"Easy" songs by Tommy Emmanuel?

[Don Grimm]

Tommy Emmanuel recorded a video playing Doc Watson's Deep River Blues that is relatively acessible. The timing is a little tricky but it's doable with a little practice.

[dbvirago]

Originally Posted by Shadowy

Check out Tim Van Roy. He does tutorials of mostly Tommy Emmanuel songs. He's excellent. This is his Patreon page:

https://www.patreon.com/timvanroy/posts

Another vote for Tim Van Roy. Very good tutorials.

[247hoopsfan]

I was able to see Tommy in concert in Monterey, CA several years ago. He does put on such a great show, and makes everything seem so easy. But he’s been working on stuff for 50+ years and plays hours every day.
I can play a few of his songs, one I didn’t find too difficult was Saltwater.
I worked up this version several years ago by watching him playing on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/ItMTjAtCb0s

[pvfederico]

Other than the introduction, I would rate this as pretty easy -- compared to most of the stuff that he plays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlEV...XhQY3JwkpNEolE

Tommy has said that this is the first finger picking song that he teaches a student.

[pieterh]

We were in row 4 of the same concert; what an amazing show - two years waiting for this one due to the pandemic restrictions!

[boombox]

Originally Posted by Pdubs76

I say dive in to the tricky ones! The challenge will sharpen your abilities.

I am working on a While My guitar Gently Weeps/Lady Madonna type thing, stealing from both Tommy and from Pete Huttlinger, especially for WMGGW. However, I agree with Pdubs - when Truefire were doing some 9.99 downloads, I picked up a couple of his courses - most is way beyond me, but I'm grabbing bits which is helping me elsewhere too.

[TNGW1500SE]

We just saw him in Boone NC a few weeks ago. If I tried to play his stuff I'd end up cutting my fingers off out of frustration.

[JohnW63]

I was going to give " Diggers Waltz" a try as well as his version of Billy Joel's "
And so it goes. "





Neither are fast or full of theatrics, that some people say he always does.

He always tells people to try Freight Train and Windy and Warm as starting points.

[Taylor814]

Hope Street from Little by Little is pretty easy. Papa George is also easier than it looks. I agree that Lewis and Clark is also pretty playable. Back in the day when I played his stuff I played a lot of tunes from Only and Endless Road, but one difficulty I found was that in those days he generally used hybrid picking, which I can't do to save my life. Some tunes are more adaptable to straight finger picking than others.

[cliff_the_stiff]

That’s like looking for an easy to play Rush tune.

[BluesKing777]

Yep, no such thing as an easy TE tune!

But what about learning 'Windy and Warm' - the first parts are fairly straightforward and you could listen and learn Chet's version as well.

And you need a Maton 808! I have 4 but they don't help.

BluesKing777.

[Dimensia7]

For the all around Easy and Impressive song I'd say would be Tall Fiddler on the Endless Road album. The song is in DGDGBE tuning (very important, many T.E. songs are tuned like that), the chords pattern is very instinctive and spontaneous and once you learn it you just play it faster and faster. Tommy himself makes a great instructional video for it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De9ETucExNE

[Harlowv]

Originally Posted by mawmow

I read somewhere he instructs his students to learn Freight Train.

He has an excellent Youtube “Tommy Emanuel Guitar Master Class” that features Freight Train as the first song to learn when attempting Travis style fingerpicking. TE does a really good job showing new players “How to keep the thumb working”. He says “Bar, Bar, Bar…” Starts slow and ends up with a Chet Atkins version.
Then he lets you know it takes about 10 years to really figure this out. This video is simple and lays down the basics. He doesn’t sing in it. I find that singing really help’s take my mind off the seemingly impossible thumb vs fingers skill. Figured that way out on my own.
TE has an awesome attitude!

[Nymuso]

Tommy Emmanuel did not get to be Tommy Emmanuel by coming up with easy stuff. I once thought Lewis & Clark would be worth a try but while attempting one move in the bridge I angered the Guitar Gods and was smote. I had to play nothing but Margaritaville for ten days to atone. You have been warned!

[Brent Hutto]

I would think the more something is simple to play and accessible to a beginner, the less it will sound like Tommy E. Nobody goes to his shows to see folk tunes played simply and plainly or anything remotely like that.