Lesson 4 (11/21/2005)

Another week already. The lessons keep getting more and more fun. Andy and I have gotten to know each other a bit and are much more comfortable. Now we just sit down and start having fun, learning in the process.

This week we started off reviewing changing keys. He drilled me on playing all the chords in various keys. I don't know them cold yet, but it only takes me a few seconds to have the ready to go.

We then moved on to walking patterns. Andy used the Cash standard "Walk the Line" for this. There is a key change in the middle of that song twice! Three different keys are used, so the walks change with keys, although they are very similar.

Then started talking about using the dreaded / (slash) chords to spice up playing. Some examples include "New Orleans Ladies", "Wonderful Tonight", and "Whiter Shade of Pale". I summarily reject "Whiter Shade of Pale from a traumatic experience with an All-Star Marching bad requiring me to play quater note base line on tuba for HOURS on end in practice, but that's another story entirely.

Let's take "New Orleans' Ladies" for example. Chords are simply C, Am, F, G. Rinse repeat. Basically a I, VI, IV, V progression. But you can take the C, then play a C/B, then the Am to get a base line walk, sort of. Same thing from the Am, to Am/G, to F. Once you land on the G chord, you can do a standard walk back up to the C.

We explored around a little more from there. On "Wonderful Tonight", he suggested that I might could use my thumb to play a D/F#. I have used that on a Alice in Chains song, "Don't Follow", and thought I was being super taboo. I mentioned that to him and he said nah, Clapton uses it. Andy also said to bring in the AIC song and we'll work on it next time.

Later on!

Louis