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Home ❯ Songs ❯ John Prine ❯

Clay Pigeons

by John Prine • Lesson #294 • Apr 8, 2020

Licensed Song Sheet 4 pages

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About This Lesson

Hey friends, here’s a brand new guitar lesson & attached PDF chord sheet for “Clay Pigeons” as covered by John Prine (originally written by Blaze Foley). In this lesson I’ll start off by showing you a no capo, “easy strum” version of the song – using only the common G C D chords. In the second half of the lesson, we’ll put a capo on the 3rd fret and learn the exact fingerstyle Travis picking tab that John Prine plays on his 2005 album “Fair and Square”. As always, I’ll break everything down step by step. Here’s a list of what I teach in this tutorial, along with timestamps if you want to jump ahead:

Easy-strum version (no capo)

  • 2:02 Basic chord shapes
  • 2:36 Verse & chorus progressions
  • 5:25 Strumming patterns

Travis Picking (fingerstyle, capo 3)

  • 9:06 Chord shapes for Travis picking
  • 12:34 Right thumb technique
  • 14:08 Fingerpicking the intro
  • 21:03 Fingerpicking the verses
  • 24:14 Farewell

I recorded this on Monday, and John Prine passed away the following evening while I was doing the editing :( Obviously, horrible news. It’s my hope that this lesson helps you enjoy his music & share it with others via guitar.

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