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.
🎸 Beach Boys fun with Sloop John B! Strumming, Fingerstyle, & Lead Guitar Tips Included
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LESSON #595 Click to watch free video lesson In today’s new lesson I’ll teach you to play the folk-rock classic, Sloop John B. I learned this song through the Beach Boys, only recently realizing it came from the folk tradition of Nassau in the Bahamas. My lesson starts with the basic chords and strumming, before teaching a few ways to spice things up. I’ll end with an overview of the melody, in case you want to incorporate that into your strumming, fingerstyle, or lead guitar work. ALSO INCLUDED In addition to my main strum & sing tutorial, I've got a few bonus video lessons for this song. This includes both fingerstyle and melodic lead guitar arrangements, played over the same progression. I've also got a play-along video jam track and some practice notes to help you follow all this. Find all these on my lesson webpage » Other Recommendations When it comes to Sloop John B, there's so much good stuff out there. The oldest audio recording I could find was from 1935, from the Cleveland Simmons Group. If you have a time machine and find yourself in Nassau, ask the DJ for H’iste Up the John B. Sail – which is what the song was called back then: Jumping ahead twenty years, we have this Kingston Trio recording of from 1958. They listed this recording as The Wreck Of The John B. I guess Edmund Fitzgerald hadn't entered the chat yet... And then we get to the Beach Boys – whose 1966 recording took on the name Sloop John B. Here's a fairly recent clip where Brian Wilson reflects on how the song came to be, while they were recording Pet Sounds – before performing it in a live studio setup: To bring us to the current day, here's Josh Turner and crew, performing this song live in a tiny bus setup. Their enthusiasm is quite infectious! If you read this far, you gotta watch: So, hoist up the John B sail... and I'll catch you all in the next one! ✌️ 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 #598Let's Dive Into Jimmy Buffett's 1977 Classic In this lesson I’ll teach you to play Jimmy Buffett’s 1977 classic Margaritaville on an acoustic guitar. In the last few years, this is one of the songs I receive requests for the most.... so I'm excited to finally share this lesson! While this song uses just three chords, there’s plenty of opportunity for extra flourish using seventh chord variations and melodic strumming fills. I’ll teach all this using two different approaches: one...
Hey there, Reader — to close out a whirlwind end to the summer, I'm excited to bring you a brand new video lesson & a new 16 page PDF handbook! This tackles a topic I've wanted to explore for a long time now, and I can't wait to share. Without further ado... LESSON #597Getting Started with Double Stops!Fun riffs using Harmonized 3rds, 6ths, and 10ths Click to watch free video lesson In today’s lesson I’ll introduce you to double stops, diving straight into a handful of fun & approachable...
LESSON #596Ozzy Osbourne, Fingerstyle? Yes! Click to watch free lesson » In today’s lesson I show a fun fingerstyle groove inspired by the intro to Ozzy Osbourne’s 1991 hit Mama I’m Coming Home. Instead of teaching the full song, I take the beautiful intro sequence and show you my own spin on it using harmonized 6ths – which allow us to create a beautifully melodic sound with just two strings. As per usual, I'll walk you through things step-by-step. Don't miss my print-friendly practice...