How to play 867-5309/Jenny – Tommy Tutone

In this lesson I am gonna show you a note-for-note breakdown of how to play 867-5309/Jenny, the 80's smash hit by Tommy Tutone.

There are quite a lot of cool guitar riffs to learn in this one, many of them layered on top of one another. For the most part though, each section does have a dominant guitar part so playing the whole song with just one guitar can sound fine.

We start with that classic intro that is instantly recognizable. For the beginner level player this opening riff can be a nice arpeggiated picking exercise.

From there we launch into the main chord riff consisting of mostly power chords with a couple of cool licks thrown in.

The double-stop lick that happens during this section occurs a few times during the song so you will want to master it. It makes for a nice challenge as well to play it up to speed. I like to use hybrid picking for guitar riffs like this and I suggest you try to do the same. You will be able to control the sound of the notes much better that way.

As we move on through the lesson, I will also be showing you some overdubs that are played over the verse. You can choose to play those or not. I think they can be a nice way of keeping the sound varied since the verse and chorus are so similar.

During the bridge section you will need to be able to confidently play barre chords that move around at a pretty quick tempo. There is also some arpeggiated picking going on here as well.

Finally, we make it to the solo. I think the solo is really cool and has sort of a dark quality about it for such a poppy song. It is very blues influenced and contains some subtle bends, slides and staccato notes. I suggest listening to the original recording multiple times until you have the solo memorized by ear before learning it in this video lesson. Or you can just listen to my performance over and over again. 🙂

So have fun with this 80's rock classic!

Carl...

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How to play 867-5309/Jenny - Tommy Tutone