Summer Lightning

A beautiful little song written by the master of British Folk, Ralph McTell. Also happens to be one of my mum's favourite songs. :-)
Answer to a FAQ: my guitar is a Fylde Magician.
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Alan
• Lowe-Jones
• Summer
• Lightning
• Guitar
• Ralph
• McTell
• Folk
• Cheshire
• UK
• Fylde
• unit-pallets

[salixarbour]

Hi.

Glad you're making good progress with 'Summer Lightning'. Must admit, I don't have a clue as to which chords I play during the piece;I just finger-pick it!!!

I searched through my hard disk for those tunes which I've written down and scanned, and unfortunately, as suspected, Summer Lightning isn't one of them.

Wishing you every success.

Alan.

[safetygoggles]

Hi Alan, i was at a party a few weeks ago celebrating my dad's 60th birthday and onee of his friends played this song on an accoustic. It completely bowled me over, and then i found your version!!

Great job, beautiful playing and warm voice to compliment the song, you've just made my day, month, year!

Any idea where i can find the tab??

[salixarbour]

Hi, Safetygoggles.

I've worked out most of the songs I play by ear, have written them down, and am happy to pass the notes on to others to help them learn. However, in the case of this particular song, it was one of the first pieces of music I ever learned on the guitar, back in 1976/77, and was from a friend's Ralph McTell book. It's probably worth more than gold-dust now! Sorry to disappoint.

Ask me for another!!! :-)

Alan.

[gregorheinrich]

thanks. this is a very nice version: a nice setting to record the video (not the standard home-office-in-front-of-pc) setting. soft vocal rendering, suitable to the mood of the song, and for guitarplayers also some good ideas of how to play it, thanks to the camera angle. at places the timing seems to have gaps or sudden slowdowns, but that might be intentional. anyway: I played this song live in the early 80s, might pick it up again. your clip was encouraging in that respect. bye from Mexico.

[salixarbour]

Hi again, Gregory.

I've replied directly to your other email also, as you're no doubt aware. :-)

Many thanks for your kind words. Your comments about the timing/rubato are interesting as recently I've begun questioning this myself. However, I seem to remember that this was exectly the way Ralph McTell played the piece. I'll have to dig out an old recording and have a careful listen now! :-)

Best wishes.

Alan.

[gordonpig]

my favouritest song ever....you made me cry

thanks jacqu xxx

[salixarbour]

Funny thing, I've been playing this song tonight at home, for the first time in months!

Then, I discover this nice little message!!

Many thanks, Jacqu. :-)

Alan.

[TheTrevor001]

What an excellent performance - great guitar work and a fine voice. Nice job.

[theschumanity]

Just saw what you said about figuring it out by ear! I figured out most of it by ear, but couldn't figure out that it was a Cdim until I found it online. I'd been playing a C#dim and could tell something was off... that chord really makes the song, and you hit it just right!

[jimbo9580]

a lovely version, well done. ........the RM songbook can be found on the fan club site...."songs for six string" 41 of the masters songs....well worth the money

[fretphootler]

A lovely song and very nice guitar work, hope you don't mind but I've tried to work out the guitar part from your vid.Having listened to Ralph Mctell's original version you seem to be very accurate. Keep up the good work!

[Gobby4242]

OMG,, you are bluddy FANTACTIC,

great voice :)

x xx