An all-time acoustic classic from TVZ. If you have some basic fingerpicking skills, this one’s not too hard to play. Tab on Patreon.
Folk
The Last Steam Engine Train by John Fahey
Here’s my take on the John Fahey classic. An essential piece for anyone’s fingerstyle repertoire.
Music/tab
Detailed and accurate tab is available on my Patreon page.
Strolling Down The Highway by Bert Jansch
In this lesson I’m taking a look at a 1964 fingerstyle blues track from the wonderful Bert Jansch.
Music/Tab
Can be found on my Patreon page.
River Man by Nick Drake
Here’s my take on the beautiful river Man by Nick Drake.
Here are a couple of interesting videos where it’s a bit easier to hear the guitar. In the first one you can more clearly hear the little fills during the instrumental section and the dissonant chords towards the end.
This is from a 1969 Peel session. The quality isn’t that great, but you can clearly hear the transitions between the chords. Also some slight differences between this and the studio recording – he doesn’t play the higher strings on the Aadd9, and there are some slight variations to the bass line.
Music/Tab
Is on my Patreon page.
Vestapol – Acoustic Classic
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.
Sunflower River Blues
by John Fahey
In this lesson we’re going to be learning a great fingerstyle piece by American folk guitarist John Fahey. Check out the original recording (1967 version, at least I think it is):
Here’s my video. You’ll need to tune to open C which is C G C G C E from low to high.
Music and tab
I’ve written it out below. There are four parts: Intro, A, B and C and I’ve also included the little variation he sometimes throws into the B section. Listen to the recording to piece it all together. A printable PDF of the tab is available on my Patreon page.
More fingerstyle?
A few other fingerstyle lessons you might enjoy:
Freight Train by Elisabeth Cotten
Back to the Old House by The Smiths
And if you’re feeling Christmassy then here’s the other Fahey lesson I did a while back: Joy to the World