Crafting Songs: the Fingerstyle Guitar Toolkit
This “songcrafting” workshop will include a variety of hands-on exercises aimed at building songs and arrangements with fingerstyle guitar embellishments. We will develop a set of musical tools based on the CAGED system including chord inversions, passing chords, and licks typical for a given chord position that may then be employed in giving color and individual personality to cover favorites (possibly drawn from Hot Tuna, Mississippi John Hurt, Gary Davis, Bob Dylan, or some familiar standard folk tunes) as well as for building original songs.
Specific songs will be taught that demonstrate these principles and can then be used as laboratories for variations and accompaniments. We will also address the development of a song from a poem or original lyric set, considering how lyrics “speak” in various keys, along with creating groove and feeling with refrains, wordplay and defining riffs. If you are interested in navigating the fretboard with confidence and style, this workshop is for you!
Specific songs will be taught that demonstrate these principles and can then be used as laboratories for variations and accompaniments. We will also address the development of a song from a poem or original lyric set, considering how lyrics “speak” in various keys, along with creating groove and feeling with refrains, wordplay and defining riffs. If you are interested in navigating the fretboard with confidence and style, this workshop is for you!
NOTE: This workshop can be tailored to a version lasting 2-3 hours, as well as the full weekend session typical of Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp.
Fundamentals of Fingerstyle Guitar
with Jorma Kaukonen
Level 2: Intermediate
This workshop explores essential fingerstyle fundamentals using Jorma's repertoire as a vehicle. We will emphasize alternating bass, and melody lines that break out of pattern picking. Variations used within the songs will include chord inversions up the neck, as well as typical licks and fills characteristic of songs in different keys. It will be assumed that students have familiarity with first position chords, and may even have substantial experience as lead or rhythm guitarists. Examples of some songs covered in recent classes include Keep on Truckin; Nine Pound Hammer; Search My Heart; I Know You Rider. Jorma will break down each piece methodically and provide individual attention to each student as the songs are built.
Teaching assistant Marjorie Thompson will support this instruction with the individual mini- tutorials in class, after class review sessions, and class notes that reflect each piece as it is developed, with partial tabs, chord patterns, notations and alternatives. She will also make clean recordings of Jorma's renditions reflecting the class notes. These and other handouts (lyric sheets, etc), along with CD copies of the recordings, will be assembled and sent to each participant in the weeks following as a "Jorma pack" for continued study.
Teaching assistant Marjorie Thompson will support this instruction with the individual mini- tutorials in class, after class review sessions, and class notes that reflect each piece as it is developed, with partial tabs, chord patterns, notations and alternatives. She will also make clean recordings of Jorma's renditions reflecting the class notes. These and other handouts (lyric sheets, etc), along with CD copies of the recordings, will be assembled and sent to each participant in the weeks following as a "Jorma pack" for continued study.
Reviews and Testimonials
"Marjorie's Songcrafting workshop was just the kickstart that I needed for this next part of my fingerstyle journey. We've all heard about the CAGED methodology to learn chord inversions--Songcrafting used the CAGED methodology not in dry technical exercises, but in real songs. Songs like "Let Us Get Together" by Reverend Davis, "San Francisco Bay Blues" by Jesse Fuller, and even "You are My Sunshine".
Marjorie lays the groundwork for letting us learn how each inversion has it's own sound, it's own advantages and disadvantages in reaching for melody notes that are both part of and not part of the chord, cool passing chords to get from one position to the next, and a continued reminder that as performers that the chord positions, chord quality (major, minor, dominant, etc), and substitutions are our artistic decisions to make. She left us with a wealth of reference material on these chords, corresponding scale patterns, and some ways to use them. She's not just a top notch university educator, but a darn good musical educator as well. She really wants all of her students to succeed.
Marjorie lays the groundwork for letting us learn how each inversion has it's own sound, it's own advantages and disadvantages in reaching for melody notes that are both part of and not part of the chord, cool passing chords to get from one position to the next, and a continued reminder that as performers that the chord positions, chord quality (major, minor, dominant, etc), and substitutions are our artistic decisions to make. She left us with a wealth of reference material on these chords, corresponding scale patterns, and some ways to use them. She's not just a top notch university educator, but a darn good musical educator as well. She really wants all of her students to succeed.
- Allen Martin
"Marjorie's Songcrafting and Country Blues Guitar Essentials allowed me to challenge my own comfort level on the fretboard. The assignment of taking a familiar song and transposing it into an unfamiliar chord progression based on the CAGED system was a great guide for breaking out of all of my self-inflicted boundaries on the guitar. Not only did the workshop give color to favorite and familiar tunes, it dared you to color outside the lines."
- Kathleen Sullivan
"Marjorie's workshop is wonderful. Marjorie is a talented, engaging and, most of all, patient instructor. Marjorie's workshop opens the mysteries of the fret board and teaches how much life exists beyond the fifth fret."
- Robert Goldberg
"Not all chords are created equal. Marjorie's class showed me that there may be many ways to play the same chord but the different finger positions that she taught allowed me to get the right nuanced sound for the song."
- Alan Rafterman
Copyright © 2005-2012, Marjorie Thompson. All rights reserved.