Even in Michael Chapman’s vast and wildly diverse catalog of releases, Playing Guitar the Easy Way is an outlier. Issued in 1978 during his association with Criminal Records, this is the innovative and storied guitarist’s instructional album. Like all things Chapman, this one has a twist or two. For starters, it can be listened to on its own. The music is played on acoustic six- and twelve-string guitars—there is even an electric piece in “English Musick”— that come off as standalone originals and/or original derivations on folk standards. This is also one of (if not the) very first guitar instruction recordings—with an accompanying booklet of tablature—to showcase the use of different tunings such as the now ubiquitous DADGAD. This tuning was developed for the guitar by one of Chapman’s chief influences, guitarist Davy Graham, who derived it from hearing the sound of the oud, then adapted it for use in performing Celtic, Moroccan, and Indian music. Each track here begins with the open strings of each particular tuning employed, and then Chapman goes on to deliver each piece in his own style, often illumined with sonic effects often employed in those days; given the high quality of the music, they are still relevant in the 21st century. In other words, Playing Guitar the Easy Way isn’t simply an academic instructional offering, nor is it a musical anachronism for completists. It’s genuinely engaging as a Chapman instrumental album in its own right. One note of caution for pickers, however: this isn’t for beginners. As the guitarist stated in Fretboard Journal in an interview with Thurston Moore about the 21st century re-release with its manual booklet: “. . . it wasn’t meant to be for people starting the guitar; it was for people who had maybe got bogged down a bit and then maybe wanted to write some songs, and here comes an interesting way to find some new chords, which is what I did, you know, I just went.” A 2014 by Light In The Attic reissue contains new liner notes by Chapman.
~ Thom Jurek, All Music
Track List:
01. Normal Norman [2:08]
02. Revival Time [2:21]
03. Suite Mellow Dee [2:23]
04. English Musick [3:31]
05. Pipe Dreams [2:21]
06. High Wide and Handsome [2:15]
07. A Scholarly Man [2:28]
08. Sometimes in the Night [2:05]
09. Loop the Loop [2:38]
10. Rockport Sunday [2:44]
11. Envious Eyes [2:52]
12. Steel Bonnets [2:42]
EAC extraction logfile from 26. August 2019, 23:03
Michael Chapman / Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)
Used drive : ASUS BW-12D1S-U Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 768 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:Program Files (x86)Exact Audio CopyFLACFLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T “Genre=%genre%” -T “Artist=%artist%” -T “Title=%title%” -T “Album=%albumtitle%” -T “Date=%year%” -T “Tracknumber=%tracknr%” -T “Comment=%comment%” %source%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 2:07.39 | 0 | 9563
2 | 2:07.39 | 2:20.47 | 9564 | 20110
3 | 4:28.11 | 2:23.00 | 20111 | 30835
4 | 6:51.11 | 3:31.06 | 30836 | 46666
5 | 10:22.17 | 2:21.22 | 46667 | 57263
6 | 12:43.39 | 2:14.61 | 57264 | 67374
7 | 14:58.25 | 2:28.37 | 67375 | 78511
8 | 17:26.62 | 2:05.31 | 78512 | 87917
9 | 19:32.18 | 2:37.46 | 87918 | 99738
10 | 22:09.64 | 2:44.34 | 99739 | 112072
11 | 24:54.23 | 2:52.24 | 112073 | 124996
12 | 27:46.47 | 2:41.64 | 124997 | 137135
Track 1
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Peak level 98.5 %
Extraction speed 4.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 3C550EFF
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Track 2
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)2. Revival Time.wav
Peak level 96.1 %
Extraction speed 4.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D7BFC95E
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Track 3
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)3. Suite Mellow Dee.wav
Peak level 96.7 %
Extraction speed 4.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC DD26F083
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Track 4
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)4. English Musick.wav
Peak level 96.6 %
Extraction speed 5.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F844AF8D
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Track 5
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)5. Pipe Dreams.wav
Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 5.1 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0E3689A0
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Track 6
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)6. High Wide and Handsome.wav
Peak level 97.3 %
Extraction speed 5.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC B4CEBED7
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Track 7
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)7. A Scholarly Man.wav
Peak level 96.7 %
Extraction speed 5.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC EFB46C1A
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Track 8
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)8. Sometimes in the Night.wav
Peak level 96.5 %
Extraction speed 5.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4351FD09
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Track 9
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)9. Loop the Loop.wav
Peak level 88.3 %
Extraction speed 6.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 68651485
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Track 10
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)10. Rockport Sunday.wav
Peak level 97.3 %
Extraction speed 6.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4199CC08
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Track 11
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)11. Envious Eyes.wav
Peak level 96.8 %
Extraction speed 5.6 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC ADADABB3
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Track 12
Filename G:Torrents of AutumnChapman, Michael [1978] Playing Guitar — The Easy Way (2014 remastered ed.)12. Steel Bonnets.wav
Peak level 96.7 %
Extraction speed 6.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 76BAFE60
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No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
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Submit result: 3J6Vm0rE5.JlqTDV2rHZfjKt13M- has been confirmed
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8 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
9 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
10 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
11 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
12 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum C71766620B7C438744EC2B5641D83DAA71DDDBEF220848782FFFFF3AB03E8932 ====
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