Guitar | Mike Miller | Beginning/Intermediate | Evening Mini-Class | Week 3, July 21-23, 2026
Class Description: This is a class for players of old-time music who would like to venture into the world of swing guitar but aren’t sure where to start. Swing music is basically the popular music of America from around 1925 to 1950, an era that saw a flowering of clever lyrics, memorable melodies and interesting chords. The songs that have stood the test of time have come to be known as standards, or the Great American Songbook.
Some of the best-known composers of the time are Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, George Gershwin, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Fats Waller, Harry Warren, Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen – but there are many others as well. Their songs were popularized by singers like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. The class starts with an easy number like “I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store),” with chords that should be familiar to most guitar players. Then we add a couple of new chords with “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” After that we’re on to “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “On a Slow Boat to China” and as many other great songs as time allows.
Mike Miller regularly plays backup guitar for Gerry Milnes and Charlie Walden, the two leading players of the traditional fiddle tunes of West Virginia and Missouri, respectively. After playing mostly old-time and country music for years, he started venturing into the world of swing about 30 years ago, and he can see no end to this particular rabbit hole.