Learn to play guitar with weekly video lessons & print-friendly guides! Learn your favorite songs & techniques with step-by-step tutorials that actually explain how to get from here to there.
🎸 Melodic Fingerstyle Fun with "Piano Man"
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LESSON #612 Click to watch free video lesson In this lesson I’ll teach you to play a melodic fingerstyle arrangement inspired by Piano Man by Billy Joel. Specifically, I show how we can play the main melody of the song (heard in the verse and chorus) and play it along with a few other notes from each chord that’s used. The result is melodic, but also harmonically rich — and is a blast to play! In addition to my main video (above), don't miss the "Part 2" video, some zoomed playthroughs, and my step-by-step practice notes — all of which will help you get up to speed & make the most of this amazingly fun arrangement. These are all available on my lesson webpage, linked immediately below. Watch video lesson & view all practice materials » Related Tips & Techniques Here's a handful of lessons I've made that teach the skills used in my new lesson. Check these out if you want to brush up on any of these while working on my new lesson:
Other Lessons with Melody Deep-Dives If you’re interested in other lessons that combine chords + melody, I’ve got several others! They’re listed below. The format of each of these is slightly different (some embrace chords more than others, some are strummed instead of fingerstyle, etc) but they’re all similar in spirit.
Strum & Sing Piano Man Lesson Coming Soon! Many of you have requested a lesson teaching the entirety of Piano Man – fear not, it's on the way! It's a much beefier song than I anticipated, so I decided to include this fingerstyle tutorial before tackling the strumming & chords. Thanks for reading to the bottom... I'll see you next week! Have a great weekend, and until then ✌️ David Browse all my lessons at songnotes.net
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Song Notes by David Pots
Learn to play guitar with weekly video lessons & print-friendly guides! Learn your favorite songs & techniques with step-by-step tutorials that actually explain how to get from here to there.
LESSON #614A Guitarist's Guide to Piano Man Click to watch free video lesson In today’s lesson I’ll teach you a guitar arrangement of Piano Man, the 1973 classic from Billy Joel. This song uses a singular chord progression for most of the song (intro, verse, chorus) — which I’ll walk you through step by step. I’ll also include a handful of practical ways to simplify some of the trickier chords, as translating piano chords to a guitar isn’t always straightforward. To the many of you who...
Happy Monday, my friends! To those of you impacted by the winter storm across the USA, I hope you're holding up okay. Here in Austin, we had a blanket of ice descend across our yard & street. The kids enjoyed a snow day off school, and my routine has been a bit up-ended... but we're in good spirits! Today I want to showcase some helpful practice tips from my lesson library, in addition to some new Q&A videos I posted in the Song Notes members forum. Let's dive on in! IN CASE YOU MISSED...
My friends! A new year is upon us, and before my next lesson I want to share a summary of all the lessons I made in 2025. For your convenience, I've grouped them all by category. Each lesson is linked below... enjoy! AT LONG LAST!Guitar 101 In Spring 2025, I finally released a much-requested series on videos on guitar fundamentals. These are aimed at folks who are getting started or otherwise looking for some guidance along their guitar-playing journey. While there are more videos I plan on...