Anyone Can Play Guitar

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Improver

Shadowplay by Joy Division

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Following my look at She’s Lost Control, here’s another dose of post-punk genius from Joy Division. In this style of music attitude and ideas count for more than technique and guitar heroics, and Bernard Sumner’s guitar parts are easy play but perfectly formed. If you don’t already know it check out the original recording below, as well as a great live TV performance introduced by Tony Wilson.

 

 

And here’s my take on how to play it:

 

Find the music/tab below. If you’d like a high-quality PDF to download, click here.

 

Chinese Rocks by The Heartbreakers/Johnny Thunders

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This one is an absolute punk classic and, from a guitar point of view, it’s pretty easy to play. I’ve written out the music for the main parts of the song below. Rather than  do a note-for-note transcription of both guitar parts (which would have taken me ages to write out, and would probably be a bit unnecessary) I’ve written out the main parts of the song and a few of the added lead licks and fills. If you want to get nerdy, I suggest listening closely to the original recording: you should be able to figure out any of the other little variations which I didn’t go into in the video. If you’re a beginner I recommend getting the basic riffs and chords together first. Once, you’re comfortable with that you can try adding in a few of those extra flourishes.

I Walk The Line by Johnny Cash

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by Johnny Cash

In this lesson I show you how to play the Johnny Cash classic, mainly from the perspective of Luther Perkins great electric guitar part. There’s so much you can learn from this song: how to play rhythm guitar in the classic bass note/strum country style; how to connect chords with walk-ups and downs; the names of the I IV and V chords in 3 of the most common keys; how key changes work.

The lesson is based on the original and probably best-known 1956 recording of the song. Cash went on to re-record the song on a number of occasions and it’s interesting to check-out the differences between the various versions. The 1964 version is faster and there are some definite changes to the guitar part, particularly in the way Perkins walks up and down between chords. Also great is the live at San Quentin recording, but guitar on this is played by Carl Perkins (no relation) in a quite different more twangy style.

I’ve written out the intro below. I think it’s worth learning this intro note-for-note as Perkins plays it, since it’s such an iconic part. If you’d like a PDF of the entire song you can download it here. I suggest that for the verses you use the written part as a guide, and make it your own by varying the movement of the bass line and the right-hand strumming. As I explain in the video, it’s actually quite easy to make sense of the key changes if you think in terms of the movement of the I IV and V chords. Each verse has the same progression: V, I, V, I, IV, I, V, I. We start in E, walk up to A, walk up again to D, then walk back down to A, and finally back home to E again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soul Man by Steve Cropper

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Not much more to say about this lesson. A masterclass in tasteful, groovy rhythm guitar. This is the kind of playing that will make people want to listen to you, make people want to play with you, get you gigs and earn you money. Not all that widdly soloing and shredding. I’ve transcribed the song below. Because I’m a bit of a nerd, I’ve written out all three choruses because they’re slightly different on the record. It’s your choice whether you want to nail the song exactly as it’s played on the record or if you want to just capture the overall vibe and improvise a bit with the way you approach it. The structure is simple – just listen to the original recording. PDF.

Sound and Vision

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by David Bowie

In this lesson I take you through how to play the two guitar parts found in Bowie’s classic song. The two guitarists credited as playing on this recording are Ricky Gardiner and Carlos Alomar, though I’m not sure who played which part. The structure is a bit unusual: the introduction lasts for over half the length of the entire song, and there’s not really a standard verse/chorus format. So I’ve just broken it down into 4 sections labelled A to D. After the introduction the whole thing more or less repeats with Bowie singing over the top.

In the right speaker you can hear a strummy, chord-based part. There’s some kind of tremolo effect on this guitar. To get close to this sound use a pedal or a tremolo-equipped amp and set the speed and intensity controls quite high. I’m playing this using mainly barre chords. It’s quite hard to hear exactly which chord voicings are being used on the recording, but this sounds close to me. (If you’re unsure about your barre chord shapes then check out this lesson first.)

In the other speaker is a great 6ths-based part. It reminds me of something Steve Cropper might have played on a classic soul record.

Below is my transcription. The rhythms and the placement of the slides varies quite a bit throughout, and to save time and to make it more readable, I haven’t reproduced every nuance. Just use my version as a starting point.