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Night Moves

by Bob Seger • Lesson #393 • Oct 3, 2021

Hey friends! New song lesson today for the much requested Night Moves by Bob Seger (1976). This song may seem deceivingly simple at the outset (just 3 chords for intro & verse) – but the rhythm, strumming, and F-chord nuance required makes it a bit trickier to pull off. But, fear not! I’ll walk you through it step by step. No matter your skill level, I’ll help you both play the F chord (using one of a few options), as well as master the tricky strumming required to capture Seger’s sound.

Timestamps for my full video lesson:

  • 0:00 Overview & Lesson Summary
  • 1:27 Chord Shapes Needed
  • 2:54 Strumming, p1: Down-strums only
  • 4:31 Strumming, p2: Adding transitional up-strums
  • 6:45 Strumming, p3: Adding filler up-strums
  • 7:38 Strumming, p4: Adding percussive slap-strums
  • 9:04 Strumming, p5: Adding continuous up & down strums
  • 11:21 Chorus Chords & Strumming
  • 13:28 Final Tips & Farewell

Licensed 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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Full play-along cover

This video shows me playing the entire song, from start to finish, with all chords and lyrics highlighted along the way. This includes the bridge and ending sequences, which I didn’t talk about in my full video lesson.

Timestamps for my play-along cover:

  • 0:00 Greeting
  • 1:12 Intro Riff
  • 1:27 Verse 1
  • 2:07 Chorus 1
  • 2:35 Verse 2 + Chorus 2
  • 3:36 Bridge
  • 4:43 Final Chorus & Ending

Here’s a few topics I cover in previous videos which will be incredibly helpful for mastering Night Moves. The first is the percussive strumming technique – which gives a driving back-beat on the 2 and 4 counts of each measure. This can help you, playing with just your acoustic guitar, imitate the sound of the snare drum in each measure. The other thing that may prove tricky is the F major chord… which I can help you with via my F Chord Cheat Sheet, showing you various ways to play it that don’t require the full six-string barre (which isn’t an ideal voicing to use in this song).

Percussive Slap Strum Technique (Lesson #197)

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F Chord Cheat Sheet (Lesson #392)

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