Justinguitar starts this off like a lot of us who have played (and taught) this song throughout our lives – with some reservation and almost apologetically. We all love Stairway – but equally we’ve spent a lot of our lives estranged from the song – almost actively avoiding playing the it just because we’ve feared negative associations. (Despite the “No Stairway” signs that proliferate in music stores world over you still hear it hacked to death almost anytime you visit.) He’s then quick to say how amazing the song actually is and how rich an experience it was to revisit it for his lesson series – again I think a common experience (it certainly was mine during the Original Stairway Project). Justin is every bit the teacher he appears to be.
Justin presents the song in six lessons (we’ll post the first two here and then the link to his site which has them all so you can pay him a visit), starting with the intro and he’s basically 100% note for note accurate in these first two parts and makes a point of capturing and pointing out a couple of often overlooked nuances in Jimmy’s playing of these parts. The video quality is good given the upload date of 2008 on these. Justin’s camera work and sound/video quality is miles ahead on stuff he does today but for the time this was done it’s pretty good and shouldn’t keep you from digging in and finding some good stuff in his Stairway tutorial.
Although he gets into the solo this is primarily a tutorial for the acoustic guitar part (though the solo tutorial is quite good). I’d look elsewhere for additional info or instruction on what the 12 string guitar is doing (and the electric parts during and post solo). To do those justice Justin would have needed at least two or 3 more videos – but he more than gets you started here.
Another thing to note here is Justin talks about how his understanding of the song and the various parts has changed over the years. He acknowledges there are things he doesn’t know or is less sure about, and things he used to play wrong or different. That’s a good teacher. He’s encouraging you to develop your critical ear – and letting you know that the learning never stops. He’s still learning even while he’s teaching. If you take that philosophy into your Stairway journey; that it’s a lifelong journey of ebbs and flows and learning then you’ll do Justin proud because that’s definitely part of his ethos.
Here’s the link to his site where the whole lesson is presented in six parts.
And before we leave Justin – can we just acknowledge how many lessons he has uploaded and provides on his site? How cool is it that a guy like Justin offers all that to all of us as a resource for learning. I know there’s a small profit motive with donations and YouTube hits – but that’s probably more like a cost recovery motive when you consider all the time it probably takes him to do this stuff and all the time it took him to be the player he is. Thanks Justin!