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Hi Everyone,

Today's Target and Pay Per Lesson release is now live.

Rosa May is a piece I wrote a few years ago after a trip to Bodie, a well-preserved ghost town in the Eastern Sierras. The inspiration was a single tombstone, outside the main cemetery, with the simple inscription Rosa May.

I tried to capture a lonely, mostly melancholy, wistful mood with a simple melody and chord progression. It uses an arpeggio accompaniment with the melody notes woven into the harmony. The goal is to really bring out the melody and paint the picture.

The first release goes over just the main theme, hoping the student will apply some of the principles and work on the other three sections, which I sometimes refer to as episodes or chapters. Segment on the remaining sections will follow in a week or two.

Enjoy this level 4 drip feed lesson!

http://www.totallyguitars.com/target-so ... esson.html

Directly to the top of the must learn right away list
Thank you Neil,
Abilio

Wow

Neil
Thanks.
This song has a nice relaxed feel to it.

I watched Part 1 and after thinking about the melody notes watched Part 2.
The when returning to watch Part 1 again, noticed you discussed the notation.

Is the notation supposed to be attached to the lesson at this time ?

Dermot

Notation attached now, the elves are a bit distracted nowadays.

Thanks Santa

:laugh:

Can't wait to get to work on this over the weekend.

Neil,
I've been to Bodie as well. What a great place! I thought it was fantastic. I love ghost towns! Cool song. Beaker.

Its a cloudy day here in Central Missouri, with sleet, freezing rain, and up to 6" of snow expected tonight. I had already decided that this would be a perfect day to work on this song, and SHAZAMM!, you did a lesson on it.

As you know, I've been picking my way around this piece since I left camp, and my first observation would be that level 4 isn't correct. It moves slow enough, but to give it the tone it needs, and to let each note ring as long as possible, to give her the respect she deserves is a very hard thing for me to do. Nope, for me, this is a 6 or 7.

Next is the stretching and finger placement. Every time I open my guitar case, I hear "MR BUTLER, COME HERE NOW. "NEVER LEAVE YOUR GUITAR CASE CLOSED WITHOUT LATCHING IT" And every time I start working on Rosa May, I can hear "MR BUTLER, USE YOUR RING FINGER, NOT YOUR MIDDLE FINGER" and you never ever said that too me, but I can still hear it. My problem is that iin some case's, that ring finger just won't do it. I've tried my best for 4 years now, and I've seen no improvement at all. I'm not saying that I will quit trying, but I'm not going to shelve a song like this simply because I have one finger that won't play well with others.

So if anyone besides me has the same issues, I think they will find this deceptively harder than #4. However, I've been waiting for your lesson and detailed explanation for a couple of months now and you've done it.
Thank you so much for sharing this great song with everyone.

Cheers,
Scott

Scott,

As with many songs I agonize over rating the difficulty. There are so many things to take into account, particularly what level the student aspires to play the song. Is it enough to get the notes or is the goal to perform it at a professional level. Blackbird is a great example of one that I make all beginners learn but very few students can make it sound like Paul did. I would agree that Rosa May is not really a 4 but making it really musical is probably an 8. I don't want to discourage students from working on it by over rating it either. Unfortunately the rating system is inherently flawed (like the BCS?) but it's better than nothing.

Neil

TGNeil wrote:

Scott,

As with many songs I agonize over rating the difficulty. There are so many things to take into account, particularly what level the student aspires to play the song. Is it enough to get the notes or is the goal to perform it at a professional level. Blackbird is a great example of one that I make all beginners learn but very few students can make it sound like Paul did. I would agree that Rosa May is not really a 4 but making it really musical is probably an 8. I don't want to discourage students from working on it by over rating it either. Unfortunately the rating system is inherently flawed (like the BCS?) but it's better than nothing.

Neil

Well said.. I have just gotten harder on myself over the last couple of years. I must not have made many mistakes a few years ago, cause I didn't hear them
I hear them all now. I just have to be careful to not take the fun out of it, or letting perfect be the enemy of pretty good.