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Derek Dowling
Past Notes
January 26th, 2026
We added two new Alan Jackson songs today, Murder on Music Row and Angels and Alcohol.
January 19th, 2026
Today we added Job Description and I'm Over You and then reviewed Someday by Alan Jackson.
We learned a new chord, F#m7 (an A with the thumb hooked over the 2nd fret on the low E string.
January 12th, 2026
Derek had two new songs so we wrote them out and went over the second one (the first one has an F which is a bit hard to play). He'll work on the F on his own this week.
The songs were Someday by Alan Jackson and Old Hippie by Bellamy Brothers.
After that we reviewed Too Cold at Home, the one I wrote out for him on December 8th.
January 5th, 2026
Derek is in Mexico today.
December 29th, 2025
I cancelled today. Derek is in Mexico next week.
December 22nd, 2025
Derek is skiing today and won' be coming.
December 8th, 2025
I wrote out the words under the chords for Too Cold At Home and the Country Came to Town song, and we went over them both trying to help find the place where the chords change.
December 1st, 2025
We went through Dallas together, and then added two songs by Mark Chestnutt: Country Came to Town and Too Cold At Home.
We actually didn't get any thing much done on the latter song, but I did write out a good chunk of it.
November 24th, 2025
Derek is still having some trouble with the D chord.
We added Dallas by Alan Jackson today, and he was actually able to get to the D and other chords pretty quickly. I wrote it on paper because he didn't have his book. Went through it at 80% speed a few times
November 17th, 2025
Derek has been frustrated with the D chord, so we spent some time looking for a George Strait song without that chord. We found Carrying Your Love With Me, which has it, but only once? maybe... I wrote it out and we went through it together at a slow speed.
George Strait - Carrying Your Love With Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH4YI1faPwU
November 10th, 2025
Derek is away hunting this week.
November 3rd, 2025
I believe Derek's didn't come because he's away hunting today, and I forgot to write it down.
October 27th, 2025
Today we went through Sing Me Back Home and then added Poncho and Lefty by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard.
It's got a new chord, "Bm" which we added to our list of chords to learn.
October 20th, 2025
We went over The Cowboy Rides Away and Sing Me Back Home at 75% speed, and then slowly upped the speed. Derek was able to switch without a lot of issue. He said he was frustrated a bit with his D, but really it sounds great.
I showed him how to set the speeds on YouTube to practise with songs at home. I recommend he push himself to get up closer to the full speed.
October 6th, 2025
Today we added songs: The Cowboy Rides Away and Sing Me Back Home by Merle Haggard.
This last song required learning a new chord, E, which I wrote out for him.
I recommended Derek try searching for songs on YouTube for guitar in the key of G... something "country songs for guitar with chords key of g"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W_057TaAXI
Remember, no lessons next week because of Thanksgiving.
September 29th, 2025
We reviewed the chords from last two weeks ago, and about half way through went over C, which was new last week. We just reviewed through all those chords to speed them up, and Derek did great.
We then looked at a few songs he's interested in. They're just about all the chords he's already learned:
Travis Tritt, I Can Be Somebody
George Strait, I Can Still Make Cheyenne
George Strait, The Cowboy Rides Away
September 22nd, 2025
Today we added C, D, and A chords, and worked our way between them.
We talked a bit about the Every Rose Has It's Thorn song, and Hurt by Johnny Cash... he's close to being able to learn those already.
September 15th, 2025
This was Derek's first week. We learned some of the names of the parts of the guitar, like nut and bridge, frets and fret board. We learned the E minor, G, and A minor chords, and a simple strum pattern of down, down, down-up, down.