Moody Blues 8-Pack

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Melancholy Man Guitar Lesson

  *Melancholy Man *is a song from The Moody Blues album A Question Of Balance, written by Mike Pinder, well known for bringing the orchestral sound of the Mellotron to the Moodies. It is a simple 3-chord progression in the key of D Minor and includes a haunting, descending melody line, which is incorporated into the guitar accompaniment for this short lesson.

• Lesson 2: Nights In White Satin Guitar Lesson - Moody Blues

  Nights In White Satin is from The Moody Blues 1967 album Days Of Future Passed and is a basic strumming song. This short lesson goes over the chord progression and includes a bit on understanding time signatures. This lesson now includes tab to a Chord Solo that appears on an early video Neil did before the lesson was completed.

• Lesson 3: The Story In Your Eyes Guitar Lesson - Moody Blues

  The Story In Your Eyes includes one of the best opening guitar riffs of all time. It is really just built around a set of A and A minor-shaped chords moving up the neck and not too difficult to play, although the timing is a bit tricky. The rest of the song is simple, but fast-paced strumming. This is from the album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

• Lesson 4: Tuesday Afternoon Guitar Lesson - Moody Blues

  Tuesday Afternoon, written by Justin Hayward, contains one of his signature sounds- a catchy guitar intro. This lesson includes tab to both the way it was done in 1967 as well as Justin's more recent solo versions.

• Lesson 5: Question Guitar Lesson

  *Question*, from The Moody Blues album A Question Of Balance, has been an elusive song to many guitar students for years. It was played by Justin Hayward on a 12-string guitar in Open C Tuning (C-G-C-G-C-E), and included a very quick strumming sequence in the first part of the song. The second part was actually a different song until Justin realized they went well together, being in the same tuning. This lesson looks at a way of simplifying the strumming, as well as doubling the speed for the original sound.

• Lesson 6: The Voice - Guitar Lesson

  In the late 1970s The Moody Blues reconvened with a bit more commercial sound and continued releasing some great songs, mostly penned by Justin Hayward. *The Voice* is from their 1981 album Long Distance Voyager and presents a fascinating chord progression, using chords from many different keys. This lesson is presented in our ‘Work It Out’ style where you are encouraged to figure out the chords by ear, with many hints and suggestions from Neil. If you choose to try this approach we suggest not printing the chart until you have gone as far as you can. The entire song is taught in Part 6.

• Lesson 7: Gypsy - Guitar Lesson

  Gypsy is is a great strumming song with a few riffs and licks thrown in for good measure. Justin Hayward wrote it and is first appeared on The Moody Blues 1969 album To Our Children's Children's Children. This lesson covers everything you need to play a cool acoustic version the opening riff and its chordal cousin that follows, some open barre chords, and syncopated strumming patterns in the verse followed by pounding eighth note patterns. Overall this song is just really fun to play.

• Lesson 8: Forever Autumn

  Forever Autumn is taken from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, featuring Justin Hayward on vocals. 

  This lesson is entirely based on how Justin Hayward performs it.

  He plays the song with chordshapes in the key of Am (Capo V), using relatively easy chords, while dressing it up with several embellishments.

  The challenging parts are the intro (flatpicking) and the bridge (timing), which we break down in great detail.

  Other than that we of course take a look at both hands, and go through the progression and arrangement.