Poor Boy Long Ways From Home - John Fahey - With Free Tab

 

n this video I want to share with you my version of John Fahey's of 'Poor Boy Long Ways From Home'. This is a nice piece of folk blues music in the American Primitivism style which Fahey is famous for. The music is played on a guitar in Open D Tuning and is in the Key of D. It is in 4/4 time and it is a fingerstyle piece incorporating a standard Travis Picking pattern throughout. In this video, I will play through the music at normal tempo first, and then I will play through it again more slowly and put the tab onscreen.

Below are some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.

Poor Boy Long Ways from Home Downloadable Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT

 

• Bends - There are a number of bends throughout the music and these take place on the 8th fret of the second string. Throughout the music I have written these as half note bends just for ease, but they don't all have to be played as half note bends. You will notice that I play these bends differently throughout the music just depending on how I want the note to sound. Therefore, don't feel you have to play all these notes as half note bends, play them how you want and what sounds best in the music.

• Hammer-Ons - You will notice that there are quite a lot of hammer-ons in the music. These take place on the second string from the open position of fret 2. The reason these are played as hammer-ons is because of the fast tempo of the music and these are two eighth notes on the same string. Thus, it's quite difficult to play the two notes at speed without using a hammer-on. If you do not like playing hammer-ons and wish to pick these notes individually, then you will have to use alternating picking fingers on the same string to get the required speed, and this will probably be the index in middle fingers you will need to use. This can be quite tricky to do if you're not used to it, but it is an alternative option if you don't like playing the hammer-ons.

• Walk-Ups and Walk-Downs - There are walk-ups and walk-downs that occur in a lot of the bars of the music. For example, bars 8, 12 and 16. When playing these, you also play another note on the second string and it can be quite tricky trying to co-ordinate the two together as you walk-up or walk-down the lower string. If you are struggling playing these, just leave out the additional notes on the second string and only play the bass notes on the lower string, it won't sound much different.

This is about all I need to say about this piece. It is quite a straightfoward piece of music to play, there are just a few fidgety sections which may trip you up and it is quite a quick tempo. But with a little practise it should be fine.

Thanks for Reading,
Neil