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How To Play: Baby, Please Don't Go (Lightnin' Hopkins) Part 1 of 2 | TABS  

 

In this first part of the tutorial I teach the form of the song, the chords and the bass line that will get you started to learning this classic from Lightnin' Hopkins. 

You can download my transcription of this by heading over to the downloads page!

https://www.daviddelarre.co.uk/downloads

If you fancy sending me a tip or buying me a beer send cash to:

HTTPS://PAYPAL.ME/DAVIDDELARRE

Thanks!

Poor Boy a Long Ways From Home - (Trad. Arr. John Fahey)  

I've been teaching this tune to my group guitar class recently (if you're interested in joining it check out my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/daviddelarre) and today after changing my strings on my old 1930's Kalamazoo KG-11 I thought I'd do a quick video. The majority of it is John Fahey's arrangement but I got a bit carried away and started to add my own little bluesy things to it. Hope you like it!

Charlie Christian - ‘I Found A New Baby’ Solo Transcription 

 

#CharlieChristian #JazzGuitar #TuesdayTranscriptions

I'm quite a big Charlie Christian fan and this solo has been on my transcribe list for a while so I knew it wouldn't be long until it got transcribed as part of my #TuesdayTranscriptions. I love his phrasing and those lines over the Dom7 chords - every solo of his is like a little story. If you want to learn this solo head over to my soundslice page:

https://www.soundslice.com/slices/vBfDc/

Django Reinhardt's Solo on 'Django's Tiger' 

#TranscriptionTuesday #GypsyJazz #SoloTranscription For this weeks #TranscriptionTuesday

I actually learnt a guitar solo! ;-) I've always loved this solo of Django's and have wanted to learn it for years. Turns out I just needed a global pandemic to get my arse in gear and work it out. Enjoy! Some tricky little lines in this one. Get my transcription here: I've always loved this solo and wanted to learn it for years. Turns out I just needed a global pandemic to get my arse in gear and work it out. Enjoy! Some tricky little lines in this one.

https://www.soundslice.com/slices/SmcDc/

Charlie Parker's solo on 'Oh, Lady Be Good!' 

For this weeks #transcriptiontuesday I transcribed this awesome solo by Charlie Parker blowing over an old 1940’s recording of “Oh! Lady Be Good!” with Jay McShann. It was quite a mission to transcribe this... some of these lines do not fall where you think they will and it throws you off track. That little arpeggio shift between the G major and G diminished took a fair amount of wood shedding to get accurate too. 

Feeling grateful that lockdown has at least afforded me plenty of time to get my shit together. 

Onwards and upwards! 

#tuesdaytranscription #jazzguitarlicks #charlieparker #ohladybegood #ladybegood #solotranscription

Miles Davis' solo on 'Billie's Bounce' 

Here's Miles Davis' solo on 'Billie's Bounce' as recorded by Charlie Parker in 1945. I love how understated and simple it is - a 19 year old Miles Davis! Crazy to think it would be another 14 years before he would develop his sound further to create 'Kind of Blue'. If you want to learn it then check out my soundslice here:

 

Lester Young's Solo on 'All of Me' 

It's #TranscriptionTuesday time! This week I learnt Lester Young's beautiful solo over 'All of Me' on a previously unreleased recording session with Billie Holiday. “Why would anyone discard such a masterpiece?”, I hear you ask. Well, that’s simply because it ran over the three minutes that could fit onto an old-style 78rpm disk!

Here's my transcription of it!

Charlie Christian's solo on 'Rose Room' 

I spent most of last summer transcribing and listening to Charlie Christian. It was a brilliant way of spending lockdown - his solos are so inventive and had such a lyrical way of moving through the changes. I learnt alot about phrasing a solo and trying to keep melodic lines simple. 

Anyway I've just started the process of videoing some of these solos so I can put them up on SoundSlice so you guys can learn them too!

Here's 'Rose Room'. Hope you like it!

A Man of Constant Sorrow (Trad. Arr. Norman Blake ) 

I've been recently trying to explore my musical horizons a little - getting into bluegrass and country. This sort of flat picking for whatever reason has always evaded my list of things to learn! I heard this tune years ago on the 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' soundtrack but only bothered transcribing and learning it this past week. It's a gorgeously simple but effective piece of guitar playing by Norman Blake. Hope you like it!

Nine Pound Hammer (Merle Travis) 

I've been teaching this one recently to my students on my group guitar lessons subscription service (check out the subscribe section for details)... a cheery little number to get you all through these strange old times! 

It's an amalgamation of ideas taken from Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Tommy Emmanuel with a good dollop of me thrown in for good measure. I like this sort of guitar playing... it feels nice to play when you get that thumb swinging on 2 & 4 and you can get a bit carried away with it all and for a moment you forget all the shit that is going on around you. Anyway, for you guitarists out there there's a free transcription / TAB in the downloads page if you fancy learning it - better still - get in touch and I'll teach it to you. 

Thanks for watching!

I'm on Bandcamp 

Hey Guys,

I've been working on a solo record over the past year and I'm planning on self releasing it next year on bandcamp. If you're on bandcamp i'd really appreciate a follow on my bandcamp and then we can all just have a jolly time on bandcamp. Its called bandcamp. 

