The intro to Pinball Wizard is a pretty easy set of chords that use a few open strings to fill out the melody. The basic technique is just using downstrokes, hitting 3 or 4 strings on the 1st beat then keeping a steady flow of eighth notes through the rest of the measure.

When the faster strumming starts you keep a steady flow of sixteenth notes, alternating downs and ups but accenting every third stroke, rather than the more common every fourth stroke. I recommend practicing this with an easier chord than the Bsus4 (barred at the 7th fret)- an open E chord might be good.

Here is a pdf of the TAB and the video.

As you may have noticed, I have gotten a lot of requests to get a little further into this great Greg Lake tune. Having just checked the video here, I’m not sure a continuation video would be as helpful as just getting the TAB up.

At the end of the video I play through the vocal part, using the alternating picking technique (down on the beats, up on the “ands”) over some pretty normal and easy chords. It then continues into light strums over a couple of chords around the 5th fret, ending with an E7+9 chord before going back to the main 2 chords.

The chords up the neck are Dm7 and G9. Greg Lake plays the G9 with an open D in the bass but I usually add G (4th string, 5th fret), making the chord a little more difficult. A good way to make this transition a little easier is to play the Dm7 (which is a D shape at the 5th fret) is to play it with your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers. This way you can leave your 3rd and 4th on the same notes going to the G9. It’s good practice!

Here is the TAB and the original video from YouTube, in case you missed it.

OK, OK, OK, I know some people would never be caught dead working on Stairway To Heaven but there is no denying a couple of things; it is a great piece of rock and roll, and it is challenging and fun to play on the guitar. I definitely encourage all of my students to learn it at one time or another.

The trickiest part is really the 1st two measures where you have to get clean notes out of some partial bar chords. After that it is really just some simple arpeggio picking over normal open chords.

Have fun and here’s the TAB.

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Here is the version I usually teach beginning students. It is just a single-line melody in the key of A, using the notes of the tonic triad (A-C#-E) with the addition of the 6th (F#) and the b7 (G). This is a common combination of notes in many riffs based on a 12 Bar Blues form. Sorry for the techno-talk but sometimes a little more in-depth info can be useful. Another song that falls into this category is Rock And Roll by Led Zeppelin. OK, back to the details.

The riff is played on just 2 strings at a time in 2nd position. In 2nd position your left fingers are lined up with each finger covering 1 fret- 1st finger at the 2nd fret, 2nd finger at the 3rd fret, 3rd finger at the 4th fret, and 4th finger at the 5th fret. Your right hand follows the standard pattern of alternating strokes- down on the beats and up between the beats.

The 1st measure is just a steady stream of 1/8 notes with the F# tied for an extra 1/8. This means that on the 4th beat your right hand moves down, as part of the continuous alternating motion, but doesn’t strike the string, picking the last G as an up.

As I mentioned, the riff is played in a 12 Bar Blues form following this pattern-

I     I     I     I
IV   IV   I     I
V    V    I     I

This means the melody line is played twice starting on A, then once each on D, A, E, and finishing on A again.

Again, this version is a combination of what the rhythm and bass guitars would be doing. I have also included a lead guitar part that is more like what George played on the recording.

Here it is in TAB.

And the video…

Here is a little more info on the Ten Years After classic. It looks like I will establishing an unfortunate pattern here- correcting mistakes I make in the videos I post for lessons here. It happened with Scarborough Fair and now with I’d Love To Change The World. It seems I am in the habit of playing songs and altering them slightly over the years, never going back to the original to check accuracy before I put it on video.

The tab has the correct notes, the video is a little less than accurate but the main sections are the intro/chorus and verse/solo. The intro is played in an arpeggio style, alternating down and up strokes consistently, with the downs on the beats and the ups between the beats (the “ands”).

The verse is just played by strumming full open chords, Em, G, Am, C, and B7. Download the TAB here and let me know how it goes with some comments when you can.

Wow! What a response to the email that went out a couple of days ago that mentioned the Ventura Highway post. I really want to thank everybody who visited the site and sent comments about the video. Special thanks to all the new members of the Forum. There has been quite a spike in registrations over the last 2 days. I really want to encourage everybody to get requests and comments onto the Forum as I am hoping to get started on a new series of lessons very soon. I am planning on looking at some of the songs people have asked for there- Crystal Ship, Witches Promise, more Greg Lake stuff, etc.

I know there is still a little confusion as to how the logins work for different sections of the site. Here’s the scoop- The Forum and Blog sections are separate from the Video section. To register for the Forum/Blog you just hit the Register link in the upper left corner of the Forum page or the right side of the Blog page. You create a user name and supply an email address then a temporary password will be sent to you. When you login you can reset the password to anything you like, as well as fill out additional info.

Access to the Video section is done with a common username/password combo that everybody shares. There are no individual accounts for the viewing the videos. Don’t worry if you’ve forgotten them, we are happy to resend the the details to anybody who has registered at any time. My email address is in the Forum post titled Contact Info.

Thanks again and be sure to let me know what you’d like to see here at TotallyGuitars.

Stay tuned and in touch,

Neil

After a few requests to get the TAB to this posted I finally got around to writing it out. This was a tune that was a lot of fun to arrange as for many years I had shown people a slightly simplified version that didn’t have both melody lines complete but sounded OK.

The original recording had each melody line played separately with a third guitar coming in to strum the chords. I tried a few different ways of fingering the 2 lines simultaneously and was excited when I came across one that is not particularly easy or obvious. With a little practice it will sound great. The key was to play all the notes on the 2nd and 3rd strings until near the end. It is also important to make the change from 10th position to 5th position by landing with your 3rd and 4th fingers at the 7th fret. The change to 2nd position lands with a 1/2 bar at the 2nd fret.

The double hammer on/pull off move is also one requires some practice to sound good. Be sure to hold your 1st and 2nd fingers firmly in contact with the strings as you hammer/pull with your 3rd and 4th fingers.

I didn’t write out the strumming pattern but it starts on the 2nd beat of measures 2 and 4 and completes the measure.

Here is the TAB and the video.

After a few requests for a little info on blues scales I figured I’d better work on a short video… maybe too short, and especially short on information. This is something I will address in great detail a little later. In any case, here it is. Let me know if it makes any sense or helps at all.

Things are a little closer to normal back home in sunny Northern California today. The fall softball season is over for my girls, (although we start summer tryouts next week!), and I am able to get back to working on music and lessons for a little while.

Today I shot a short video on 12 bar blues. I had been intending to get to a follow up to Long Cool Woman since people had been asking, but got sidetracked into just a 12 bar discussion. Hopefully I’ll get to the E vamp in the song soon.

Meanwhile, I hear we are getting lots of new subscribers every day. Thanks to everybody for signing up and I hope you can all join in the Forum discussions so we can steer this site in the direction guitarists want.

Here’s the video-