Below is the lesson for “Georgia On My Mind” by Ray Charles.

Helpful Tips

In this lesson, you’ll learn to play this beautiful melody with heartfelt emotion. Think back to all the times that you’ve heard this song being performed. Most of the time, it’s a song that tends to be played with a lot of feeling.

Now, playing with “feeling” is a subject we’ve tackled before in this lesson, as well as, this one. But, the way we go about creating feeling is always unique to the song itself. In the case of this song, some of the concepts we’ll be talking about in the lesson videos are:

1) Tempo Alteration: Such as Rubato, which means that we do not have to strictly adhere to a steady tempo. The overall goal is to have a natural flow to our playing. So some passages could be played a touch slower and others a touch faster. Keep in mind that less is more. Drastic tempo changes will sound out of time, but subtle ones will sound natural.

2) Dynamics & Accenting: With dynamics and accenting, we can alter the volume of notes and passages to create contrast in our playing. In the part 2 lesson, we’ll break down an example of how Evan uses dynamics and accenting to build tension and release in the B Melody.

Part 1 – Performance & Free Lesson

Part 2 – For Premium Members

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