Today’s update started with a little run through of this week’s Fly On The Wall lesson, Take A Giant Step as done by Taj Mahal. I had been thinking of doing a more formal lesson on it after it surfaced but I think it turned into one on the spur of the moment and there should be enough info in there for people to figure it out. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
As a matter of fact, there was much more playing than useful info as I had my handy fake book nearby when I remembered Max’s lesson on Blue Bossa, which made me venture into faking it, putting the chords and melody together into a quick arrangement, the way the guy at the piano bar would use the book to play audience requests that were not on his practice schedule. In hindsight I might have tried that demonstration with a song not in the key of C Minor!
This week we got serious about rolling out the Elvis tunes, thanks to Vanessa, with a min-marathon that included That’s Alright, Blue Suede Shoes, and Are You Lonesome Tonight. I hope everybody has fun messing with those as his influence and inspiration dueled some of the greatest songwriters and musicians of our generation, and I’m sure you know their names and can look up their numbers.
The last teaser was a bit of a song from one of my favorite bands who we do not have enough lessons of either, and I think many of you will be able to solve that puzzle.
Today’s update started and ended with works in progress here at TG Central. The first was a stab at the intro to a Gentle Giant piece called Experience, and the last was a tribute to Pete Huttlinger, his arrangement of Josie by Steely Dan.
I hope everybody has spent a little time listening to our friend Dave Nachmanoff. He is working on a new album and offering some great perks for people chipping in to a Kickstarter campaign. We are really fortunate that Dave has joined the IGC family and looking forward to this year’s camp at Asilomar in August.
We also are working on sprucing up the weekly Newsletters and are looking for suggestions or requests on things you might like to see included in those. We will try to get a separate thread going on that soon.
Today I felt more like noodling with our recent lessons, rather than being the usual fount of information you have come to expect.
I think there was a bit of the most recent lessons, as well as a couple other forays into some Jackson Browne tunes. When For Everyman was released in 1973, I was in the habit of learning just about every song from albums I bought at the time.
To this day I probably still know lyrics to everything that from his first couple albums, along with those from James Taylor, Jim Croce, and Neil Young. I am really glad one of my students came in last week wanting to work on Our Lady Of The Well as that is what led to that lesson this week.
The other new stuff was Santana’s classic cover of Black Magic Woman and our first official Elvis tune, Can’t Help Falling In Love. I took random stabs at a couple other songs, one of which I don’t think I identified so put your listening caps on and see what you recall from those days of yore.
