anyonecanplayguitar

Cemetry Gates Backing Track

Here's the backing. The arrangement is the same as the original recording. Enjoy playing along! 

Cemetry Gates by The Smiths

Halloween is upon us once again, and that provides me with an excellent excuse to look at another Smiths/Johnny Marr classic in the shape of the 1986 track Cemetry Gates. I had a lot of fun putting this one together; both the electric and acoustic parts are truly excellent. The link to the video is here: 

https://youtu.be/4igzRWOf1SI

Tabs can be found below. There are 2 PDFs - one for the open G acoustic par...

Nice Lick 21: Country-style Double Stops

This week a concise and - I hope - enjoyable Nice Lick video. This one is a country-ish idea in E and contains some pedal steel type bending, melodic double stops and some twangy pentatonic connecting phrases. I also go into the theory behind double stop 3rds and discuss hybrid picking technique. Here's the link to the video - 

https://youtu.be/GcMFbHQFM2k

Tab can be found below for the lick itself and also ...

7th chord knowledge: beginner, intermediate & advanced

Hello all,

This week I wanted to take little a break from the song-based videos, and do a more general lesson on the subject of 7th chords. A lot of players seem to get a bit confused when it comes to 7th chords, since there are several different types of 7th chord, and many ways to play them on the fretboard. In the video I hope to clear up some of this confusion, with a comprehensive look at the theory behind 7th chords, and a demonstration of some of the most useful ways to play them...

I'm in Love with a German Film Star Full Mix

Here's a version which includes the main guitar part. 

I'm in Love with a German Film Star Backing Track

Here's the backing. The arrangement is the same as the original. 

I'm in Love with a German Film Star

Hello all,

Delay pedals at the ready for a detailed look at an early 80s classic by The Passions! It's a beautiful song with some lovely guitar atmospherics. Here's the link - 

https://youtu.be/JHv1kDMtYRk

If you don't know the original song you can take a listen here - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeKurL-3Jm...

10 ways to open a blues solo

Hello everyone. I thought it would be fun to play some blues this week. And as a follow up to the recent video I did on playing over the last 4 bars of a blues (this one here), I wanted to go to the other end of the 12 bar, and talk about how to kick off a solo. So what I've chosen 10 opening licks from 10 blues legends, and we're going to see what we can learn from each them. Here's the link:

Candy Says Full Mix

For those of you keen to learn my arrangement, I thought it might be worth giving you an audio file with the lead guitar part in there too. Let me know if this is useful and I can regularly upload mp3s with the main guitar part as well as the usual backing track. 

Candy Says Backing Track

Here's my backing track. Hope you enjoy playing along. 

Candy Says by the Velvet Underground

I know it's not been that long since my last Velvets lesson, but you can never have too much VU as far as I'm concerned. This week I'm looking at a classic track from the 3rd album. I've put together my own arrangement of the tune where I play the vocal line on the guitar. I also discuss the actual parts you can hear on the original recording. 

Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/heQPfsIj9L8

There are 2 ...

Better rhythm & phrasing: Backing track

Here's the backing. It's got a D dorian mode kind of flavour, a little bit Floyd-ish I suppose. Play over it using the D dorian mode and related triads or arpeggios. D minor pentatonic and D blues scale would also work really well. 

Better rhythm & phrasing

Hello all,

Hope everyone's well. This week's video is called "Play better solos right now with this simple rhythm trick" (Slightly cheesy and clickbait-y I realise, but I hope the content of the video delivers on the promise of the title!)

Basically, this is all about improving your phrasing, by becoming aware of where you start your ideas rhythmically speaking. Here's the link - 

https://youtu.be/B__HLXls...

Drag Racer Backing Track

Here's the backing track. Enjoy playing along!

Drag Racer by Doug Wood (The snooker theme tune)

Hello everyone!

For a bit of fun this week I thought I’d look at Drag Racer by The Doug Wood Group, AKA the old BBC snooker theme tune. (Not from the UK? Have no idea what snooker is? Not to worry, since this is a great, fun to play instrumental regardless of the snooker associations.)

Here's the link to the lesson:

https://youtu.be/1bnilpkuItw

If you'd like to check out the Doug Wood interview I me...

Cream of Gold by Pavement

Hello all!

In today's lesson I'm looking at one of my favourite Pavement songs. We have an unusual tuning (DADABE!), some wonderful riffs, and a noisy but melodic solo. Here's the link - 

https://youtu.be/pbs7oNvZUME

Tabs can be found below. 2 files - there's one for the Stephen Malkmus parts, and then I've written out the standard tuning parts separately. 

