[Music]
hi this is Brian with active melody comm
in this week's guitar lesson I'm gonna
show you how to play st. James infirmary
now this is straying from what I
normally do usually I write my own
compositions but I found out recently
that st. James infirmary is in the
public domain so there's no copyright to
worry about with this and it's just a
classic song it's a beautiful song that
I wanted to create a standalone
composition something that works on
guitar that doesn't require any
accompaniment so I'm gonna break down
everything that I play the intro note
for note and show you how to do that but
I'm also going to talk through my
thought process for creating a
composition like that so that you can
start to do that on your own so I've got
this lesson split into two parts in this
video we'll take a look at the first
half if you like to watch the second
half and get the tablature for this
lesson you can get that by going to
active melody comm go to the weekly
lessons page and do a search for EP 261
alright so before I did this composition
I decided to immerse myself and all the
different versions that I could find of
st. James infirmary I'm familiar with
the song it's just a great song
lyrically and musically and I thought it
would be a really cool standalone
composition like this but it was really
hard because there's a lot of different
versions of it there's a lot of
inconsistency with this song both
lyrically and from a chord chord
structure perspective it's just been
done a lot of different ways different
keys you know it's just sort of like
almost a free-for-all when it comes to
that song but the one consistent part is
that it's always done in a minor
and so I've based my version loosely on
the Louis Armstrong version I listen to
Cab Calloway I listened to da Doc Watson
and I borrowed a little parts of those
songs but I based the chord structure on
the Louis Armstrong version now he did
his in D minor I think it was D minor
and I'm doing mine and a minor but
anyway so that's sort of the setup there
now the way that I started the song was
with my own little setup I did
a chord arrangement first and then went
into the melody so I started with and
that's just to set it up now I tried
doing it the other way originally I was
just starting right into the melody and
it was too too abrupt you didn't have a
point of reference and so I've kind of
figured that out that it needed
something and so I came up with just a
little playthrough of the chords there
now let me talk to that and then we'll
get into the the melody part but no way
that I'm playing these chords and these
are all downstrokes with the right hand
by the way it's just down down and you
don't let them ring out it's not like
that you you truncate them you let this
part of your hand hit the string each
time so it sound like that so it starts
with an a minor chord and then it goes
to an e7 chord
and it's a cool technique a little
takeaway for you if you wanted to write
a composition that has kind of that
eerie spooky sound go from the minor one
chord to the major five chord back and
forth between those two chords it
creates a really cool tension wave a
minor b7 and then I go back to the a
minor but this time I put my pinkie down
on the second fret first string to
create an E
I'm sorry an a6 go a minor 6th chord
sorry
so it's an a minor 6th chord and I got
that from Doc Watson's version if you
listen the way that he plays out every
time he's on the one chord he plays it
this weird kind of minor 6 and that's
that's how you do that so
[Music]
and then I played this so that's an f7
and then e seven and the way that I'm
playing that F seven there and I
apologize for this guitar because I
don't have fret markers on it I know
that frustrates people and I'm sure I'll
see it in the comments but I'll try and
work around that and call it out if you
tip if you play a C chord down in first
position you know how to play C you just
slide that all the way up so now that
now your ring finger is up here and this
is the eighth fret so ring fingers on
the eighth fret and then you put your
pinky down on the eighth fret third
string and play those middle four
strings that's an f7 point until you
make a seven chord a real easy way to
make it and then you slide that down one
fret and that's an e7 so now we're
playing an e7 down here and we're
playing one up here as well so yeah
[Music]
then back to the a minor and then
there's your turnaround chord which is
the e seven by the way to make this e
seven you just make an E chord and you
add your pinkie here on the third fret
seconds you didn't know okay now we go
into the melody and the way that I
played this
we're gonna learn that first now the way
that I wrote or didn't write it but
composed it I guess was to pick out the
melody on its own no chords nothing just
single strings so it sounded like that
very simple the kind of thing you could
do on a piano with just one finger and
then I'll work the chords around that
and I chose the key
you always have to pick the key first if
you're wanting to write a composition
like this and obviously you could do it
in any key but I always try and find
those keys that have those open strings
and so I settled on the a Montand key of
