In this video, I’m looking at a Nick Lowe classic. First I take you through the basic chords so you can strum it Costello-style, then I look at a surf-style instrumental version, as played by Los Straitjackets.Tab and backing track can be found on Patreon.
Strumming
Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus
In this video, I’m taking a look at the 1979 goth classic from Bauhaus. The basic riffs are all pretty easy to play. I also discuss some unconventional techniques you can use to create abstract, atmospheric sounds.
As usual, the tab and backing track can be found on my Patreon page.
The Headmaster Ritual by The Smiths
I’m returning to Johnny Marr with this look at one of my favourite Smiths tracks.
The original recording sounds like this. As you can hear, there’s quite a lot going on guitar-wise – multiple electric and acoustic layers – so for my version I’ve attempted to boil all this down to a single guitar part.
And towards the end of this video we have some great footage of Marr playing some bits of the song:
A word on the tuning
For this video I’m tuned to open E (EBEG#BE). I’ve read that in the studio Marr actually tuned to open D (DADF#AD) and put a capo on at the 2nd fret. This gives you exactly the same notes, so really amounts to the same thing. It’s up to you which tuning you decide to use. For all the live Smiths and solo footage I’ve seen, Marr is tuned to open E.
Music/tab
I’ve written out the music and tab below. It’s not perfect, but should steer you in the right direction. Feel free to make changes and adjustments where you see fit. In particular the strumming rhythms can be varied a bit throughout the song. Downloadable PDF version here.
Further Related Lessons
The first Smiths song I looked at on this site was the masterful This Charming Man. More recently I made a video on the beautiful acoustic track Back to the Old House.
Why not also check out the style of one of Johnny Marr’s favourite players, James Williamson, in this lesson on The Stooges Gimme Danger? I’d say this song was possibly at the back of Marr’s mind when he came up with the Headmaster Ritual riff.
Another of Marr’s favourite players is the Pretenders’ James Honeyman-Scott. So maybe check out this lesson on the song Kid. What a guitar solo!
That Was The Worst Christmas Ever by Sufjan Stevens
This one’s a great modern Christmas song. Nice and easy to play; I’ve written out the music below. If you want a printable PDF get it here. Merry Christmas!
Terrapin by Syd Barrett
by Syd Barrett
A lovely, easy to play tune by one of my favourite songwriters. I show you 3 ways to approach it: simple strumming, electric guitar arpeggios, and a cool way of combining the chords and melody at the same time.
In case you don’t already know it, the original recording sounds like this:
And here’s my video lesson:
You might also want to check out this live clip of David Gilmour playing the song, elaborating the basic chords with some nice melody notes:
Simple Strumming
This approach is based on the acoustic part Syd plays on the original recording. The chords used are mostly 6th string root barre chords, but there’s also an open E, a 5th string root D barre chord, and a nice E7 chord in the ‘C form’. I’ve written out the chords below. Make sure you locate the barre chords at the right fret – I’ve put fret numbers alongside. If we’re going to get nerdy about it, you can’t always hear the low root note of the barre chords on the recording. It could be that Syd mostly fretted his barre chords in the kind of folky fashion where he was just covering the top two strings with his index finger and not barring all the way across. Either way works – it’s up to you. If you need a bit more help with the technique and theory behind barre chords you might like to look at these lessons where I take you through the basics:
All About Barre Chords, Part 1
All About Barre Chords, Part 2
I’ve written out a chord/lyric chart to the song below. I thought this was the most straightforward way of writing out this song. It should be quite easy to piece the whole tune together, but you’ll need to watch my video and listen closely to the original to get all the rhythmic details correct.
You can download a high-quality PDF of the music here.
Arpeggios
Below I’ve written out a verse and B-section’s worth of the overdubbed electric part. It sticks fairly closely to what Syd plays during the first verse and first B-section. I’d suggest using this as a guide and improvising your own part based on the underlying chords.
Chords With Added Melody Notes
This is just a question of adding a few melodic ornamentations to the basic chords. Mostly this is done with the pinky, meaning you’ll need to re-finger your barre chords to free the little finger up. Watch the video to see me demonstrate one way of doing this. When I get time I might write out some tab/music for this approach too.