Guitar Lesson: “Three String Rock”

This piece can be played on acoustic or electric guitar. It would be well suited for somebody who’s been playing the instrument for about six months, and someone who has decent knowledge of, and is comfortable with playing the notes on the first three strings of the instrument.

The piece is written in the key of G major, but there are three accidentals - an accidental is a sharp, flat, or natural note that is not part of the key signature of the song. Since this song is in the key of G Major, it will have an F Sharp in the key signature, which means that all F notes in the scale and in this song are going to be Sharp. There are three accidental notes in this song: namely, an F Natural, a B Flat and a C Sharp. All of these three notes are considered accidentals because they go outside of the normal notes in the scale of G Major.

Use the TAB Score to figure out where to play these notes: the F Natural is played on the first string, in the first fret; the B Flat is played on the third string in the third fret; the C Sharp is played on the second string in the second fret.

It would be beneficial to listen to the song a few times before trying to play it. Also, make sure that you understand the Form of the piece. That is, make sure you understand how the different sections repeat from the beginning to the end of the song. Basically, you are playing through the entire piece two times, and then you’re starting to piece over a third time, and stopping at the FINE. Of course, you are playing the repeat sign that third time as well.

By the way, “Da Capo” literally means “from the top”, so “Da Capo X2 al FINE” means to go back to the top twice and then stop at FINE.

I would suggest that you first play the song WITHOUT the backing track in the video, simply because you might have a difficult time keeping up with the tempo. Play the piece without the backing track, get comfortable with it, and only then try to play it with the backing track.

Here is a copy of the guitar score. Once you feel comfortable reading and playing through it, feel free to use the YouTube video below to play the song with the backing track.

If you have any questions or need help with anything related to this song or guitar music in general, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Hope you enjoy the piece.

You’re welcome! :-)