The Acoustic Apprentice – Day 1

Session 1

Heather playing RH harmonics

We began the session by tuning our instruments. This led to the first topic of the day – Tuning your guitar using harmonics.

Once we had tuned up we covered RH harmonics following the shape of the chord in the LH (see photo right). This included simple minor 11 and E-shape barre chords.

Session 2

Rob working on 'Go To Sleep'

We continued our work on chords into session 2, covering standard open chords followed by enriched chord voicings i.e. Em6, Em9 and Em6/9 and so on. We then briefly played through the James Bond Theme.

After a question about time signatures, mixed with moving open chords up and down the fret board, we covered Radiohead’s ‘Go To Sleep’. This involved moving around a ‘G’ shaped chord in a 10/8 time signature!

They ask the questions, I supply the answers!

Session 3

Geoff playing through the chords

After a break for lunch we began work on the REM song ‘Everybody Hurts’. This song involves a simple RH picking pattern over the chords of D, G, Em, A, Am, C, Bm and F# in a 6/8 time signature.

Session 4

We began work on a generic blues piece in the key of E. The piece is built around a repetitive blues riff with lick based embellishments using a variety of blues techniques – bends, slides, hammer-on and hammer-offs.