Acoustic Guitar Magazine | 1 year ago
On September 25th, the acoustic music community lost a great luminary with the passing of guitarist and composer Al Petteway. https://acousticguitar.com/remembering-al-petteway-prolific-guitarist-and-teacher-1952-2023/
In early 2023 Acoustic Guitar asked Petteway to contribute to an article exploring ways to “break through“ when a guitarist is stuck in a rut. His response to our question (How do you push yourself and regain the sense of momentum and progress?) showcases both his mastery of the instrument and his love for sharing his guitar knowledge.
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Fingerstyle guitarist Al Petteway, author of many instruction books and videos, and Guitar Week coordinator at North Carolina’s Swannanoa Gathering, offers an interesting idea for playing around with a song: take a familiar major-key song and change it to a minor key.
In his video, he runs through the process with the traditional song “The Water Is Wide,” creating off-the-cuff versions in multiple keys and tunings. Initially tuned to DADGAD, he works out the melody in G major, adds bass notes, and fills out the sound with additional chord tones. Play his opening phrase in Example 4a, then check out the minor version in Example 4b—quite a dramatic change, and full of potential for development.
From there, Petteway continues to check out other possibilities for the song: playing in D major and D minor in DADGAD, and finally in standard tuning in several keys and positions.
You’re bound to make mistakes figuring out all these variations, and that is really the point. “My number one goal is to have fun playing the guitar,” he says. “Don’t worry about being perfect—just worry about stretching your imagination a little bit.”
https://acousticguitar.com/12-ways-to-challenge-yourself-and-discover-new-territory-on-guitar/
