Heartwood Guitar Instruction

Hey Y’all,

I just posted about twenty new chord charts. You can check out all 270 songs by clicking here, or browse individual songs by clicking song titles below. Enjoy!

Beautiful by Christina Aguilera – I love it that I make a significant chunk of my living teaching Christina Aguilera songs to 5th graders.

Makin’ Whoopie by Louis Armstrong – I simplified a lot of the chords from quadrads to triads to make them more finger-friendly for the student who requested this hilarious jazz standard.

Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley – Leonard Cohen was had a great gift for songwriting, but his singing and recording skills didn’t do his songs justice. Buckley, on the other hand, nails this cover. A raw, wrenching performance.

Whippin’ Piccadilly by Gomez – This British rock band blew me away when I saw them play at Seattle’s Showbox a couple years ago. I love their blend of electronica and acoustica.

Killing Me by Graham Colton Band – Another G-Whiz song.

Babylon by David Gray – A simplified version.

Such Great Heights by Iron and Wine - Mr. Iron N. Wine turns this up-tempo Postal Service song into a whispery serenade. Simplified picking for beginning fingerstylists.

I Think It’s Going to Rain Today by Kaie Melua – A Randy Newman cover, recorded with a string orchestra.

Memories of East Texas by Michelle Shocked - A lovely Travis-style fingerpicking song. Played this around the campfire this past weekend. It sounded good, but I don’t think anyone present really for a minute believed that I learned to drive on those East Texas red clay backroads. I gotta get me a cowboy hat…

Alright by Pilate – This is one of the best songs Coldplay ever wrote. It’s a great song, with a super-catchy lead guitar part (which I haven’t tabbed out yet), but mysteriously familiar…

Shine a Light by the Rolling Stones – Rev’d Jagger speaks the truth.

Caring is Creepy by The Shins – One of my favorite bands, and by the look of all the traffic I get downloading other Shins songs, I’m in good company.

Bridge over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkle – It’s amazing how many bad chord charts there are out there of this classic song. Originally recorded on piano in Eb, way too many people transcribe the song for an standard-tuned guitar with no capo. Why torture yourself? This is Capo 3, in the finger-friendly key of G. We’ll call it “Bridge over Troubled Fingers”.

Windfall by Son Volt – I heard “Drown,” another song off Son Volt’s Trace album, on the radio shortly after I got out of college. I’ve still got that darn tape, and about 200 others, but, of course, no tape deck to play it. It was fun revisiting those songs (on iTunes) when my student recently requested Son Volt.

Maggie May by Rod Stewart – God I love that mandolin part at the end.

San Diego Serenade by Tom Waits – God I wish I could write love songs like Tom Waits. Do you have to be crazy and tortured to write songs like that, or does it just help?

Blue by Lucinda Williams – Williams is a master of the concise, poetic image. “Raven feathers shiny and black / A touch of blue glistening down her back.”

Knob twirlers, put your fidgety hands together. Someone’s finally come up with a way for you to tweak the parameters of your stompboxes while you’re playing.

It’s called the 3rd Hand, made by a company called Tone in Progress. It’s a completely mechanical expression pedal that you attach to a knob post on one of your guitar effects pedals via a cable. Rocking your foot on the pedal twirls the knob.

Imagine what you could do with a tremolo pedal–check out this excerpt from the song “Bones” by Radiohead. Hear the tremolo effect on the guitar slow down? That’s Mr. Expensive Effects Dude in the studio’s control room, twirling the tremolo knob while Jonny Greenwood’s busy strumming his guitar. Can’t afford Mr. Expensive Effects Dude? For $110 (a little steep, in my opinion), you can slow that tremolo all by yourself.

Reviews on Harmony Central–all two of them–are mixed. Both reviewers are worried that the rubber band that drives the 3rd Hand’s pulley is wimpy. I’ll let you know how mine turns out.

Here’s a quick note for all you feedsters: I believe I’ve fixed the RSS problem on the site. Subscribe away!

I guess since this internet thing is supposed to be a web, it’s no surprise the bugs always have the upper hand….