Bourrée

Guitar Instrumental

Level 8

This famous and often recorded classical guitar piece, originally written for the lute, can be fingered many different ways. Neil goes over his suggested fingerings as well as technical details on playing the piece

In Target program now

Hope you enjoy it

i've not looked yet but i know for sure i'm gonna enjoy this lesson..

Wow, that looks like so much fun! That's my weekend written off then....
So much to learn, so little time.
Thank you so much for another great lesson.

Dean.

Once again Neil has laid to waste the argument that classical songs can't be played on a steel string guitar. Who needs a stinking nylon string guitar when you can bang out Bouree like that? Just kidding of course!

Neil, you just continue to amaze us with your virtuosity! Thanks for another superb lesson. In my spare time from all the other TARGET songs I'll hammer that one out and put it in my bag of tricks! Who am I kidding?

Thanks for one of the all-time great classical pieces of music. I would love to hear Hector play this song as well to hear it in a more traditional manner.

Cheers!

With all the requests for Bourree, I was wondering when Neil was going to put this song up.

David

Seriously, you guys seem to sometimes be reading my mind. With "Black Mountain Side" now firmly under my fingers, I was just getting ready to move back to this one, which I started working on a few months ago before getting distracted.

unclewalt wrote:
Seriously, you guys seem to sometimes be reading my mind. With "Black Mountain Side" now firmly under my fingers, I was just getting ready to move back to this one, which I started working on a few months ago before getting distracted.


Tough song! When you get this one hammered out I'd live to hear it. The rare Jimmy Page acoustic tune without Plant's singing! Great song!

ooooooohhhh - pprrreeeeettttyyyy - I think I just decided what my very, very, long-term project is going to be. Brilliant!!!

BigBear wrote:
unclewalt wrote:
Seriously, you guys seem to sometimes be reading my mind. With "Black Mountain Side" now firmly under my fingers, I was just getting ready to move back to this one, which I started working on a few months ago before getting distracted.


Tough song! When you get this one hammered out I'd live to hear it. The rare Jimmy Page acoustic tune without Plant's singing! Great song!

I'm not really one for videotaping myself, but maybe. I should say: I meant it's firmly under my fingers enough that now I can practice it without referring to a tab or anything, but I have a way to go before I can actually play it convincingly. I've got the main riff pretty well down, though. This one was a huge breakthrough for me -- if you asked me a year ago how long it might take me to learn it, I might have said "never." Or "a year, at least." But it took me just a few weeks. I've been playing for more than 30 years, and have learned more in the past year or so than I did in any five years before that -- thanks both to my own resurrected determination, and to this site.

Anyway, on to Bouree, which I think will be fairly easy to learn, and really hard to play up to speed.

FYI: the beginning of the video for section A is cut off.

Thank you Neil & Matt. This site just keeps getting better. This has been on my wish list for a while and now I'm going to take a serious crack at it. As Michelle said, it's probably going to be a long-term project from my current starting point.

-Stuart

Wow, I've always loved this piece. A level 8 tune is a bit of a stretch for me at the moment but it's something to aspire to down the road. Great selection Neil, thanks for adding this lesson!
Tom

I am really happy to see this lesson. I have been working on this piece for a while from a file a found on the internet and from looking at Neil's playing, I am nowhere close. I do not mind at all re-learning it as at least I have good guidance now.

Thanks for posting this lesson, this is another reason why anybody who wants to learn guitar have to join Target.

Marc

tom18 wrote:
A level 8 tune is a bit of a stretch for me at the moment but it's something to aspire to down the road.
Tom


Don't underestimate yourself Tom. If you are like me, sometimes the more difficult songs can come along quickly and then the easy ones kick my butt!


Bill

unclewalt wrote:
FYI: the beginning of the video for section A is cut off.

I think you will find it is fixed

Thanks, but apparently not. Just tried it on two diff. computers and three diff. browsers, and it's just the same as it was. Some kind of server problem or something, maybe? Something not related to the vid itself?

Is it just me or does anyone else think of "Rock your socks" by Tenacious D when they hear this being played?

blasphemy I know, but I just had to get it out of my system

normal service will be resumed shortly

Joe

Blasphemy against whom? Tenacious D or Bach? I don't automatically think of it, but probably only because I've knew the original, in its various incarnations, for so long before T-D's version. If anything, I think of Jethro Tull's version.

Thanks Neil. I've been waiting for some classical lessons.

A couple of thoughts/questions on Bourree (I won't get into how it's supposed to be spelled -- most online sources have it as it is here, "Bourree," while all but one of the half dozen or so versions I have in iTunes have it as "Bouree.")

First, Neil -- I presume that the little snatch of a different version that you play in the "notation and fingering" video is Jethro Tull's. Like, I suspect, many people here, that's the first version I ever heard. Would love a lesson on that someday. I can't find much info about it, though. I'd really like to hear details of how they came up with that arrangement, if anyone knows anything about it. Also, are there cover versions of that version anywhere?

Mainly, what I wanted to know about is other versions of other Bourrees. Particularly, John Williams does something called "Suite No. 3 in C Major: Bouree I & II." It's quite similar, but has a different melody. I can't find info on that, either. Anyone know anything about it? Is it also Bach?

This is what Williams played in the first iteration of "The Secret Policeman' Ball" oh so long ago. Here's the studio version on YouTube.