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If I Had a Boat
by Lyle Lovett • Lesson #229 • Apr 11, 2019
Video Lesson
Print-Friendly Song Sheet 5 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.
On the fence? Here's a guide I made showing the purchase & print process, including answers to common questions about my song sheets.
Buy at Musicnotes.comEditor’s notes
Hey friends! In this lesson I’m excited to teach you how to play “If I Had a Boat” by Lyle Lovett. This one came in by patron request, and it has been my pleasure to learn this song and prepare this lesson. I’ll teach you a capo 9 version of this song (how Lovett plays it), focusing on a Travis fingerpicking style matching what he plays. I’ll show you the chord shapes, progressions needed, explain the Travis picking basics, and break down the verse/chorus/intro sections with tabs. I hope you enjoy! Send along any other Lyle Lovett requests you may have, as I’d love to know which other songs y’all may want to hear by him.
Video timestamps:
- 0:00 Playthrough
- 0:38 Greeting & overview
- 1:17 Chords shapes needed
- 3:51 Chord progressions used
- 5:42 Travis picking basics
- 8:03 Intro tab
- 13:08 Chorus tab
- 15:59 Verse tab
- 17:52 Farewell & play-along cover
Need help learning the chord shapes?
Separate from my full-song sheet music (linked above), I also made this instructional PDF which focuses solely on the chord shapes this song uses during the intro & verse sections. This provides both photos and guitar tabs to help you understand the finger positions necessary – and the good part is, a lot of your fingers are staying in the same place for all of the chords!
If you want to get the PDF I show in the video just above, view my notes for lesson #413 »
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About Song Notes
Hey there! My name is David Potsiadlo, and I'm the creator of the 400+ weekly lessons here at Song Notes, going back to 2013. Here’s my guitar story »
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