a minor because it allowed me to play
here that for that for that very first
part it kicks it off with a nice punch
and I'm taking advantage of that open E
string the one string so the way that I
play that you can use I think I'm using
my middle finger for that but it's this
is the 4th fret 2nd string and I slide
up to the 5th fret 2nd string but I'm
also hitting the open one string would
that the e string so you have real big
full sound it makes that single string
thing it just sort of amplifies it and
then I come down and hit the open fifth
string
and then I hit the a minor chord that's
another advantage or you're seeing the
advantage I guess of the open string
button open and because it's open those
notes can ring out allowing me to take
my hand off the fretboard and reposition
it back to this a minor chord so
now the next thing that I play goes like
this so that's just the e7 chord again
but I start with a low E string or the
sixth string
and then my middle finger I use my
middle finger and I slide from the
second fret up to the fifth fret on the
third string this may be the hardest
part in the whole thing you just want to
make sure you're accurate with it then
we come back to the second fret on the
third string
and then you hit the open fifth string
so you have
and then I do an upstroke on the fourth
string which is on the behind the second
fret you can see these two fingers here
are pushing down on strings three and
fourth fret - so yeah
it's an upstroke with the right hand on
that note alright so let me back up from
here and then notice I played another a
minor chord after that
and that was another upstroke so
and then I came up here and played and
all I'm doing for that is I'm playing so
this was an a minor chord I'm just
coming up here and playing an a minor
chord in this position so we're barring
this is the fifth fret right here and
then I've got my middle finger I'm sorry
my ring finger my pinkie on the seventh
fret strings five and four
as an a minor so I brushed the chord and
then I hit the second string so pinkie
comes off I keep the bar there hmm
so my pinkie goes to the eighth fret
third string so that I can hit that note
with a Down stroke and then do an
upstroke on the second string again
which is behind the bar here on the
fifth fret so we have and then the D
minor chord so at this point I'm just
keeping the bar there and now these
three fingers are making the a minor
chord shape think of the a minor down
here if you were playing it up here so
that your ring finger and your pinky are
on the seventh fret there and then your
barring on the fifth fret you just play
strings five four three two and one and
then you hit the second string again
which is now that note so we have
[Music]
and then back to the a minor chord so
altogether we have and then the
turnaround chord the five chord and I
just went back to that a seven chord
that I showed you in the intro just went
right into that because it's right here
it's a convenient place for it so let's
take it from
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
right back into the same melody line
what's nice about this is when I played
that turnaround chord that a seven chord
my finger fingers already my index
finger is already in position they're on
the fifth fret second string and I can
do that same little slide like we did
the first time using my index finger
this time because it's already in that
a7 same thing there and the difference
is this time the melody changes too so
let me show you that we're going back to
that F chord that f7 chords the same
chord that we did in the intro so I'm
gonna go ahead and play strings five
four and three so just remember when you
play that part of the melody line is
done with the pinkie so that's the
eighth fret third string seventh fret
third string and then we come down with
an index finger to the fifth fret third
string so yeah and then we played the e7
you start with a fifth string and then
you play the rest of the chord so
backing up we have
one more time and then I come all the
way down here
and play think of your a minor chord if
you were just playing strings two and
three out of that chord so you have
[Music]
and then after that I hit the fifth
string the open fifth string to a and
strum the a minor chord one more time
[Music]
okay and that's the whole first time
through you can see there's a lot of
repetition and the chords are pretty
basic there isn't any anything really
weird there it's just keeping the timing
that's gonna be the challenge in this
and so you may want to set a metronome
set it really slow something that you
can do that you're comfortable with but
once you get that going you want to keep
that right hand in motion the whole time
so just remember that let me back up and
play the whole thing now and that's
gonna conclude this video so this one's
fairly short this week the first half
and the second half we're going to get
into the all the other stuff all the
extra it's more of a solo in the second
half we're gonna just use the structure
of the song as an excuse to kind of jam
a little bit but we'll cover that in
part two so here we go from the
beginning of part one
[Music]
try just looping that over and over
again all right we'll see you in part
two