"On the Sunny Side of the Ocean" by John Fahey

Friends:

Welcome back for another monthly lesson. I've decided to take the opportunity to celebrate Fahey's birthday with a post one one of his compositions this month. Fahey was born on the 28th of February in 1939. It's a special day for me, besides the obvious reasons, because I celebrate mine on the 28th when we don't have a leap year. Yes I'm one of the oddballs who has a real birthday on the 29th which only once every 4 years.

"On the Sunny Side of the Ocean" is among Fahey's most well-known tracks. First released on the 1965 record The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death and again 9 years later on the Fahey, Kottke, Lang record, I decided to transcribe an even later live version from his 1978 performance on the German music television show Rockpalast. I would have been happy teaching any version of the piece, but the Rockpalast version was the first I heard, and I'm a sucker for nostalgia.

I would feel comfortable saying this is a lesson that most here should feel comfortable approaching. The piece utilizes many short repeated patterns in the right hand and simple chord configurations in the left. As I mention in the lesson video, the most challenging aspect of this piece was memorizing transitions. I suspect most here will say the brief passage beginning at measure 55 poses the greatest challenge, though I think I break it down in an easy to understand manner in the lesson video. Here's to finally having a score where that part is written as Fahey played it!

My recording on YouTube is mostly a nod to the Rockpalast  performance, with two measures removed because of the excess repetition beginning at m15 and with a slightly different ending, taken from the Fahey/Kottke/Lang record. Maybe it's my age starting to show, but I also felt Fahey's tempo in the Rockpalast performance was a bit too aggressive with the majority of the piece hovering around 146-152bpm. I sit at a much more relaxed tempo of approximately 130bpm. This is about where he plays it on the Fahey/Kottke/Lang record, but is faster than the original on Transfiguration.

The lesson video can be accessed by following this link:
https://youtu.be/tzoSmFf2Fno

As always, the score is attached below.

Thank you everyone for your continued support, I really feel I'm still growing as an educator and I continue to be excited to release every post, feeling that each represents an improvement over the last. These wouldn't continue without your support.