When I Paint My Masterpieceby Band, The

The Band is well known for their recordings of songs by guitarist Robbie Robertson, and also for their affiliation with Bob Dylan. They collaborated with Dylan and recorded definitive versions of many of his songs. They recorded When I Paint My Masterpiece for their 1971 album Cahoots.

Their studio version is played in the key of Bb, but the acoustic guitar part was done in G with a capo at the third fret. Later live versions were done at the second fret. This lesson shows the basic chord progression as well as the bridge that The Band rewrote. The bridge does us a couple barre chords.

The strumming is done in double time, where the quarter notes are split in 4 sixteenth notes rather than 2 eighth notes. This is typical of songs with slow tempos.