"Something in the Way She Moves"

It's always interesting to open my YouTube feed and see which of the people I follow have posted a new guitar lesson or song tutorial. Last week, I was surprised to see that Marty Schwartz (the best and most prolific guitar teacher on YouTube) had a video on how to play James Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves". (Tutorial is here, song is here.)

That song is one of my all-time favorites, and has to be one of the prettiest songs there is. The finger-picking guitar work is *exquisite*, and I'd always assumed this song was *way* out of my league. That may still turn out to be true, but at least I now have an idea of how to play the song (where before, I had none.)

I've gone through the lesson in great detail (backing up and repeating 10-second segments again and again). The chords of the song are not complicated. But the right hand (the picking hand) is as complicated as I imagined.

I've given it a bunch of slow repetitions, and it kinda sounds like I'm getting there a little bit. But then last night, right before turning off the lights, I grabbed my iPod, put on my headphones, and listened to the recorded version. Its beauty took my breath away...and also made me realize I'm still a very long way from sounding like that.

But I'm thrilled that I can play it at all, and this will now be part of my practice routine.