When I was a kid I'd spend most of the year being dragged around gorgeous little pubs in rural Essex following a gang of bald and bearded morris men as they danced and played to unsuspecting audiences. At the time I thought it was all rather embarrassing and was in it mainly for the pork scratchings (20 years before they were cool I hasten to add) and of course the odd occasional pint of beer or most likely half a shandy. Little did I know at the time that I'd spend the rest of my life playing those tunes to unsuspecting audiences and how much I'd learn to love this sort of music. 

Anyway here's an old morris dance tune called Swaggering Boney. I've been teaching it recently at Cecil Sharp House for the English Folk Dance and Song Society - if you want to learn it then its available to download via the downloads section!

Hope you like it!

Hi Guys,

Here's my tutorial for the Skip James classic! Hope you like it. You can download the transcription in the downloads section!

cheers

David

I thought we could look at this brilliant song by Skip James. Made popular by the film 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' this spooky arrangement uses Open D minor tuning - DADFAD. Have a listen here:

Such a brilliant little riff in the verse. I love that cheeky bar of 6/4 at the end of the verse too.. 

Download the PDF above and have a go at playing along. I'll post up a video lesson soon!

all the best

David 

Hi Guys,

Here's the video lesson for Martin Carthy's arrangement of Scarborough Fair. You can download the PDF above! 

Good luck!

David 

I thought you guys might be interested in learning this absolute classic by Martin Carthy. It features some really lovely chord voicings and a very simple fingerstyle pattern but its very rewarding to play and listen to. Have a listen to the video above and then download the PDF... i've scored it out in standard tuning and to play along with Martin you need a capo on the 4th fret. 

The recording below is first without the capo and then with.. I'll make a video soon to show you guys the fingerings.

Good luck!

David 

Hi Guys,

Here's a little worksheet for you all to look at. It basically teaches you a Major Blues Scale and a Bebop Dominant Scale in the key of C.

A major blues scale uses the intervals: R 2 b3 3 5 6

A bebop dominant scale use the intervals: R 2 3 4 5 b b7 7

These are very useful scales when you want to sound jazzy and bluesy in that old school ragtime / swing way. Explore the shape of the scale, sing the intervals, play the chord and then sing the scale, sing the root and hold that note while you play the guitar scale, anything to train your ear to hear those intervals. When that feels good try singing a blues line and then try playing it. 

To make a good groovy lick try starting your phrase on the off beat 1 + this will mean your colour tones (2 b3 6) will sound good as you'll resolve them to chord tones (R 3 5) on the beat. This feels good as it has harmonic stability. 

Once you have some good licks try playing an alternating bass line for a bar and then 'solo' for a bar - switching between these two mindsets will get you out of the habit of only knowing how to play certain shapes for certain songs. Then once you have that try playing a bass note on 1 and 3 while you play the lick... when that feels good try playing an alternating bass line for all of it. I've put some examples of licks with alternating bass lines..

Then put a bar of these licks into the arrangement of Diddie Wa Diddie!

Good luck! I'll probably make a video about this later next week! Full score PDF is in the downloads bit at the top of this page!

cheers

David 

Hi Guys,

In this video I look at the second half of Diddie Wa Diddie and run you through the Charleston section! 

Enjoy!

all the best

Dave

So I've recently been teaching this to my private students and some of the people in the beginners guitar class on my Saturday Folk Music Workshops for Cecil Sharp House. I think any guitarist of any ability can learn something from this though. Here's a small introduction into the world of voice leading, and specifically voice leading in D Major. The term “voice leading” refers to the way in which individual voices move from chord to chord. This is best heard when voice leading occurs when all individual voices move smoothly. You can achieve this by moving between chords using the same note or moving up or down by a step in the inner voices of the chord, whenever possible.

One way to think about this is to keep a note held down in the chord (normally the R or the 5th of the tonic key) whilst you change chords.. this isn't always strictly voice lead but nevertheless it makes an interesting effect on your chord changes. Often creating new extensions to chords that you otherwise would of considered dull.

This exercise sheet starts off (Ex. 1) with learning the D major scale from the lowest note in the scale to the highest note within a 5 fret range. We then learn the normal chord scale (Ex. 2) that is built from the triads of the scale, we then look at the I IV V of that chord scale (Ex. 3) and then a voice lead version (Ex. 4) where essentially we hold down a D and an A (the R & 5th) this creates an interesting twist on the I IV V... the next exercise is looking a simple strumming pattern and changing between those chords (Ex. 5). We then look at a chord scale using the same idea of holding down the D & A... notice the interesting chord extensions that are created! (Ex. 6) Finally we look at putting all of those chords into a strumming pattern. (Ex. 7) 

You can hear this sort of approach in Dennis Cahill's style. Check out what he does here: 

Below is an MP3 of me playing through everything. Enjoy!

David

Hey Guys!

Here's the first part of the video tutorial for Diddie Wa Diddie! Hope you've been enjoying looking at the TAB and listening to it in the past week. Sorry it took a while to get this up - I've been a bit busy working on a TV show! Mental. 

Anyway! See you all soon!

Keep on strumming!

Dave

Arthur Blake (1896 – December 1, 1934), known as Blind Blake, was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist - one of the pioneers of this style he pretty much made it his own and is still regarded today as one of the best guitarists of all time. Quite a genius.

We'll be looking at his song 'Diddie Wa Diddie' I've amalgamated several versions of this song into an arrangement. I'll hopefully get a video lesson up on this in the next week or two! In the mean time you can download the TAB/Score in the downloads section above. Enjoy!

