Teaching my Boss some Fingerstyle Guitar

[markthom]

Anyone else play some guitar at work with colleagues or your boss?

I'm lucky to have a boss thats into music and can play a bit of guitar, we have done a few things together with him doing some strummed accompaniement to me on guitar or on Whistle / Smallpipes, but he has always expressed his frustration at not being able to sing, but still wanting to be able play something solo that people could sit and enjoy.

Of course I have been trying to extol the virtues of solo fingerstyle playing, and eventually got him started and enjoying it.

I have given him tabs and recordings for a couple of traditional Scottish tunes previously, which he is now playing, and he came back to me wanting to step it up a bit and gave me a couple of songs he would like to play, Wonderful Tonight and Tracks of My Tears, the first one is his favourite tune and the second his wife's.

I agreed to give it a try, as they are not normally tunes I would think of arranging or playing, so it has been a fun challenge, particularly in trying to keep the arrangement as simple as possible whilst still sounding like the song.

Here's a rough recording of Wonderful Tonight I have given him to work with, in conjunction with a TAB and some extended lunchtime sessions in the office going though it.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getpl...d=6745208&q=hi

It would have been nice to give him a better recording, minus the patchy tempo control and occasional flub, but I'm struggling to find enough time at the moment to record my own stuff, let alone extras like this, but hey, maybe I'll get a promotion....

[Rodders]

We have an old 70s Epiphone Dreadnaught with the worlds highest action that we can bang out a few tunes on - the only problem being the high action means that you can only use first position chords. It's good fun, every place of work should have one.

[markthom]

Ouch, my fingers are sore just thinking about it.

[andrewjw]

Great stuff on the soundclick site Mark....Particularly like "Moving On"...stunning tone!!

[Rodders]

VERY GOOD playing, Lamentation is my fave. Lot's of emotion in the music.

[RZero]

Just listen to them all very nice tracks, May be Im being a little stupid here but on Lamentation at the very start do you play the music from Close encounters of the third kind ?
Deltoid Blues sound very very nice.

[markthom]

Thanks for the generous words guys, I appreciate it.

RZero well spotted, the strings are tuned just right in Open G to get them as natural harmonics.

[RZero]

Least I know Im not stupid I remember learning to play the notes on my old keyboard (which is over 20 years old now and still works)