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For this year’s Christmas Special I’m taking a look at the twang-tastic Sleigh Ride by The Ventures.
I’ve written out the music/tab below. Chord symbols for the rhythm guitar are written above if you want to play it with a friend. Download the PDF here.
Here’s s the backing track:
Check out last year’s lesson on Sufjan Stevens-themed lesson.
Some acoustic fingerstyle with John Fahey’s Joy to the World.
Christmas Time is Here jazzy chord melody.
White Christmas jazz chord melody.
Here are 4 of my favourite riffs from the mighty Manchester band Happy Mondays. All played, I believe, by a chap called Mark Day. All inventive, catchy and pretty easy to play. Let’s get baggy…
I’ve written the riffs out below. Download here if you want. Have fun!
Check out this live performance from the VU reunion in 1993. Can clearly see Lou playing it in G but, frustratingly, there’s not a single shot of Sterling Morisson.
In this lesson I’m looking at Sterling Morisson’s lead guitar parts and solo from this Velvet’s classic from 1969. (For Part 1, looking at Lou Reed’s easy to play rhythm part, click here.)Nothing too challenging technically here, just some memorable, beautiful playing. I’ve written it all out for you below. I haven’t gone to the trouble of writing out all the verses and choruses since, bar the odd minor variation, they’re all the same. Download the music/tab here.
In this lesson we’re looking at a wonderful song from possibly my favourite Velvets album, their 3rd self-titled record from 1969. Part 1 focusses on Lou Reed’s rhythm guitar part. In Part 2, I’ll be checking out Sterling Morrisons lead guitar parts and the solo. This is great song to learn if you’re a beginner since both the strumming and the chords are nice and simple, but really it’s just a great song to learn full stop. I’ve written out a chord/lyric chart for the song below. Download the chart here. Remember you’ll need to tune your guitar down if you want to play along with the recording.
The rhythm guitar sound on this song is a little bit puzzling. It almost sounds like an organ rather than a guitar at times. I’m pretty sure it is a guitar since you can hear the strumming and occasional open strings if you listen carefully, but the tone’s certainly unusual. It could well be that Doug Yule is playing along on an organ too, and the two sounds are blended together.
I’m not sure what either Lou or Sterling would have used on this song gear-wise. For the video, I just went for a warm, full kind of sound. I’m using my Vox Virage guitar, which is strung with flat-wounds. Amp is a 1980s Fender Super Champ. And a bit of mild drive comes from a Wampler Tumnus pedal.
Here’s another great, pretty easy to play Joy Division song.
I’ve written out the music/tab below:
Quite why I’ve never looked at a Joy Division song before I don’t know. Anyway, here’s a lesson on the classic She’s Lost Control. A great and easy to play song: one barre chord shape is all you need. The bass line is awesome too and works really well played on the guitar.
This is a famous 1979 TV performance of the song:
And here’s my video:
I’ve written out the riffs below. Download a high-quality PDF here. There’s really not much to it; if you know your barre chords then it’s pretty easy. But as I’m always saying, make sure you do the easy stuff really well: pay particular attention to the rhythm.
