Billy Joel Acoustic Guitar Pack
What's included
- All tab
- Chords
- Chart
- Guitar pro files
$19.98
Full Lifetime Access to this package
Billy Joel, aka ‘Piano Man’ after his first hit, has been one of the biggest selling artists of the last half century. His songs cover a wide range of genres and emotions, combined with great stories, melodies and arrangements.
Primarily known as a pianist. His songs not only lend themselves very well to guitar players, many of them indeed feature the guitar as the main accompanying instrument.
This set includes mellow ballads from the albums Piano Man, 52nd Street and The Stranger, a rocker from Glass Houses, and the heart wrenching Goodnight Saigon from The Nylon Curtain.
Lessons
Lesson 1: Piano Man - Guitar Lesson
Piano Man is the song that first brought Billy Joel onto the big music scene. It makes a great strumming guitar song and uses chord inversions that are more typical of piano-based songs. This makes for a few challenging changes and interesting voicings.
Lesson 2: She’s Always A Woman - Guitar Lesson
She’s Always A Woman is one of Billy Joel’s masterpieces, first appearing on his 1977 album The Stranger. It makes a great guitar song and really shows off his compositional skills. The guitar part is done in the key of D, and would be capoed at the first fret to get in the original key of Eb. This lesson includes a theory segment covering techniques such as pedal point, chord inversions, secondary dominant chords, and modulation.
Lesson 3: It's Still Rock And Roll To Me - Guitar Lesson
It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me is one of the few Billy Joel songs that features the guitar rather than the piano. The song appeared on his 1980 album, Glass Houses and is written from the point-of-view of an aging artist who is pressured by his label or manager to get with the times. Typical of a Billy Joel song, It’s Still Rock And Roll uses a wide range of chords, including some bar chords and some power chords. The power chords can be played using the common shuffle pattern that moves from the 5th of the chord to the 6th of the chord on beats 2 and 4 in each measure. The song opens with single bass notes played using the palm mute technique. Half way through the verse it starts strumming, then continues with a combination of the two techniques.
Lesson 4: Just The Way You Are - Billy Joel - Guitar Lesson
Just The Way You Are is a Grammy Award winning song by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel. It’s the third track from his 5th studio album ‘The Stranger’, released in 1977.
This lesson shows a fingerpicking arrangement in the key of D and uses Dropped D-Tuning.
It covers many chords and shapes, the progression, a few fingerpicking examples and some of the signature fills.Lesson 5: Goodnight Saigon - Billy Joel - Guitar Lesson
Goodnight Saigon is a song written by Billy Joel, originally appearing on his 1982 album The Nylon Curtain, about the Vietnam War.
This lesson covers an arrangement in the key of C, as done on the original recording.
We take a look at the many chords, including several out of the key, and their variations and inversions.
We thoroughly break down how to incorporate the 3rd's which Joel plays on the piano in the intro, outro and interludes. It's nice to use the technique of hybrid picking for those.
Other than that, the strumming in double time is relatively easy, and should be doable for most guitar players.Lesson 6: New York State Of Mind
New York State Of Mind is from Billy Joel's 1976 album Turnstiles. It is slightly jazzy with a lot of typical piano chord inversions which are unusual, but not necessarily difficult got guitar players.
Most of the chords translate well to the guitar and the lesson shows standard ways of playing the vast array of chords, including many jazz voicings.
The intro and outro are transcribed almost note-for-note from the piano, making thos parts a bit more challenging.