Lágrima is one of my all time favorite songs on guitar. Written by one of the premiere composers for classical guitar, Francisco Tárrega, it plays to the guitar’s strengths and offers many possible interpretations. The song is simple, yet profound, saying a lot in a short amount of time. I also think Lágrima translates well to the steel string guitar – the ringing sustain brings an added brilliance to the song.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, Gotoh 510 tuners, strings are Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
Bron-Yr-Aur is probably my favorite Led Zeppelin acoustic song. Written about a tranquil cottage in the Welsh countryside, the song is meditative and bucolic; it always puts me in a different place whenever I hear it or play it. This is a relatively straight forward read on the song… The original version is a bit shorter, but I usually take a few extra passes through. Hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
Here is a rough cut of my original song Ohio River Rag. My normal preamp setup has a software bug, so recording with just my phone in the meanwhile. Sometimes you have to push through.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set).
All rights reserved to this song, however students may perform the song in public.
Harvest Moon is the title track from an album Neil Young put out in the early 90’s. It was an era when some of his peers were coasting along, but Neil was doing some of his best work. (Ok, not the Ditch Trilogy, but still some good stuff.) I thought it would be a fun song to arrange; hope you enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
All rights reserved to this arrangement, however students may perform the arrangement in public.
One of the classic George Harrison songs from the Abbey Road album, Here Comes the Sun is a bright, happy tune that sounds great on acoustic guitar. This fingerstyle arrangement is my take on the song – instead of opting for the bright sounds of a capo-ed guitar, I went for the sonorous tones of an open tuning. Despite the lower voice, I think the arrangement still sounds sunny. Enjoy.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
All rights reserved to this arrangement, however students may perform the arrangement in public.
Fun fact – Harrison wrote this song while walking around Eric Clapton’s garden on a sunny day in spring 1969.
Morning Moon is a combination of two existing ideas, the first being a song I wrote shortly after watching a lunar eclipse. The second idea came years later, resulting in a song with different interweaving parts. The more energetic latter part of the song is a take on some of the ideas in the mellower first part, taking the song in a different direction. I decided to call the song Morning Moon after looking at the still-visible moon one morning, well after daylight.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
All rights reserved to this song, however students may perform the song in public.
Wonderful Tonight was written by Eric Clapton about his then-wife Pattie Boyd, who had already inspired great songs from Eric and previous husband George Harrison. This song has been the theme to many a high school prom, and its simple yet tasteful melody has held up over the years. In keeping with that, my arrangement here is fairly straight forward: it doesn’t move around the neck very much or have any unusual chord voicings. Hope you enjoy it.
Recorded with a Taylor 412ce LTD (Rosewood/Spruce, with Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze HD gauge set) and a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
All rights reserved to this arrangement, however students may perform the arrangement in public.
Coincidentally, I also did a lesson on Eric’s break-up song with Pattie, here.
Coffee Bean Slack Key played at a fast tempo, with some improvisation. This song was written as a study piece, however it works as a fun, simple song in its own right.
The song can be played at a variety of tempos: beginners can play it slow and more advanced players might have fun improvising around it. To that end, I’ve recorded several other versions of the song for you to check out (links below). Feel free to play along to these recordings, though I didn’t use a click track or metronome so tempo varies a little. Also note, most of the example versions are just played with an A-B-A format, however you can play longer versions of the song (i.e. A-B-A-B-A). I hope you have fun with this song.
Please see the related lesson for this song (link below), as well as other lessons on my channel.
All rights reserved to the song “Coffee Bean Slack Key,” however students are allowed to perform the song in public.