The other day’s email I sent about Bob Dylan proved very popular.
Even though he can sometimes be a polarising figure… one thing he does is that he does things in his own way and on his own terms.
Like with this fun fact, for instance…
Did you know the song, “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” had its melody taken from an old traditional song called:
“Who’s Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I’m Gone”.
Interesting title. By doing this, Bob showed how you can be creative with music already out there.
Traditional songs have stood the test of time, after all.
I’ll bet people will still be singing songs created centuries ago in 100 years’ time, while future generations will be asking “Ed who”? (About Mr Sheeran, of course).
One of the best things about traditional songs is the simple melodies.
…Be it folk tales from the US, sea shanties from the UK, or some of the varied and wonderful classical music from around Europe.
A challenge I gave to my students in the Dan Thorpe Acoustic Academy last month was to work out a piece of music from pure notes.
I gave them zero TAB or notation – just the note names.
Being able to take some notes and find them on the fretboard is something I urge you to do too.
It’s fun and can help you unlock the fretboard without having to read music or rely solely on TAB.
The members did brilliantly well to work out what the song was and play it.
…And as I promised them, this month, I’m taking that piece of music and turning it into a fully fledged No Chord Fingerstyle arrangement.
This means we will be playing an incredibly famous tune that is so well-known it rivals “Happy Birthday” for popularity.
The song itself uses just three simple chord voicings, it will give your fingers a nice workout, and I show you some simplifications for playing it.
…And this style of playing is far easier than strumming tunes in the same old, boring way.
All of this is the essence of my No Chord Fingerstyle method – which will help you to play beautiful songs… without painstaking effort.
If you feel your singing voice is in the same league as Bob Dylan’s (I actually think he often sounds great despite his limitations)…
Then the No Chord Fingerstyle method will work for you.
Plus, at the moment, I’m tweaking the Academy sales page. Although it doesn’t get mentioned there at the moment, if you join, you will get the No Chord Fingerstyle course for free.
Any questions, let me know.
Have a great day of practice!
Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination
P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming, and learning guitar more enjoyable (especially if you are over 40) join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE.
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