Anyone Can Play Guitar

Online and private guitar tuition

Acoustic

Vestapol – Acoustic Classic

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In this lesson I’m investigating the finger-style blues standard that goes by the name of Vestapol. It’s quite mysterious piece of music that many people have played in many different ways. I attempt to get to the bottom of things with a nice, playable arrangement of the tune.

I realised I inadvertently failed to discuss the way I play the V chord in the first chorus – it must have got accidentally chopped out when I edited the video. I hope you’ll be able to figure out what’s going on by watching the slow play through. The tab for that bit is shown below. The thumb sticks to the 4th and 5th strings.

Full tab can be found on my Patreon page.

Stagger Lee by Mississippi John Hurt

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In this video we learn how to play Mississippi John Hurt’s version of the blues classic Stagger Lee. (Or Stack O’Lee, or Stagolee…)

Tab is on my Patreon page.

Needle Of Death by Bert Jansch

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This song is a masterpiece by the man Neil Young has called the Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar. It’s a great example of the Jansch guitar style, and the way he typically embellishes standard major and minor chords with extra 6ths and 9ths to create a rich, mysterious sound.

Technically there’s nothing super tricky here, and you should be able to have a good stab at this one if you know your fingerstyle basics. The secret here, as with many fingerstyle folk pieces, is to keep a steady thumb going throughout, playing 4 notes per bar. The other notes can be played with either your index, middle, or ring fingers – there are no rules here,  just see what feels best.

For this version I went back to the original track and listened really closely to try and capture all the details of the guitar part. The recording is quite lo-fi and it’s a little bit hard to hear exactly what’s going on, especially in the chorus, since the guitar is a bit hidden by the vocal. The version I’ve come up with seems to work and feels right to me. Exactly how Bert plays and fingers certain bits it’s impossible to say for certain since I can’t seem to find any video footage of the man himself playing the song. This seems a bit odd, as it’s one of his most well-known tracks. Perhaps the song was so raw and emotional for him that he didn’t like to perform it live much?

I’ve written my version out below which I’ve put it in the key of A just to keep things simple. Just throw a capo on the 3rd fret if you want to play it like Bert does. (By all means experiment with placing the capo at other frets or not using one at all to find a key that is comfortable for you to sing in.) I’ve not written out all of the verses separately as essentially Bert is playing the same thing in each, but there are a few minor variations in emphasis and right-hand patterns as the song progresses.

  • Minor correction: In the video I mistakenly say that bars 5 and 6 are the same. In fact, bar 6 is a tiny bit different and starts with the 6th and 1st strings played together instead of the 6th and 2nd.
  • In the last bar of the verse and the second bar of the chorus the open G string is played – technically a ‘wrong’ note but really just one of those little notes that creeps in to smooth the gap between chords and happens so fast the ear doesn’t pick up on it.
  • In the 3rd verse Bert holds the A6 (no 3rd) chord for an extra bar (when he sings “One grain of pure white snow…”).
  •  I’ve also included an ending which I don’t go into in the video. Play this at the end of the final verse. It’s got an improvised feel, and Bert switches from major to minor, then ends on an ambiguous sounding A7.

Once you’ve got the hang of it as written, be sure to loosen up and throw in your own variations. Finally, try and remember it’s all about the feel, so don’t get too hung up on technical perfection – even Bert sometimes misses the odd note here and there. Download a high-quality, printable PDF of the music here, if you wish.

Terrapin by Syd Barrett

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by Syd Barrett

A lovely, easy to play tune by one of my favourite songwriters. I show you 3 ways to approach it: simple strumming, electric guitar arpeggios, and a cool way of combining the chords and melody at the same time.

In case you don’t already know it, the original recording sounds like this:

And here’s my video lesson:

You might also want to check out this live clip of David Gilmour playing the song, elaborating the basic chords with some nice melody notes:

 Simple Strumming

This approach is based on the acoustic part Syd plays on the original recording. The chords used are mostly 6th string root barre chords, but there’s also an open E, a 5th string root D barre chord, and a nice E7 chord in the ‘C form’. I’ve written out the chords below. Make sure you locate the barre chords at the right fret – I’ve put fret numbers alongside. If we’re going to get nerdy about it, you can’t always hear the low root note of the barre chords on the recording. It could be that Syd mostly fretted his barre chords in the kind of folky fashion where he was just covering the top two strings with his index finger and not barring all the way across. Either way works – it’s up to you. If you need a bit more help with the technique and theory behind barre chords you might like to look at these lessons where I take you through the basics:

All About Barre Chords, Part 1

All About Barre Chords, Part 2

 

I’ve written out a chord/lyric chart to the song below. I thought this was the most straightforward way of writing out this song. It should be quite easy to piece the whole tune together, but you’ll need to watch my video and listen closely to the original to get all the rhythmic details correct.

 

 

You can download a high-quality PDF of the music here.

Arpeggios

Below I’ve written out a verse and B-section’s worth of the overdubbed electric part. It sticks fairly closely to what Syd plays during the first verse and first B-section. I’d suggest using this as a guide and improvising your own part based on the underlying chords.

 

Chords With Added Melody Notes

This is just a question of adding a few melodic ornamentations to the basic chords. Mostly this is done with the pinky, meaning you’ll need to re-finger your barre chords to free the little finger up. Watch the video to see me demonstrate one way of doing this. When I get time I might write out some tab/music for this approach too.