The Dan Thorpe Acoustic Academy
February 2022 – Exclusive “Deep Dive” Lesson
How To Play Wayfaring Stranger
Wayfaring Stranger is a beautiful song covered by Johnny Cash, Eva Cassidy, Ed Sheeran, and more. This is definitely one you want to add to your repertoire, especially if you have struggled to play songs before.
As new DTAA member Jerry said, this is “beautiful and haunting”. Learn it, and you will impress others with it but more importantly, you will impress yourself.
Take your time, learn it well, and let’s get this stunning piece nailed by the end of February. Get the TAB below, print it off if you need to and make this your priority for the month!
Part 1A: The “Playthrough” and Verse
Start off slowly. Get the first few notes nailed. Make them sound as stunning as possible. If that is all you do on day 1, that’s great! Build the song up over the month. Patience is key. Remember you can simplify it further as shown in the video and for more help with hammer-ons, go here.
Part 1B: The Chorus
The Chorus is slightly more chord based but notice how you can avoid playing a full C and G chord here. Take your time with it though and make each phrase and each bit of the melody really shine! I would much rather you play two bars brilliantly than ten bars badly!
Part 2
In this lesson, I cover the details of how to really ramp up the piece to a new level, using harmonics, an outro idea, how and when to speed up, the power of dynamics, and more. Get the piece sounding wonderful and add these ideas on top to make it even better!
Do leave a comment below. Would love to know your thoughts on this and enjoy!
Stoked.
Pleased to hear it, Bruce. Enjoy. 🙂
ohh so nice. Can’t wait to try this.
Ace. I hope you have loads of fun with it. 🙂
LOVE it so far. I had never done a hammer on before…VERY COOL!
Well done, Jerry. That is ace. Hope you have tonnes of fun with this! 🙂
Oh my gosh!!! I love this!!!
Pleased to hear it! Enjoy, it is great fun to play. 🙂
Such a pretty melody. I am excited to get started. I think this may be easier than Deck The halls…. which, by the way, I finally got the whole song down! Just in time for Valentine’s Day🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It really is. Glad you are excited for it. You’ll have loads of fun with this and a big well done with Deck the Halls! Haha, you can revamp the words for Valentines day. 🙂
Nice one Nancy
Great lesson Dan. Love the music and the style. Learning this is a real pleasure!
Cheers, Allan. Glad to hear it. Yeah, it is great fun and glad you’re having a blast with it so far. 🙂
What a beautiful tune. This will be fun
Glad you like it, Angie. Enjoy 🙂
Loving this so much.. the hammer on will need loads of practice. I can hear it.. but I have a question. When you pluck 3 5 3 str all hammer ons , but that last 0 that is a hammer off? Does it sort of get plucked when finger is pulled off? Asking for a friend.. lol
thanks. this is going on my “to do list”
Great work with the hammer on. Yeah, you could call it a hammer-off and I know what you mean. It is called a pull-off and yeah, as you pull your finger off the string it creates the open string sound. I will create a more specific lesson on it but it sounds like you have the idea down. 🙂
Awesome!! Thank you!
This is my first lesson and I am really happy with the content and the support!! Love the song and the hammer on is cool.
Super pleased to hear it, Denise. A big warm welcome to you and keep having fun. Any questions, let us know. 🙂
Thanks Dan,Really pleased how much I am learning and how much fun it is.
Cheers, Robert. That is fab to hear on both counts. Keep up the good work. 🙂
Dan, I am on vacation but I insisted on taking my guitar with me just to keep up on this months lessons. This is such a pretty piece of music I want to get it down right. Thanks for the slow expressions and explanations. It is going well and I am enjoying it very much.
That is true dedication, and love for playing, Allan. Pleased to hear it and have a wonderful time. 🙂
Fabulous lesson and a beautiful melody. More like this please
Thanks, Joanne. Will definitely be doing so for sure. So glad you and everyone are enjoying it so much. 🙂
I keep coming back to the part 1 video to try to put the timing in and the feel for the passion that this music deserves. Still working but I am getting there. Thanks Dan for your explanations.
Glad to hear it, Allan. My pleasure. It’s great that you are thinking about the timing, feel, and passion which all bring it to life. 🙂
Love working this song. Dark and pretty song. The roll offs, hammer on, pull offs, make it a bit challenging..Cool!
Glad to hear it, Bob. Yeah, it really is a great one. Some nice challenges in there too but stick with them, they’re well worth it for how they elevate the song even further. 🙂
Dan, still struggling a little with the timing of this piece. I do a little better when I slow it down and try to put more feeling into the piece.
Hi Allan, definitely keep it slow and keep the feeling. That is absolutely fine. Also, in terms of timing, the melody is key, so try humming that as you play it. That can help with timing. It’s still early days with the tune, so absolutely no rush. Keep enjoying it! 🙂
Hi Dan, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy working on this song. When I get this nailed down, it will be the first meaningful song (at least to me) that I’ve learned. I love that it brings new things that I have not tried (the rolling picking, the hammer-on and the small bar chord). I have a long way to go on it – but I look forward to it every day. I have only gone through the beginning of your fingerstyle course… but I think nailing this song will help me as I continue… Read more »
Great stuff, Logan. It really is a beauty with some cool techniques. Very pleased you are enjoying it. In terms of the course, there is no exact structure. Learning this song, and then going over the fingerstyle course to tidy up and refine any areas is more than fine. Some folks like to hop between the two, but what you are doing is working so stick with it. 🙂
Thanks Dan
🙂
Love the song!! Still kind of struggling with the chorus but it gets a bit better each time I play it. I listened to the version from the movie 1917 sung solo by Jos Slovic and it is so beautiful and haunting at the same time.
Glad to hear it, and that’s great about the chorus coming along. It’s a good chorus to master btw, with that partial C to G chord change, as a few other arrangements I plan to finalize and release, use it here and there. Great version that too. 🙂
I am finding it is so hard to remember, the different phrases, of the bars played. Seems like I need to look at the print off copy to play it. This is something I need to work on, learning to memorize with out having the music in front of me. I need to review your lesson on memorizing and the steps to do it correctly. To be able to put it all together. Sounds very disjointed, stops and starts. Having said that, Love this song, and determined to play it well.
Sounds like you are doing well with the playing. Just read your other comment on the memory lesson page HERE Glad to hear it. Another thing you can try with this song is only playing through one phrase/melody at a time by memory and doing so five times in a row. Hammering one phrase at a time will help. Keep at it.
I will do that ,thank you!
🙂