More of this Feature • Part 1: overview • Part 2: seventh chords • Part 3: major chords • Part 4: strumming patterns

We have covered a whole lot of material in these eleven lessons. Chances are, your knowledge of the guitar exceeds your ability to perform at this point. This is natural.. your ability will never match your knowledge of the instrument. With a good practice regime, however, you should be able to bring the two closer together. Take a stab at the following songs, and remember - push yourself! Try and play things that are difficult for you. Although challenging material may not be as fun to play, or sound good initially, you'll reap the benefits in the long run.

I Will Survive - performed by Cake
NOTES: a perfect song for exploring our newest strum. Play the chords suggested in tab, using the pattern once for each chord (twice on last "E"). If you want to sound more like the recording, use power chords instead of full chords.
MP3:iTunes download
(Just so you know, there is a naughty word in this song. Again, just so you know... )

Kiss Me - performed by Sixpence None the Richer
NOTES: another song we can use this lesson's strumming pattern with. This is a fun one to play, and shouldn't be too much of a challenge.
MP3: iTunes download
(this mp3 is a live version of the song.)

The Wind Cries Mary - performed by Jimi Hendrix
NOTES: this has a nice contrast of chords, with some fancy single note playing that you shouldn't find too difficult. For more insight into this song, check out the Wind Cries Mary tutorial right here on this site.
MP3: iTunes download

Black Mountainside - performed by Led Zeppelin
NOTES: this is definitely asking too much of you, but some guitarists like to be pushed. This song uses an alternate tuning known as DADGAD. It will take a tremendous amount of work, and you probably won't be able to play half of it, but, why not try?

Not sure about how to play some of the chords to the songs above? Check the guitar chord archive.

For now, this is the last lesson available. I'm sure you feel ready to go charging ahead and learn more, but chances are (extremely) good there are areas of the previous lessons you've neglected. So I urge you to start at the beginning, at see if you can't work your way through all of these lessons, memorizing and practicing EVERYTHING.

If you have any comments, criticisms, or random thoughts on these lessons, please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear that they are working for you, and if they aren't I'd like to know how I can make them better.

If you're feeling confident with everything we've learned so far, I suggest trying to find a few songs you're interested in, and learn them on your own. You can use the easy song tabs archive, or the guitar tab area of the site to hunt down the music that you'd enjoy learning the most. Try memorizing some of these songs, rather than always looking at the music to play them.

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