Bonus Video 1 - Beatles Style Parallel 10th Intervals

Check out this video from my Intermediate Acoustic Course for free! In it, we look at a brilliant approach to playing guitar that I'm calling a Singer-songwriter trick as it's just used in so many classic songs!

A great place to start to inspire us is to see what inspired the best...

Blackbird and it's Origins

Inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's Bourrée in E minor, a well-known lute piece, often played on the classical guitar. As teenagers, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a "show off" piece. The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney said that he adapted a segment of the Bourrée (reharmonised into the original's relative major key of G) as the opening of "Blackbird", and carried the musical idea throughout the song. The first three notes of the song, which then transitioned into the opening guitar riff, were inspired from Bach.

Other great song examples include

• Fast Car (Tracey Chapman)

• Hold Back The River (James Bay)

• Love Yourself (Ed Sheeran written)

• Perfect - Ed Sheeran - in (G) very simple version

Beatles song example - Blackbird tutorial

Other Keys to Explore

• Hey there Delilah - Plain White T's (D) lesson link

• Tears in Heaven - Clapton (A) lesson link

• Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard (C) lesson link