Online and private guitar tuition
For this year’s Christmas Special I’m looking at another track from the marvellous Ventures’ Christmas album.
I”ve written it all out below. For a downloadable PDF and an mp3 of the backing track, please check out my Patreon page.
Here’s my backing track, complete with extra sleigh bells. for a downloadable mp3, check out my Patreon page.
In this lesson I’m looking at XTC’s glorious 1979 single, Making Plans for Nigel. Here’s what the original sounds like (with some great vintage Top of the Pops footage):
A classic bit of 70s power pop. Originally by LA band The Nerves, but made famous by Blondie. Check out the original recordings:
And here’s the lesson video.
Music/tab
Full music/tab for both the Nerves and Blondie recordings can be found on my Patreon page.
Some lovely 80s post-punk riffage from the Chameleons. Check out the original here:
Here’s the lesson video:
Detailed music and tab for all the riffs covered in the video are available on my Patreon page.
Learn to play Big Star’s 70s classic, which also happens to be one of my favourite songs…ever.
Despite a sizeable cult fanbase, Big Star are still quite an obscure band to many people. So if you don’t know this song, check out the original first:
Here’s the video lesson:
The rhythm guitar part is fairly basic, so I’ve written that out in a chord/lyric sheet format. You wanna PDF?
The lead (mando-) guitar part is a bit more involved so I’ve written that out in full music and tab, including a few details which I skimmed over during the video. Get the PDF here.
Here we have a 70s soul-funk classic. I love the soul rhythm guitar style: it’s all about perfectly formed, groovy parts rather than anything too technical. And this song is a great example of just that. According to my research, guitar on this song was performed by a certain Willie ‘Little Beaver’ Hale – not name I’d come across the name before, but what a player! He’s made a lot of great records as a session player, and I’ve just been checking out a couple of his solo albums from the 70s which are fantastic. (A nice Little Beaver interview here too.)
The original recording sounds like this:
And check out this TV performance with Little Beaver on guitar. Shame he has his back to the camera for the entire video, but you can see the position where he’s playing those chords for the main riff.
I’ve written the music out below. We have the three main riffs which are played simultaneously on the record (Little Beaver on all guitar parts? Not sure) and then we have the chords for the B-section. Download the tab here.
I’m not sure what gear Little Beaver would have used on the original. And what guitar is he playing on the video above – any ideas? My first thoughts were to use my Tele for this kind of song, but that didn’t sound quite right as the tone on the original is quite warm and full sounding. So in the end I went for my Vox Virage guitar which has flat wound strings on it. Also, a Wampler Tumulus overdrive pedal with the gain all the way off. And my 80s Fender Super Champ amp. My looper pedal is a basic TC Electronic Ditto.
Soul Man – a very similar triad-based main riff in this Sam & Dave masterpiece.
Get Lucky – a modern day funky classic.