Hey there, friends! Wishing you and yours a happy September, as the autumn months are just around the corner. Here's a quick update with some videos I posted last week, as well as a recap of everything from earlier in August.

FEATURED VIDEO

​Travel Guitar... Worth It? (Taylor GS Mini Review, 3 Years Later)​

Every few months, without fail, I get asked about the short scale guitar I use in some of my videos. Is it good for travel? When do I prefer it over my larger Taylor? Would it work as one's main guitar? I finally made a video where I answer all of these questions in-depth. Short answer — I'm a huge fan! Check out the video to find out why.

OTHER NEW LESSONS FROM AUGUST 2023

​Let's Practice! G Major Arpeggios in each CAGED Shape​
​From this past Friday! A live practice session, where I show you one of my favorite fretboard exercises from the past couple months.

​Paul Simon's Graceland – Creating My Own Fingerstyle Version​
​One of my all-time favorites. I wanted to learn it, but Paul Simon's playing was out of the question. Here's how I put together my own version (simple and advanced arrangements included).

​Van Morrison's Into the Mystic – Rhythm & Strumming Guide​
​Sixteenth-note strumming can be tricky, but here's a guide to getting started. Full song lesson and song sheet coming this weekend!

​Simplified Travis Picking in Key of C​
​You don't have to pick it exactly like the artist. Here's some tips for quickly fingerpicking any song in the Key of C.

​Song Tutorial – Zach Bryan's Summertime Blues​
​My favorite from his 2022 EP! Really proud of the lead guitar overdub from my playthrough – give it a listen 😎

​Song Tutorial – Phish's Bouncing Around the Room​
​Listener request which happens to be one of my favorite songs from freshman year in college! Here's how to strum it.

​The CAGED Poster I Use to Practice Lead Guitar​
​You may have seen it hanging behind me in some of my videos — here's how I put it to use.

FAREWELL, JIMMY BUFFETT :(

Learning about Buffett's passing this past Saturday really rocked me. As far as musical artists go, he was an absolute favorite of mine — and it was surreal to listen to his music all weekend with his final pages written and his book closed.

My parents listened to him a lot in the 90s. High school me immediately wrote him off as lame old person music, but after a few months of listening from the back seat — my defenses lowered and I started to enjoy it. Fruitcakes, Barometer Soup, and Banana Wind were relatively new at the time. I also started to appreciate his work from the 1970s, which to this day remains my favorite (A1A is a desert island record for me).

Too many favorites to count. I could talk about him & his music all day. But I'll close out with two memories.

One was from the summer before I started college, when I saw him live at Merriweather for the second time in as many years. I was with my best friends, we were in the lawn section, and the rain started falling hard. We didn't care. Sweat turned into mud. Everyone was sliding all over the place. We all had the best time. In those pre-iPhone days one of us had a disposable camera — and I managed to hang on to these pictures:

I saw him a handful of times since then, and while we always had a great time nothing was as fun as that 1999 show. Will cherish that memory for sure!

When I met my wife in the mid-2000s, her father and I quickly bonded over Buffett. I brought over my binder of paper song notes and we played so, so, so much Jimmy Buffett together. And still do to this day!

In recent years, what's warmed my heart the most about Jimmy Buffett is the series of videos his daughter Delaney made – where she's casually record her dad, in his office, and asks him about some of his older songs. Songs like Love in the Library – a tune that's incredibly lesser known, but was one I sang to both my daughters at bed time probably hundreds of times when they were younger.

Songs You Don't Know By Heart is what the project was called – you can watch all the videos here. There's fifteen of them. I've seen them all a few times at this point. There's no editing. Jimmy makes mistakes on guitar. His desk is messy. It's the best.

So many of these songs were my absolute favorites before these videos – and seeing Jimmy talk about them, play them, answer questions from his daughter – man, it makes me so happy. Literal tear in my eye right now just typing this.

I'll get around to properly filling out my lesson library with Buffett tunes sooner than later. But for the time being, wanted to share these memories and thank him for everything.

With that, I must run! See you all in the next one. Until then, take care.

✌️ David

Browse all my lessons @ songnotes.net