Here is my latest track for the Lost and Found album, an instrumental piece which I wrote for my baby girl Evelyn who died in March 2019. (Download: mp3 | tablature)
Tag: Alan B. Sanderson
More Tablature
After my recent post about authoring guitar tablature on Linux, my son asked me for the tablature for a few other songs because he is taking a guitar class this semester in school. Here are the scores, all authored with MuseScore:
I also added a link to them on the Lost and Found album page. (more…)
Guitar Tablature Editing on Linux
I am a self-taught guitarist, learning to play mostly by ear. When I was 10 years old my dad gave me a chord chart and a few John Denver songs to learn, and I was off to the races. As long as I had the chords and knew the tune, I could play any song. When I was 15 years old my friend showed me a guitar magazine that had the music for a song we both liked, and it was written in tablature. “What’s this?” I asked.
“Tablature,” he explained. “The lines are the strings, and the numbers are the frets.” I stared at it for a few minutes, and then tried to play a few bars. My friend let me take the magazine home, and I learned how to play the whole song that day. Reading standard music notation has never been easy for me, but tablature is simple to understand because I think of guitar music in terms of where I put my fingers on the fretboard, not in terms of the names of the notes I am playing. Learning about tablature opened up a whole new world of guitar music and playing technique for me. When my garage band broke up I spent a lot of time writing down all of our songs in tablature so that I wouldn’t forget how to play them.
There are two Free software tools which I use for writing guitar tablature on Linux, which I will review here.
(more…)When I Was Lonely
I just finished a new recording for the Lost and Found album, a song called “My Abode.” (Download the mp3)
My Abode
words and music by Alan Sanderson
The road is my abode
It will love me — it will kiss me
The road is my abode
It will hold me — hold meI turned to you when I was lonely
And you sent me on my way —
Your wayThe street is my retreat
And I go there when there’s nowhere else to go
And I know
I belong — I belongI turned to you when I was lonely
And you sent me on my way —
Your wayAnd I don’t know which way I’m going
And I don’t know which way I’ve been
And I don’t know where you want me to be
But I know I’m far from homeI turned to you when I was lonely
And you sent me on my way
You said my way was your way
But your way —
Your way is my way home
(Dedicated to the memory of Meggan Mackey, 1974-1999) (more…)