'Harvest Moon' Easy Guitar Lesson - Easy Chords + Strumming + Chord Melody Riff

"Harvest Moon" Easy Guitar Lesson - Easy Chords + Strumming + Chord Melody Riff

Hey everybody in today's lesson, I'm going to be teaching you how to play one of the easiest songs on guitar: "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young. Learn the basic chords & strumming plus the easy chord-melody intro riff!

► The CHORD CHART / TAB is now published on Musicnotes (direct product links and FULL SONG PLAY-THROUGH are available on my Patreon page):

► Need help with the basic chords and strumming? My beginner guitar course will help you build a solid foundation one step at a time:

► And don't forget to grab your copy of my free eBook:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

0:00 - INTRO
2:51 - CHORDS & SWITCHING TIPS
4:20 - SWITCHING PRACTICE
6:08 - STRUMMING PATTERN
8:14 - VERSE PLAY-ALONG
10:18 - CHORUS
12:06 - INTRO RIFF
17:30 - LONGER PLAY-ALONG

The lesson begins with the chord shapes needed to play the verse, it's just three simple chord shapes: Dmaj7, Em7, and G. We go over the easiest way to play them all and then we practice switching between them as we play through the chord progression from the verse, using downstrokes only.

Following that we learn the strumming pattern which is, once again, a very simple one. We practice it in halves, work on getting it to feel right (and swing!) and then we put it together with our chord progression from our verse for a slower play-along.

Next, we take a look at the chorus which requires two new shapes that are also quite simple: A7sus4 and A. We practice them, and then we play the chorus together, nice and slow.

Finally we take a look at that riff, which is comprised of three simple shapes and a little bit of strumming. We break it down and spend a lot of time practicing each bit of it so you'll know exactly what to do to. Then it's just a matter of inserting it into the tune.

We play through pretty much the whole thing, as we would in the recording, but a little bit slower, and that's that!

Hope you enjoy this one, see you soon!
-James

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#harvestmoon #neilyoung #guitartutorial

[Good_Guitarist]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

0:00 - INTRO
2:51 - CHORDS & SWITCHING TIPS
4:20 - SWITCHING PRACTICE
6:08 - STRUMMING PATTERN
8:14 - VERSE PLAY-ALONG
10:18 - CHORUS
12:06 - INTRO RIFF
17:30 - LONGER PLAY-ALONG

[alexandersnow]

Thx for that, u are the best techer on YouTube!

[buxaplenty]

As a total beginner I was really struggling with the intro riff, specifically the strumming. This helped a ton and i could see the improvement. Thanks a ton!

[lisarrowley]

You're an amazing teacher! Thank you for all of your tips, tricks and licks!! I've learned the most from your lessons than any other instructor out there!! It's such an amazing feeling to be able to play the guitar and I can't thank you enough!!

[catherinecallen]

best guitar teaching I've ever seen. thank u keep it up!!

[carlawilliams]

I just wanna play this in standard tuning. Thank you so

[shivkumarsharma]

Sir because of your technique and style I'm really improving myself thank you so much sir

[spudnickle]

Well done James. Ya make it easy for us. I got this now!!!

[Old_Geezer]

Best video explanation of this song I've seen - very clear and concise and really, really helpful for me, so thank you. (I'm using Drop D tuning but easy enough to adjust where needed). The detail on the strumming pattern was excellent and as D/D/U/U/D/U was one of the first I mastered it made things even simpler - few other online demonstrations give much help on what is such a fundamental part of the whole thing.

[justinplet]

Thank you. Get many requests for this. Neil is amazing

[MariaElenaBanks]

Very good teacher! Loved to subscribe.

[maxence]

Merci jaime bien cette version et la façon comment elle est expliquer ❤

[kathleendefalco]

Do you have a down load of the cords with lyrics that I can print out to practice?

[crackmando]

just stumbled on to this lesson after listening to reina del cid (elle cordoba) covering it .
Excellently demonstrated lesson thankyou 👍

[kritikasharma]

ur tutorials r jst awesome... thank u 4this

[halrogers]

Hi James. I'm totally impressed with the quality of your instruction, video editing and print materials. It seems, though, the Harvest Moon PDF strumming pattern is not the same as the one in the video.

[bubbba]

Love this song. Thanks for all the great info.

[bobgreenhouse]

King 👑 James that was a masterpiece incredible lesson and so calmly explained. James are u familiar with the harmonica as Neil young with several songs played with one. Enjoy 😊 listening to Good Guitarist u have me subscribed 4 life!

[drewkerr]

It's such a lovely song, made so special with that riff. You make it look so easy. I'm assuming your in standard tuning as wonder about drop D?

[bobber]

A good lesson! How is the tuning of your guitar, standard E-A-D-G-B-e or like Neil Young's tuning D-A-D-G-B-e?