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Home ❯ Songs ❯ Neil Young ❯

Old Man

by Neil Young • Lesson #328 • Sep 12, 2020

Video lesson

Licensed 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.

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Editor’s notes

In this lesson I’ll teach you how to play Neil Young’s classic song “Old Man” from his 1972 album Harvest. From start to finish, I’ll teach you each part of the song: the chord shapes, progressions & timing, strumming patterns, and tabs (both beginner-friendly and advanced) for each section. While this is a tricky song, it’s very much possible to simplify each part to make it more accessible without a ton of practice.

A final note, if the intro is giving you trouble – check out the other video lesson I made, which is a 20 minute deep dive on nailing the strumming of the very difficult first chord.

Video timestamps:

  • 0:00 Lesson overview
  • 1:31 Chord shapes needed
  • 3:37 Chord progresssions for intro/verse/chorus
  • 7:36 Strumming patterns
  • 9:05 Deep dive: intro riff
  • 18:28 Deep dive: verse riff
  • 23:15 Deep dive: chorus riff
  • 27:57 Full playthrough w/ lyrics

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