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    The project began as a purely personal one: I wanted to learn how to play every song on Elliott Smith’s self-titled album as a challenge to improve my guitar playing.

    The guitar parts themselves were challenging to play, but by far the most difficult and time-consuming part was figuring out what the guitar parts were in the first place. Each is carefully composed, almost always in alternate tunings, full of unique chord shapes, internal melodies, and precise rhythms. What stood out the most was how, despite all the detail, none of it seemed showy or superfluous. Since it was basically impossible to find accurate transcriptions online – and hard to discern the few that were – I started learning them all by scratch, from recordings and live videos.

    Eventually, with the help of friends and previous transcribers, I learned all the guitar parts. While I was practicing them, studying old videos and blog posts, it started to really bother me: Why was it so hard to find good transcriptions of Elliott Smith songs?

    Many musicians had definitely gone down this path before me – most of them probably much better guitar players – but I struggled to find reliable sources. The most popular video lessons and tabs always seemed to miss important details, often by using common chord shapes in place of Elliott Smith’s uncommon, usually sparser, choices.

    I started making videos and, eventually, a songbook, trying to capture Elliott Smith’s compositions as completely as possible. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with simplifying them to make them easier to play and enjoy, the originals, with all their magic, should be preserved, so we can all study and appreciate them, and if we’re brave, try to play them (I still can’t really hang on Southern Belle...)

   Happy playing ! ! !

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