If you've not seen the earlier Pav...

Minor CAGED Vocabulary Backing Track

Here's the backing track. It's a funky kind of G minor vamp. Use it to practice my solo, my CAGED licks, licks and solos of your own, or anything else you like... 

More CAGED Vocabulary: Minor Ideas

Hello all! A few people have requested I do a minor key follow up my recent lesson on building vocabulary in each of the 5 CAGED positions. So that's what we have this week. Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/sIh6tcqzkkY

And I've also spent some time accurately notating all the licks, along with my intro solo. There are 2 separate tabs/Guitar Pro files that can be found attached below. Hope you find the video and ...

Pretty Persuasion by R.E.M.

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all doing OK. I'm still away on my holidays for a few more days, but today I want to bring a video I pre-recorded a couple of weeks ago. It's a fantastic R.E.M. song: quite easy to play, but not without its challenges, particularly if you want to get into some of the more intricate arpeggiated parts. Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/7HgJetwjk2c

And I've tabbed out all the basic par...

Summer Breeze Backing Track

Here’s the backing! As I say in the video, it’s a slightly abbreviated arrangement: intro/chorus/verse/chorus/ re-intro/ solo

Hope you enjoy! 

Summer Special: Summer Breeze

Hello all,

I’m off on my holidays which means it’s Summer Special time. This time round I’ve gone for the classic Summer Breeze. I’ve come up with an arrangement based heavily on the Isley Brothers version of the tune. In the video I talk about translating the vocal melodies onto the guitar, and there is of course plenty of fuzzed-up soloing.

Here’s the link -

https://youtu.be/tk1SlrDz3zg

Th...

Man of Mystery Backing Track

Here's this week's backing. I'd not really payed attention to how good the rest of the band is on this one - great drums and acoustic rhythm, and a particularly brilliantly bass line. 

There's a one bar count in, before you play the opening unison bend. 

Enjoy playing along!

Man of Mystery by The Shadows

This week, another Shadows track. When I was putting together my Apache lesson a few months back, I went on a bit of a Shadows listening jag and this track in particular caught my ear and stood out as an interesting one to learn and put together a lesson on. There's tons of good stuff here: interesting harmony, some lovely melodic playing and a great solo too. Here's the link - 

https://youtu.be/DDZd8-ewUN8

...

Nice Lick 20

It's time for another Nice Lick. As usual, in the video I show you the lick, but also go a bit deeper into the theory behind the lick so you'll be able to use it, adapt it, and make it your own.

Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/OkFaeG1IvPw

The tab is attached below. I've tabbed out the lick itself and also written out exactly what I play at the start of the video: I set up the A7 sound to give the lick a b...

CAGED Vocabulary Backing Track

Here's the backing track to go along with this week's video. It's a simple, repeated G to F chord progression. Over the G 

I'm playing G ideas over the G (mostly chord tones and major pentatonic) and F ideas over the F. (The G mixolydian mode would work well too over both chords.)

Have fun playing along!

Building CAGED Vocabulary

Hello all,

In this video I'm talking about how I understand the fretboard using the CAGED system Too often people learn about CAGED and it remains this abstract concept that never leads onto making actual music. One solution to this is to work on developing some vocabulary and musical ideas to draw upon in each zone of the fretboard. Here's the link - 

https://youtu.be/C-rAsm7Yssg

And you can find the ...

Into The Valley by The Skids

Hi everyone!

This week I'm looking at the classic punk track Into The Valley by The Skids, which features some brilliant playing by the late Stuart Adamson. This one has been on my to do list for some time, and it was fun to finally learn it properly and make the video.  Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/sWk4t4qenX0

The tab/Guitar Pro file can be found below. I've tabbed out all 3 of the chorus parts I...

Bullwinkle alternate backing in E minor

I don't know how useful this is to anyone, but I did a version of this backing in E minor, for those of you who might want to play along in standard tuning. 

Bullwinkle Part 2 Backing Track

Here's my backing track. It's in D minor, so remember to de-tune before playing along. Have fun!

Bullwinkle, Part 2 by The Centurions

I was in the mood for some surf guitar this week, so I decided to put together a video on this classic surf track by the Centurions. In the video, I take you through the guitar part that you can hear on the original and in place of the sax solo I improvised something of my own. 

Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/FPLVmZTsgWA

The backing track is coming up in the next post. Tab can be found below in the ...