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American Girl

by Tom Petty • Lesson #113 • Dec 14, 2017

Video lesson

Print-Friendly Song Sheet 2 pages

Follow along with my print-friendly guide for this song! It’s available for purchase at Musicnotes.com, the web’s leading provider of licensed sheet music.

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Editor’s notes

In this lesson I’ll teach you how to play American Girl by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, from their debut 1976 self-titled album. This will be an acoustic lesson, showing you how to emulate the sound of the full-band song with a solo acoustic guitar. I’ll teach you how to imitate the intro sound, as well as chords & strumming needed for the verse and chorus sections. There’s also a breakdown riff I’ll teach which makes for a fun break before picking things back up for the ending. Best of luck, and enjoy!

My Fingerstyle Arrangement of American Girl

In video lesson #438 I return to this song, determined to work out a low-key, easy-going fingerpicked arrangement. The end result uses the same chord progressions I show in this video, but I’m using custom voicings for some of the chords to better suit things for fingerstyle. If you get my song sheet (linked above), I’ve included the fingerstyle tabs I use in case you’re curious to try it out!

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American Girl

Video lesson

Print-Friendly Song Sheet 2 pages

Editor’s notes

My Fingerstyle Arrangement of American Girl

Browse Related Lessons

About Song Notes

Get Free Lessons Each Week!

Enjoy my lessons? Buy me a beer!

Fun & Helpful Tools I've Made

Fret Monster

Capo Captain

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

Recent Lessons

"Stuff That Works" by Guy Clark

Monday Morning Triad Practice! (Key of A Major)

"Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison

Practicing Major Arpeggios in Each CAGED Shape

Travel Guitar... Worth It, or a Waste? (Taylor GS Mini review, 3 years later)

Creating a Fingstyle Arrangement from Scratch (feat. Graceland by Paul Simon)

"Bouncing Around the Room" by Phish

Simple Way to Travis Pick Any Song (Key of C)

"Summertime Blues" by Zach Bryan

How I Use This Poster to Practice Lead Guitar

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