Elton John and Billy Joel 6-Pack

Lessons

• Lesson 1: It's Still Rock And Roll To Me - Guitar Lesson

  Billy Joel's witty anthem offers much more than a catchy chorus. Neil explores palm muting, shuffle rhythms, power chords, barre chords, and smooth transitions between bass-note grooves and full strumming. It's an excellent lesson in classic rock rhythm guitar while showing why Billy Joel's music continues to stand the test of time.

  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 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: 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 4: Daniel - Guitar Lesson

  Daniel is a great acoustic guitar song by Elton John. The original included a guitar strumming along with Elton’s piano, and some nice keyboard fills and a solo as well. This lesson looks at the chord progression in the original key of C and adds the fills and solo to create a very complete guitar part. The song is from Elton’s 1973 album Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player.

• Lesson 5: Madman Across The Water - Guitar Lesson

  One of Elton John's most haunting and underrated songs, Madman Across The Water is also one of the few to feature acoustic guitar as the driving instrument. In this lesson, Neil breaks down the signature riff, chord progression, and strumming accompaniment that give the song its mysterious atmosphere. As a bonus, tablature is included for Neil's beautiful chord-solo arrangement, giving more advanced players an inspiring interpretation to explore.

  Madman Across The Water was written by Elton John and his main lyricist, Bernie Taupin and was the title song from his 1971 album. It is one of his few songs that features acoustic guitar. The lesson goes over the basic riff and strumming accompaniment. Neil also improvises a chord solo arrangement of the tune which is not covered in the lesson but tab is included.

• Lesson 6: Your Song - Guitar Lesson

  Your Song is one of the songs that put the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin on the musical map that was evolving in 1970. Elton’s brilliant music and piano arrangements translate pretty well to the guitar, as do most well written compositions. In this lesson we look at how to imitate the piano sound with fingerpicking patterns and chord inversions.