Lesson Plan

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Lesson notes

Dolly Parton's version of Heartbreaker was released in July 1978 as the first single and title track from her album with the same name. 

This lesson teaches a fingerstyle arrangement, including strumming in the chorus. It is somewhat based on the piano accompaniment of several recordings. 

It is done with shapes in the key of D, where the guitar should be capoed on the 2nd fret to match her original recording. That said, there are live versions of her taking it a whole step down (no capo).

We take a look at the specific fingerings for the chords, the picking, the strumming and go through the progression.

Of course one could keep it simple, but it sounds really lovely to include some little fills which you can hear on the piano and copy melody notes of the vocals here and there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDrQdKKzXtc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTFQMH23MDw