Stagger Lee Tab and Video in Drop D tuning for Fingerstyle Guitar

Casa Fretboard is currently in escape mode, having exchanged the Texas heat for more temperate climes. Waves and bicycles have been involved (not at the same time), as well as the enjoyment of ice cream on a scale of consumption I have previously only associated with American folk tales involving Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Now would be a good time to have started a soft-serve blog two years ago.

After the sheer preponderance of ice cream vendors, my next favorite thing about New England is the word "superette," a term that that is all prefix and suffix and no root. You could just call your modest grocery store a "market," or you could take the modern default, "supermarket," cut it down to size with the cute diminutive "ette," and voila: the superette. I don't know why this coinage brings me such joy, but if there are any comparable ones out there for other things, do please write and tell me because, while I'm sure they're staring me right in the face, no more come to mind at present. Also, for all I know, superettes exist far beyond the confines of the Northeast, and it only has regional associations for me because I'm from here.

The newsletter unceremoniously took last week off, but I am back today with another Youtube lesson, on how to play the blues classic "Stagolee" in drop D tuning. Which brings up another linguistic discovery, based simply on observation of general usage: I've been calling it "dropped D tuning" for as long as I've been playing guitar, but have come to find it is most typically written "drop D," not "dropped D." Lots of people learn "Stagolee" from the John Hurt version in standard tuning, but the arrangement in this week's lesson is one I teach in The Fingerstyle Five as an example of how to arrange and improvise on a twelve-bar blues in drop D.

You can find the Youtube lesson at the link below:

How To Play Stagolee In Drop D Tuning

And you can download the tab here:

Get The Tab

And, of course, you can find out more about the membership on my site. Starting next week, we'll begin working on a steady-bass version of "See See Rider" in E:

www.fretboardconfidential.com

In the meantime, I'll be finishing up the paperback collection of Arsene Lupin stories I scored at the Harvard Coop last week. Yes, I only discovered Maurice Leblanc's master thief through the recent TV adaptation starring Omar Sy, but hey, it's a French adaptation, so that's gotta count for something.

More soon,

David