Happy Thanksgiving, America! I Know I’m a couple of days late, but I hope you all had a great one.

I’ve done the chorus section of ‘You’ve got a Friend’ … it’s pretty tricky to get around, but the tab/notation/midi/movie files are all there, so all you’ll need to do is make those fingers obey. If it makes you feel any better, I also had to make my fingers obey for this one. The arrangement I came up with forced me to come up with a whole new fingering for Gmaj7, one I’ve never had to use in all the 45 years of playing I’ve put in … so there you go, you learn something new every day when you join the Wonderful World of Twanging.

Guitar for Beginners and Beyond is where you’ll find it, along with an ever growing community of guitarists from all over the World. Since I moved the lessons over to the forum, membership is growing by almost 100 every day, and what a nice civilized bunch we are, too. Join in!

I heard from my old friend and master of the guitar Tommy Emmanuel the other day. Tommy is one of three CPGs (Certified Guitar Player), an award that the late great Chet Atkins bestowed upon the greatest twangers he knew of. Jerry Reed and John Knowles are the other two. I met Tommy back in 75 when we both wound up at the same open mic night in a Sydney (Australia) music venue. He was still a teenager, and blew us all away with his incredible musicality. We played many shows together afterwards and he would always introduce me as the ‘World’s Best Slide Guitarist’, which chuffed me no end. I wrote him to ask if I could quote him on that for the slide guitar DVD I’m finishing off. “Of course”, he wrote back, “it’s the truth” … so I’ll be using that testimonial for sure. I’m getting down to the final details of editing the DVD, so stay tuned if you’re interested in slide guitar.

My book PlaneTalk – The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book (also endorsed by Tommy) continues to sail out the door to all corners of the World. If you want to know the ‘trick’ to seeing the whole fretboard as friendly, usable, familiar territory … buy it! You’ll kick yourself, for the ‘trick’ is based around something you probably learned the first day you bought your guitar. It took me a couple of decades of continuous daily playing to spot it, though, so save yourself the time. Read all about it (and the companion DVD) here. You won’t regret it.

My slide instrumental Blue Groove made it back up to #1 in the Blues General charts at Soundclick this week. Have a listen here. If you love slide, why not join the Slide Guitar Discussion Forum? There are some great players there, all able and willing to pass on their expertise … for free.

OK, I’ll do the ‘bridge’ of You’ve got a Friend next, and start attacking some of the lesson suggestions we have posted at the new forum. If you have a tune you’d like arranged for finger style guitar, post it!

Cheers,

Kirk
http://www.kirklorange.com