November Acoustic Jam

This afternoon was our third straight monthly session of the Downingtown Area Acoustic Jam group that we found out about through meetup.com.

It's a good group of people, and we play good music, and it's a lot of fun. The group organizer limited the session to 15 people, and all slots were taken. Everyone sits in a big circle, and we go around selecting a song. You're supposed to bring sheet music (guitar tabs) for two new songs every session, but you can also pick a song from the group of standard songs from the group website.

Here are the songs we did this afternoon, as best I can remember, and in approximate order. The ones we chose are marked with asterisks.

• Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan)
• If I Fell*** (Beatles)
• Dublin in the Rare Auld Days (Peter St. James)
• Hot Buttered Rum (Tommy Thompson)
• Enjoy Yourself (traditional?)
• Big Red Sun Blues (Lucinda Williams)
• Paradise (John Prine)
• Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer
• Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
• Wild Horses (Rolling Stones)
• Wagon Wheel (Old Crow Medicine Show)
• Moondance (Van Morrison)
• Don't Think Twice It's Alright*** (Bob Dylan)
• Star of the County Down (Irish traditional)
• Hotel California (Eagles)
• You Ain't Going Nowhere (Bob Dylan)
• Lonely People (America)
• Bad Moon Rising (CCR)
• House of the Rising Sun (Animals)

Acoustic Zeppelin

My love affair with the Seagull acoustic continues unabated. I'm still working on finger-picking, my Simon and Garfunkel songs, and various songs from the acoustic jam meetups (the next one being this coming Sunday.)

I finally decided to tackle two acoustic Led Zeppelin songs that somehow I always thought were beyond me. Both turned out not to be that hard - once you get the guitar in the proper alternate tuning.

• "That's the Way": this YouTube video isn't a lesson, but it gives the tuning (Open G), and I figured most of it out from watching him play. Then I Google'd for the guitar tabs and got the rest. I *love* this song, and could just play it over and over. And it sounds *fantastic* on the Seagull. When you hit an open chord, the strings just ring.
• "Rain Song": a gorgeous gorgeous song that I never thought I'd be able to play. It's in a tuning I never heard of before (DGCGCD), which doesn't even have a name (that I know of). As with "That's the Way", I looked at the guy playing it on the YouTube video, Google'd a tab, and the basics of it aren't that hard. It's hauntingly beautiful, and very fun to play.

I resisted alternate-tuning songs for a long time, mostly because it was too much trouble to re-tune the guitar. I felt like I had enough trouble keeping it in tune in standard tuning, so why just give myself more headaches by intentionally changing things around. But now I have an electronic clip-on tuner, so it's trivial. Thanks to that, plus the power of the Internet, I'm now playing songs I never thought I'd play.

Simon and Garfunkel Songs

I've had the Seagull for about a month now, and I think I love it more every day. It plays great, and sounds fantastic. It rings like a bell when you strum an open chord, and the ladies in the house have made unsolicited comments on its sweet sound.

As a result, I've been playing a lot of acoustic guitar. I've been playing songs from the Acoustic Jam Meetup (We went to the October jam session and had just as much fun as we did the first time), and also practicing finger-picking.

I've been working on two of my favorite finger-picking songs, both by Simon and Garfunkel:

• "Scarborough Fair": this is an old traditional song, but in my mind, the S&G version is definitive. The chords are easy, but the right hand is a little tricky. It's coming along nicely, but still needs a lot of repetition to get to the point where I'd like it to be.


• "Feelin' Groovy": a very simple and very beautiful song - also probably the happiest song I can think of. The whole song is made up of one repeating phrase. It's not hard, but it also takes some repetition to get the right hand working smoothly.

Hopefully there won't be a Simon and Garfunkel mutiny in the house, because I really do need to play these songs over and over to get the right-hand picking patterns down cold. I think that when I do, I'll have made some good progress on finger-picking in general.