SESSION ONE  Tuning, Drop D Tuning  Drop D practice tune (beg.)  The Cuckoo (int.)  Candy Man (adv.) SESSION TWO  I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry     (beg.)  Railroad Blues (int.)  Living In The Country" (adv.) SESSION THREE   Girl From the          North Country (beg.)   Saturday Night Shuffle  (int.)  One Way Gal  (adv.) SESSION FOUR Sixteen Tons  (beg.) Buckdancers Choice  (int.) Docs' Guitar  (adv.) SESSION FIVE Spike Driver Blues (beg.) Green Green Rocky Road (int.) Colored Aristocracy  (adv.) SESSION SIX Keep Your Lamp  Trimmed and Burning (beg.) Cripple Creek (int.) Eighth of Janauary (adv.) SESSION SEVEN Shady Grove (beg.) The Glory of Love (int.) In My Life (adv.) SESSION EIGHT Baby Please Don't Go (beg.) Both Sides Now (int.) Brighton Park (adv.) SESSION NINE HOME Dvorak (beg.) Down To The Banks  (int.) Let Us Get Together  (adv.) SESSION TEN Monday Morning Blues (beg.) Standing On The Outside (int.) I'm Confessin'  (adv.)

Welcome to a  new feature of my website called "Fingerstyle Academy".  Over the last 15 years I've taught classes in fingerstyle guitar at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago to beginning through advanced students through the medium of tablature.  I have recently put together a  series of reflective material that has been most successful in my classroom.  It is geared towards people who can play some guitar already and want to learn to fingerpick. The arrangements presented in this Fingerstyle Academy range from the traditional " Shady Grove" to the famous harpsichord interlude from the Beatles' "In My Life".  The material is drawn from songs and tunes I learned as a child, music that has influenced me over the years, and pieces suggested to me by students that I have arranged and turned into rewarding lessons. I hope you will develop the confidence to go into open tunings and to approach and dissect a piece of music.  This includes dealing with first and second  endings, CODA's and other musical signs and learning the most economical way of getting through a piece. These lessons will come out about once a month.  There will be 3 pieces presented each time for beginning, intermediate and advanced players.  Students can download the tablature and listen to the music at full and half speed and they will always have it on hand if they need to go back for a reminder.  The advanced level will focus on masters of the fingerstyle guitar such as Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson as well as student versions of other pieces that I have recorded. All lessons include tabulature, and mp3s in slow and fast versions of the tunes. The Tabulature is in PDF format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the tab. It is a common program that most people have already and use for opening many documents, but if you don't, it's a free download from Adobe. Go HERE to download. The tabulature in this series is designed to be as close to the standard six-line form found in most guitar publications. It can be viewed online or easily printed out. Special thanks to Ken Pelletier, Ted VonNida and Steve Rosen, for making this notion about an instructional website into a reality.  It was and is hours of work for them and I am deeply grateful for their time and talent. Ready to play some tunes?  Start at Lesson One, or go to the Directory of Tunes and go from there.