Sweet Home Alabama Guitar Lesson – Lynyrd Skynyrd


This is not gonna be your typical Sweet Home Alabama guitar lesson! In these video lessons I am gonna not only break every section of the song down note-for-note, but for any of you brave guitarists out there I am also gonna teach you how to play the piano solo on the guitar! 😀

Needless to say, "Sweet Home Alabama" needs no introduction. It is probably one the of the top 5 most famous songs of all-time.

In the first video below I will demonstrate how to play all of the intro, chords and rhythm guitar parts that are so iconic for the entire song. There are some really cool guitar licks thrown within that chord work so that video alone might keep you busy for a while.

The second video begins the solo marathon. In it I while tackle the first short but sweet guitar solo. There are some tasty licks in this one so don't overlook it! In fact, learning this solo may serve as a nice warm-up for the following video lessons.

In the third lesson video I will tackle the main solo note-for-note. It actually isn't that difficult to understand how to play. Just simply piece it together phrase by phrase like I teach it in the video. I will also show you how I am picking select sections in order to help you be able to get it up to speed easier.

This would definitely be considered that main guitar solo in the song and it has just a little bit of everything in it including large bends, fast legato licks, rapid shifts, string crossing licks, slides and more.

In the final video we will finally come to what I feel is the ultimate climax to this lesson series, a full note-for-note transcription of the piano solo!

Most fast musical pieces that are transcribed from piano to guitar can be very difficult to play and this piano solo that ends "Sweet Home Alabama" is no different.

I perform it at the beginning of the video and you will see that it requires lots of quick hammer-ons, hybrid picking, extremely quick shifts and large stretches. It definitely isn't for the faint of heart but will make a great challenge for most advanced players.

The piano solo is very musical and easy to kind of hum so getting the sound of it in your ears shouldn't be very difficult. Once again, break this solo down phrase by phrase like I teach it in the lesson. There are many great technical exercises located within each phrase.

Hopefully you will be able to master those piano licks on the guitar and then thrown them into your own improvisations for some fresh sounding licks.

Ok I am gonna shut up and let your guys watch the videos. Hope you come out on the other side unscathed!! 🙂

Carl...

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Sweet Home Alabama Guitar Lesson Pt.1 - All Chords & Rhythms

Sweet Home Alabama Guitar Lesson Pt.2 - First Solo

Sweet Home Alabama Guitar Lesson Pt.3 - Main Solo

Sweet Home Alabama Guitar Lesson Pt.4 - Piano Solo Guitar Transcription

12 Comments

  1. Mike on October 16, 2014 at 9:20 pm

    Thanks for doing this video. I love all that you do, awesome guitarist and excellent teacher. I look forward to learning this correctly. I would love if you can do free bird . I really want to learn that solo. Not a good one on you tube yet. And I know you would tear it up and being the teacher you are, so would I. Thanks Thanks Thanks

    • Carl Brown on October 20, 2014 at 11:54 am

      Thanks Mike, I think I will start working on my monster “Freebird” transcription this week. 🙂

      Carl..

  2. GEORG P WEYAND on October 16, 2014 at 10:21 pm

    Keep up the great work, Carl. I can’t wait for Freebird.

  3. Keith P on October 21, 2014 at 10:00 pm

    The piano solo is great. First real try at hybrid picking – fun way to start learning that technique!

    • Carl Brown on October 23, 2014 at 11:46 am

      Yeah I agree and it makes it MUCH easier to play in the long run. 🙂

  4. crazylegs on October 28, 2014 at 4:06 pm

    Hey Carl,
    Great lesson! My only problem now is unlearning the way I used to play it! (The wrong way!)
    One of my all time favorite songs is Roll With the Changes by REO. I love the way Gary Richrath plays. Tried to learn it on my own and the lessons online are hard to follow. Could really use your help on this one! Thanks!

  5. John Saga on June 9, 2015 at 4:49 am

    G’day. I am enjoying some new songs, will consider upgrading in a while as not happy with some sites being to pushy, I was having fun!

  6. Bill Hutchison on July 5, 2015 at 6:35 pm

    Another great lesson! any chance of adding Simple Man?

    • Carl Brown on July 8, 2015 at 11:24 am

      Hey Bill, I have Shinedown’s cover of “Simple Man” already on the site. Same chords as the original. Have you seen that one?

      Carl..

  7. Vernon Sequeira on November 1, 2021 at 6:05 am

    Hi Carl,
    Can I buy the tabs for the above lessons?

    • Carl Brown on November 25, 2021 at 8:34 am

      Unfortunately, I do not have the licensing needed to legally sell TABS on this site. 🙁

      • David Barratt on February 27, 2022 at 1:35 pm

        Just subscribed to GL365. Loved your teaching style on Sweet Home Alabama, so I took the plunge on your course. Would it be possible to do a similar type of lesson for Skynyrd’s Gimme Tree Steps and Call Me the Breeze sometime in the future? Looking forward to digging deep into the material now.

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