flattened. That tells us what notes are going to work correctly when we play them over the top of the chord. To get started we can play C# (root note) E (flat 3rd) F#(4th) G#(5) and B (flat 7) and if you want to call these guys by their fancy-pants name, that would be “C# minor pentatonic”.

How I generally start with something like this is by remembering that if I’m on the the 1 chord, I need to keep coming back to the 1 note! It might sound crazy to just play one note over the chord but think about it – just concentrating on that single note lets you focus on making making interesting rhythmic patterns rather than worrying about where to put your fingers and scales and modes and all that other stuff. So try this: listen for the 1 chord first. […]

2021-05-26T08:14:44-04:00
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