🤩 I'm so excited

(this is my focus this year)

RIFFS:

The Year Of The Solo Show

The universe made me do it.

Everywhere I look, I’m being encouraged to double down on my solo show. It’s been decent for a decade now, but in the last year it’s grown so much. I’m honestly not sure how far this thing’ll go.

But we’re gonna find out.

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Where I’m at:

• roughly 200 songs

• some private party work

• strong word of mouth/repeat business

• a repertoire of tricks that make my arrangements pop

• above-average singing (compared to other people who do this job)

• fairly insane tipping (it’s pretty common to make more in the tip jar than the house pays me)

What I’m gonna improve:

• learn another 100 songs

• book myself into more places

• build an EPK w video samples

• get really good at running sound

• take my singing from good to great

• develop a pipeline for private party work

I started a brand-new YouTube channel to share the journey.

I’ll also be making videos on things I’ve already figured out:

• what gear to use

• how to learn songs

• my bag of arranging tricks

• and any other strategies & tactics that are reliably successful

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RECS:

In fact, here’s the first video:

In it, I go a little deeper on the repertoire Venn diagram we talked about here.

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CHARTS:

Our 5yo is OBSESSED with this song from Cody Johnson:

PDF, Sibelius, & musicXML of the chart in this Dropbox folder.

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SMARTS:

1

These lyrics are great.

I especially love:

there’s a box of greasy parts sitting in the trunk of that ’65

still waiting on you and your granddad to bring it back to life

you can always get around to fixing up that Pontiac

until you can’t

My theory: specificity in lyrics allows them to have universal appeal (without resorting to pandering).

2

It’s in the key of Db.

Sounds to me like at least one of the acoustic guitars is in drop-D, a half-step down. (Drop Db?)

Live, it looks like he gets to Db by playing C shapes with a capo on the 1st fret.

3

Almost the entire song is I - vi - IV - I

4

VERSE 3 is trimmed down by two measures:

This gets them to CHORUS 2 with a little more urgency.

5

VERSE 4 has a little twist:

the V chord replaces the I chord we’ve used up until this point

The new chord—combined with the tied whole notes—puts a little additional emphasis on the lyrics.

6

Dynamics & texture.

The simplicity & repetition of the chord progression means that dynamics & texture do all the heavy lifting in this song.

Let’s take a quick look at the instrumentation on this track.

Here’s the INTRO:

What do you hear here?

I hear:

• two acoustic guitars

• two electric guitars

• B3 organ

• a synth pad

• bass

• drums

• fiddle

• piano

• steel guitar

Here they are in isolation:

• acoustic guitars panned L & R

  • A GTR L plays a fingerpicked pattern:

  • A GTR R plays a chord with harmonics, then a palm muted thing:

• two electric guitars:

  • palm muted pattern through a delay that travels L to R

  • volume swells in the center

• B3 comes in halfway through the INTRO:

• synth pad:

• bass:

• drums:

• fiddle:

• piano:

• steel guitar:

Later in the track we get even more guitars. Here’s CHORUS 2, where there are least SIX guitars:

And in the OUTRO they add yet another guitar to play the praise & worship-style 8th note “lead” line:

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That’s all I got today.

See you next Wednesday,

Josh

ps. If you’re interested in playing solo acoustic shows, please subscribe to the new YT channel. (And/or share with a friend!) Thanks!