Bron-Y-Aur Stomp by Led Zeppelin | acoustic
An acoustic guitar lesson on how to play "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp” by Led Zeppelin, from the Led Zeppelin III album released in 1970.
The song's title was misspelled on the album cover. I did a lesson on, "Bron-Yr-Aur", from the Physical Graffiti album which was spelled correctly. I've had a ton of people ask me to do a tutorial on this song and I finally got around to it this week. Other than getting the right tuning, which is open F (exactly the same as open G, just down a full step) the hardest thing about this song is the hybrid picking and the very strange timing in certain parts. I go over all of the quirky stuff in the video. There's a couple of timing tricks for the chorus section that'll I'll show you. I struggled a lot with that part (especially when programming the drums!) until I figured out a way to understand it. As with a lot of Jimmy Page's acoustic stuff, he was heavily influenced by Bert Jansch on this song. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is a direct influence of "Wagoner's Lad" in which Bert plays banjo and John Renbourn plays guitar. Give it a listen and you'll see how similar they are. I don't have a problem with any of this as every musician is influenced by other musicians. Greta Van Fleet comes to mind these days. There stuff is very derivative of Zeppelin, as Zeppelin were of other bands and musicians so it's come full circle and I'm sure the wheels will keep turning as time marches on. If you listen closely to the original recording, Jimmy Page starts it out at between 118 and 120 beats per minute. When John Bonham comes in, it immediately drops to around 109-110! It speeds up again on the breakdown and then goes back down to 110 when Bonham comes back in! That would NEVER happen in today's music where everything is played to a click, but I love that sort of stuff as it makes the music more alive and less robotic. When I recorded my demo I tried to emulate that. The first part I played to a click at 118, then when the drums come in I took it to 109, back up to 112 for the breakdown and again down to 109 when the drums come back in. If I played the whole thing at 109 it didn't feel right, and at 118, other than the beginning, it sounded rushed. I always really enjoy working on Zep's acoustic stuff and this one was no exception. I hope that you're able to get something from my lesson and that you enjoy playing this Zeppelin acoustic classic. Cheers Andy |
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