How to Play 'That'll Be The Day' - Lead Guitar Parts - Buddy Holly Rock 'n' Roll Guitar Tutorial

In this tutorial I teach how to play the intro, solo and outro for 'That'll Be The Day', as played by Buddy Holly on his 1957 hit recording. The video includes full and accurate guitar 'tabs', fast and slow demonstrations, plus detailed descriptions of Buddy Holly's playing on this song.
Here's a contents list (with times) so you can jump to topics if you wish to:
- Capo Use and Chords: 01:20
- The Intro: 02:38
- The Solo - fast and slow demonstrations: 04:42
- The Solo - bars 1 to 4: 05:54
- The Solo - bars 5 to 8: 07:59
- The Solo - bars 9 & 10: 09:50
- The Solo - bars 11 & 12: 11:28
- The Outro: 12:13
A song sheet containing the lyrics and chords for 'That'll Be The Day' can be viewed or downloaded from my songbook blog, here:

[stephensmith]

Nicely demonstrated. 50's Rock and Roll, a lost art. 👍😁

[johnboyle]

i, ve been trying to learn this song since 1957...finally got you

[paologambarelli]

A guitar lesson of extraordinary clarity and simplicity. But very rigorous and faithful to the original. Buddy Holly thanks you from up there.

[johnross]

Thank You for your time, energy and talent making these videos, really fun to learn these classics

[TomClarkSouthLondon]

Love Buddy Holly and that Gibson rings like a bell!👍

[gordenscottfan]

Very good as always...getting rock and roll out of an everyday acoustic some of the best lessons around...thank you.

[yhclkjk]

This tutorial will never be beaten. First Class! Phenomenal. Holly would be pround!. Excellent my friend EXCELLENT!!

[GreeneBJ]

That was a marvellous perfect tutorial - as far as I can tell. Gotta say I have played this since soon after the release of the song. Was it in 1957? I was shown it by a friend. He had some older brothers and I think they showed him. We didn't know about capos but in all other respects we were damned close.... ! Watching you took me back all those years to age 14. (67 years). Thanks for reminding me. I just tried it on the guitar. A bit rusty. Not the same speed and flexibility given another 67 years... eh! Thanks so much. {P.S. Wasn't Buddy great? I learned so much from Buddy. Terrible loss which shook me at the time. I bought his and my first ever LP}.

[Mick-B]

Brilliant. Clearly explained with clear tabs to follow. Thank you so much.

[davestrickland]

Got me right back into mr holly. Thank you.

[peterhaynes]

GREAT TO SEE ROCK "N" ROLL KEPT ALIVE, BRILLIANT ! THANK YOU JEZ.

[andrewmoore]

Class great teacher you are thanku👍👏👏👏🎶🎶🎶

[yhclkjk]

Effing hell. Best i have ever seen. On an accoustic as well!❤❤

[chriscortes]

Your guitar playing is amazing!
Guitar sounds beautiful.

[eudiki]

Thank you a lot, I'm trying to learn that song since I heard the first musics the beatles recorded

[pascalmichellucas]

Thank you for this new video, and the others too ;), learning to play guitar on rock n roll songs with you becomes easy.

[Kramerica]

Great lesson for a classic song. Well done!

[MustafaBaabad]

As always great work Jez!!!
Thanks for the lesson from Indonesia.

[johnherron]

Beautiful J! As always you're informative. 🙂

[ownHvB]

Thanks for the video! Going to give this one a try!