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Home ❯ Songs ❯ Guy Clark ❯

Let Him Roll

by Guy Clark • Lesson #226 • Mar 17, 2019

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About This Lesson

In this lesson, I’m excited to teach you how to play Let Him Roll by Guy Clark, from his 1975 debut album Old No. 1.

The Travis-style fingerpicking this song uses sounds great, but is incredibly tricky to get the hang of at first. As such, I’ll walk you through things step by step: the chord shape basics, the alternating bass note fundamentals, the progressions used, and a few incremental steps you can take to work your way to being able to play the “full” tab of the song.

No joke, this song felt impossible to me when I started to learn it. I kept at it over a few weeks time, and finally got over the hump. You can get there too! Slow and steady will indeed you get you there. Let’s get into it!

  • 0:00 Playthrough & overview
  • 2:21 Chord shapes needed
  • 7:40 Travis picking 101 (right thumb bass notes)
  • 10:29 Intro: understanding the chord progression
  • 13:19 Intro: Add simplified melody notes
  • 15:59 Intro: Adding “full” melody notes
  • 20:29 Verse: how it’s different from the intro
  • 23:28 Verse: with lyrics

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