Hi Guys,

Here's the final video lesson for 'Beeswing' by Richard Thompson. A lovely little chorus with some seriously sexy chords, hope you like it! 

Any problems just drop me a comment below or on the messageboard! 

cheers

David

Hi Guys!

Here's part 2 of my Beeswing tutorial. This covers what RT plays in the verses, its a really simple but very effective guitar part - make sure you pay close attention to your right hand fingering and follow the video directions carefully - very easy to get yourself in a pickle with this one. 

Good luck!

Dave

p.s sorry about the vest. Its 32 degrees inside my warehouse!

Hey Guys!

Hope you're all having a lovely week. I've spent the day recording this video exclusively for you guys as requested by a few of you a couple of weeks(?) ago. I've not really looked at Richard Thompsons playing before and really enjoyed getting into this one. Take your time with it and make sure you can sing the melody line or clap along to it at least before attempting to play it. REMEMBER - Hear it, Sing it, Play it. My mantra! 

I'll upload the PDF in the usual spot too!

Let me know what you think!

cheers

David

Here's the second part to the 2 part video lesson. Hope this all makes sense! Sorry about the delay.. 

cheers

David

Hi Guys,

Here's a worksheet (you can find the pdf above) for learning DADF#AD. I've tried to show similarities between this and shapes you might recognise from standard tuning. Hope it demystifies it a bit, I'll cover this more in a video lesson. 

Hi Guys,

Sorry for the delay in getting this to you. Took a little while to work out how to do it in a video but it still somehow takes 26mins to get through just the intro and verse! Anyway.. I hope it helps!

all the best

David

Here's the second instalment of a two part video series that will look at 'Weeping Willow' by the great Blind Boy Fuller. In this video we'll break down the arrangement into 3 bitesize chunks.

Have a listen to Blind Boy Fuller here:

Free TAB: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x3gE0K13Q-mY288lS5nFhQLjL_e7rYKe/view?usp=sharing

Have a look at the PDF downloads section and you'll find that I've TAB'd and scored out this classic from Joni. Note the use of the muted strum! Good luck!

Hi Guys, 

Hope you're all ok and having fun practising. I've made this video to explain this fun technique to add to your strumming patterns.. hope you get a chance to look at it and implement it into a song you already know! Its great fun when you get the hang of it. The TAB is in the PDF downloads section!

Good luck!

David

In this quick lesson I wanted to introduce you to a rhythm technique that I really enjoy called the 'Muted Strum' I have three examples for you to work with, which are all straight forward once you can grasp the technique. This technique is very useful to learn and will help you along when playing for country, bluegrass, American folk music styles.

The idea is to strum the guitar while completely muting the strings with your left hand during the beats that I have indicated with X's. You mute the strings by lifting off the pressure with your left hand without lifting your fingers off the strings. You will simply lay the fingers of your left hand across the strings. 

Using this technique can help change the feel and groove of your rhythm playing and when used sparsely can be quite effective.

Here's a quick run through of some of the physical warm ups I do in my workshops, lessons and before I go on stage. BAPAM is the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine - I wasn't even close!

Check out their website here:

https://www.bapam.org.uk/index.html

I hope they're useful!

Here's the first instalment of a two part video series that will look at 'Weeping Willow' by the great Blind Boy Fuller. In this video we'll look at the chords, the structure of the piece and then a simple strumming patter that incorporates the bass line from the original.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for today and your continuing support! Much appreciated. Just to recap we looked at the chords to 'Weeping Willow' by Blind Boy Fuller. Here is the great man recorded in 1937.

If you're new to the blues I'd suggest getting your head round the form and structure of a typical 12 bar blues:

Pretty much every blues follows this pattern of chord changes - even the most complex blues tunes just sub out certain chords for more fanciful ways of playing the same thing. In our 12 bar blues in A it looks like this:

I'd suggest practising with a metronome and keeping a good sense of pulse whilst you get used to the chord changes keeping a simple strumming pattern, when the chords are familiar start adding the bass line and the rest of the arrangement. Audio for the chords is below! 

Those of you who want to learn the tune here is the score:

I'll put up a video lesson soon too! Good luck!

all the best

David

Hi Guys,

Hope you're enjoying the site. Just thought I'd start putting up some TABS / Scores for you guys, some of you might have already learnt this stuff on my guitar course at Cecil Sharp House, London but for those of you who haven't I'll put up some stuff from that course too. 

I recently put up a video of 'Old Tom of Oxford / Rochdale Coconut Dance'

I've been playing these two tunes for a few years now so I mess about with them quite a bit. I'd suggest to you guys to learn the TAB below and work on trying to create variations of your own. Being able to sing the melody is key to this as you'll internalise the music a lot better and be able to know where the tune is going if its not just numbers or dots on a page. If you're new to this try singing a G major scale whilst you play it on the guitar and then pick out simple melodies - "Happy Birthday" "Twinkle Twinkle" etc etc this is the easiest way to get into this method of aural training.

Good luck!

all the best

David

Here's a short (ish) lesson on this fabulous arrangement of the traditional english folk song 'The Trees They Do Grow High' by Martin Carthy. Through this lesson I look at the right hand fingerpicking pattern and how to apply it to the E Dorian Chord Scale. Then I look at the chord structure of the song and ways we can try to remember the chord changes. I briefly look at how you can train your ear to hear the chord changes better by playing the chord and singing the tonic throughout. Work through each idea and see how you get on!

Download the E Dorian worksheet here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ue1cegD471ZcNxl5y-zjDMJVRhdfvQyL/view?usp=sharing

Listen to Martin Carthy here: https://youtu.be/SaKGeTmFqbE

Good luck!

David