Fleetwood Mac Volume 1

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Oh Well Part One

  Oh Well is from the early days when Fleetwood Mac was a British Blues Band led by guitarist Peter Green. Its distinctive opening riff, as well as the rest of what is called Oh Well Part One are covered in this lesson.

• Lesson 2: Rhiannon

  In 1975 Fleetwood Mac revamped their line up with the addition of guitarist Lindsay Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks.
  
  Rhiannon became one of their biggest hits with a great guitar riff backing Stevie’s haunting vocals. This lesson goes over the fingerstyle riff with a steady bass line and the chords to the chorus, as well as tab to Neil’s chord solo arrangement as heard in the Play Through segment.
  
  After a couple requests for a video on the way I played Rhiannon in the first segment, I figured it was easy enough to get to it. Part 11 walks through the tab to the Play Through pointing out some of the things to pay attention to, like open bass notes just before chord changes, the percussive strums, and the slides and hammer-ons in the closing fill.

• Lesson 3: Landslide

  This fingerpicking song by Stevie Nicks has been a favorite of Neil’s students since it was released in the 1970s. It uses a very regular Travis-style pattern and only open chords. In the Play Through segment Neil plays an instrumental version that incorporates the melody into the picking, a chord solo. Tab to this arrangement is included as well.

• Lesson 4: Never Going Back Again

  This lesson was one of our Original 50 when we launched Totally Guitars in 2009. We have now added segments on how Lindsay Buckingham plays it in Dropped D, as well as one on a solo he added in live performances over the years.

  The 2009 Intro

  The follow up album by the same line up that did Rumours was 1977’s Fleetwood Mac. One of the songs featured on this was Lindsay Buckingham’s short guitar piece Never Going Back Again. It is a basic fingerpicking piece that Lindsay played in Dropped D Tuning but this lesson presents an arrangement in a C Tuning- CGDGBE. This has the 5th string lowered 1 step and the 6th string lowered 2 steps. It is also known as C Wahine in the world of Slack Key Guitar. Using a capo at the 6th fret allows you to play the exact same notes Lindsay played with a little less stretching required.

   

• Lesson 5: Go Your Own Way

  Fleetwood Mac has been bringing the world great rock tunes since the mid-1960s. Their 1977 release, Rumors included *Go You Own Way, *a simple but driving song by Lindsay Buckingham. This lesson looks at the electric guitar opening, played with a syncopated muting technique, the acoustic guitar accompaniment (played with a capo at the third fret), and even a bit of the first lead, played over the verse.

• Lesson 6: Albatross

  Albatross is an instrumental written by Peter Green and released as a single by Fleetwood Mac in 1968. It later appeared on various compilation albums. The original had multiple guitar parts over Mick Fleetwood and John McVie's rhythm backing, which brought up hints of sounds of the sea and surroundings.

  The lesson keeps McVie's steady bass part rolling while adding the guitar parts over it. The first section uses a couple chords in the key of E with some spacious melodies. This part was part of the inspiration for John Lennon's Sun King. The second section was another spacious melody played by two guitars in mostly parallel thirds. The last section was played with a bottleneck in the highest reaches of the guitar. This is done with artificial harmonics in this solo acoustic arrangement.