Here I am! 

https://daviddelarre.bandcamp.com/

thanking you in advance! ;-)

David

Swaggering Boney (Trad.) 

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 on my downloads page.

Hope you like it!

 

HBO/Punchdrunk 'The Third Day' 

Feeling very proud and honoured to have been involved with Punchdrunk and HBO's ‘The Third Day' - a 12 hour long wonderful experiment of theatre, TV and hardcore realism! It was amazing to be part of something so ambitious and groundbreaking. I'm in complete awe of the entire cast and technical teams that made it happen. Well done to all involved! 

I don't think I'll ever look at Osea Island in the same way again! 

P.S Jude Law f**king rocks and deserves a medal for what he achieved that day. 



#thethirdday #thethirddayautumn #oseaisland #punchdrunk #hbo #skyarts

Delta Blues Mondays #33 Gravel Road Blues (Mississippi Fred McDowell) | TABS 

Here's the intro to Mississippi Fred McDowell's 'Gravel Road Blues' a lovely little song based on a very simple blues lick, the whole thing is built around the minor 3rd and the flat 7.. playing on that minor / major tonality in the blues. Have a listen to his version! Such a wonderful groove which really swings and pulls its weight from beat 1 onwards. Its in open G tuning with the capo on the 1st fret. 

Good luck! 

Breakfast Feud 

This is a great little solo from Charlie Christian. It features some lovely little lines over the Eb and Bb opening with a a flurry of chord and colour tones over the Eb... outlining the b3, 3, 5, 6, 9, b7 and 7! Marvellous.

If you fancy throwing me a few virtual pennies then here's my tip jar: https://www.paypal.me/daviddelarre

 

Saturday Folk Music Workshops at Cecil Sharp House! 

Booking is now open for my Saturday Folk Music Workshops at Cecil Sharp House for EFDSS. I've been teaching on this course for 5 years or so and I absolutely love it! Its open to absolute beginners to intermediate/advanced players and for the very first time it will be held online using zoom. I use two cameras so you get a good close up view of my hands, external microphones for the very best audio, I share PDFs of my transcriptions, music from my computer and support most of my workshops with video lessons too. Support this fantastic organisation and me by signing up! 

Pease share this post with anyone you know who might be interested in learning the guitar with like minded people! 

https://www.efdss.org/learning/adults/music-workshops/guitar

Wholly Cats 

So recently I've been transcribing lots of jazz solos by Charlie Christian. I really love his phrasing and thought I'd learn a lot by really honing in on what he does in his solos.. anyway I've also recently become aware of 'Soundslice' - basically a video / notation website where you can watch the score being played. 

I thought some of you might appreciate this service so I've started my own SoundSlice page and will be posting up my jazz transcriptions on here and on there as and when I do them! I hope you find them useful.. if you want to throw me some pennies for my effort then please feel free!

 

https://www.paypal.me/daviddelarre

 

Planxty Davis 

I was recently asked to learn this fabulous O'Carolan tune by a guitar student of mine and I got to work on learning Nic Jones' arrangement from his fantastic album 'Penguin Eggs'. After a couple of days of playing around with it I added a few additional chords which I play towards the end of the arrangement... I've got my own transcription / TAB of this in DGDGBD if anyone fancies learning it drop me a line

New Video Lesson: Weeping Willow (Blind Boy Fuller) Part 1 of 2  

Hey Everyone! 

I’ve been having such a great time teaching “Weeping Willow” by Blind Boy Fuller on my subscribers group guitar workshops I thought I’d share with you the tutorial I made. In this video we'll look at the chords, the structure of the piece and then a simple strumming pattern that incorporates the bass line from the original. There’s a free transcription I did in the info box too! 

I love this song, its got such an interesting groove! Let me know how you get on in the comments below. 

Subscribers Group Guitar Lessons 

I've been running a subscribers only group guitar lesson for a couple of months now. I'm really enjoying it! So far we have looked at Martin Carthy's arrangement of "The Trees They Do Grow High", Blind Boy Fullers "Weeping Willow" and we've just started looking at strumming techniques and briefly looked at Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now". 

I've currently got 10 in that class and I'm looking to get another group going - possibly splitting them into two tiers; beginners and intermediates. Its £20 a month, you get a group lesson every 2 weeks plus videos, pdfs and my ears to give some feedback. 

If you're interested in joining us, then have a look at the link below or leave a comment with any questions etc..

https://www.daviddelarre.co.uk/subscribe

Merry Days of Old 

I had the pleasure of performing my first ever solo folk set for Ciaran Algar's Corona Collaborations Festival over the weekend. This was my second number (straight after my glorious debut on the kazoo).. I've been writing a solo album of traditional material from Essex and London to keep my creative juices flowing and to be honest, just to cheer myself up. Not sure if it'll ever get released but I can actually listen to this song and not cringe so I thought I'd share it with you guys. 

It seems I've gone back to busking so if you fancy throwing me a few virtual pennies then here's my tip jar: 

https://www.paypal.me/daviddelarre