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I got a fun one for your guys today that will also give you a nice challenge as well. This lesson is for “Lonely Boy” by The Black Keys.
In this Lonely Boy guitar lesson, I will take you through this smash hit by The Black Keys note-for-note.
The song begins with a cool riff that uses a whammy pedal to do a very dramatic dive in pitch. I don’t use a whammy pedal in the lesson though. If you have a floating trem system you can just as easily re-create that dive with the trem bar. The pedal would be easier to use though.
After that intro, we have a nice challenging hybrid picked section that includes a consistent open string root note that is picked along with the main melody that is played with your right hand middle finger. This part of the song is by far the most challenging and you should really try to work on it piece-by-piece in order to get the feel of it in your hands.
Eventually, you will notice that you will lock into the rhythm of how the two parts work together and it will just seem to flow after that. It is a very good hybrid picking exercise and I highly recommend anyone who is new to the technique to spend some time learning it. There are just so many cool things that you wouldn’t be able to play without it!
When we finally make it to the verse we have a very sparse but also quite challenging rhythm to contend with. This rhythm is very Bo Diddley inspired and requires a lot of left hand muting. In the video lesson I will break down the right hand rhythm very slowly so you will know how to approach all of the accents. You should just practice on the E chord for a while until it feels comfortable, then you can play the full progression.
When playing the G major and A major chords in the verse, I suggest trying to play them like Dan Auerbach does with the thumb playing the notes on the 6th string.
The chorus that comes next is the easiest part of the song to play since it uses only simple power chords along with a straight ahead driving rhythm. It is still fun to play though!
So I hope you guys enjoy learning this massive hit that also has a lot off cool guitar stuff to sink your teeth into. 🙂
Carl…
