Classicnesss aside, taste aside, there’s a sensual, tactile pleasure to fitting them to guitar. Things like this snippet from “You Took Advantage of Me” just feel good to play, and you could play Stevie Ray Vaughan licks or Doc Watson licks all day long and not find anything like it. All of these songs have something like that.
Doc Watson is a good reference point for me for this project because of “Doc’s Guitar.” Every fingerstyle guitarist tries to play “Doc’s Guitar” at some point. It’s as basic, elemental and complete as a fairy tale. It’s also satisfying and fun to play. To get into this type of music without taking on “Doc’s Guitar” would be a mistake and a lost opportunity. It’s a standard.
I’d like to create at least one arrangement that has that kind of essential character, one that says “This is how acoustic guitar players will approach this song from now on.” Obviously there’s much more to that than just the actual arrangement, but it a useful goal to keep in mind.
[TJH]
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