Led Zeppelin – Bron-Yr-Aur Guitar Lesson
In this very in-depth video guitar lesson, I will show you how to play Led Zeppelin's acoustic instrumental "Bron-Yr-Aur" from their Physical Graffiti album note-for-note.
Clocking in at a little over 2 minutes, "Bron-Yr-Aur" is fingerpicked throughout a will provide a nice challenge to just about every guitarist.
Before you attempt this Bron-Yr-Aur guitar lesson you will need to get your guitar into the proper tuning. Guitarist Jimmy Page employs a C6 open tuning to help create the beautiful guitar parts found throughout. In order to get your guitar into C6 tuning, you will need to tune your guitar starting from the 6th string (C-A-C-G-C-E). After that, you will be ready to go!
If you look closely at the different sections of "Bron-Yr-Aur", you will find that it consists of mostly just repeated sections. In reality, there are only about 4 or 5 different sections to learn. Throughout "Bron-Yr-Aur", Jimmy Page will constantly go back and repeat those sections that he played before.
I will demonstrate how I feel most players would be the most comfortable fingerpicking the song. For those that don't have traditional classical style fingerpicking skills, you will probably find this Bron-Yr-Aur guitar lesson much easier to learn if you avoid using your ring finger within the picking patterns. If you can use your ring finger that is great, but you can still get the whole thing up to speed just fine without it. For most people, the ring finger is harder to include in fingerpicking patterns due to it's lack of independence from the middle finger. Without proper training this can be hard to overcome.
The left hand chords never require you to play any bar chords, which makes this a bit easier. However, you will need to due some tricky pull-offs from time to time. Because of this, I suggest that you make sure you have an acoustic guitar that is set-up well so it can play relatively easy.
My suggestion for learning how to play "Bron-Yr-Aur" is to master one section at a time and then slowly put all of those sections together into one cohesive piece. You will find this to be the easiest way to learn the song since most of those sections you will be learning occur multiple times throughout the song.
As always, it is a very good idea to really have the sound of "Bron-Yr-Aur" memorized in your mind before trying to learn it. If you can't hum it to yourself in your head, then you definitely won't be able to play it. It is one of those tracks that is much easier to learn when you already know what each section sounds like and when it will appear.
OK have fun with this one! 🙂
Carl...
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Bron-Yr-Aur Guitar Lesson - Led Zeppelin
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Carl,
What an awesome lesson on an awesome acoustic piece by Zepplin. Your site and lessons are above and beyond better than any other lessons on the net. Any thoughts on teaching Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp? It is such a great rhythm and driving acoustic guitar beat. It would be a fun one to play around a camp fire with the others around the fire doing the claps and snaps.
I am an experienced guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle player who taught myself by ear and I used to perform. I learned how to play Bron-yr-Aur and the Crossroads intro from your videos which was great. I want to learn more difficult lead guitar solos. Do you teach the Crossroads middle solo? Or pieces like Steve Hunter’s intro to Lou Reed’s live version of Rock ‘n’ Roll? Eddie Van Halen’s solo on Beat It?
Carl,
Love the acoustic Zeppelin songs – any plans for Black Mountain Side…?
Maybe, it would be a tough one to teach though. At least teach correctly. 🙂
Took a closer look at the song being played…and I think you are right!
This is beautiful, Carl! Many thanks for taking the time to reproduce and teach it it so well!
Great lesson Carl. What model acoustic are you playing?
That is a Great Divide acoustic that I used to play. I don’t think they make them anymore. 🙂
Hi, Carl! Just another player writing to tell you that you are The Man. I’ve ALWAYS wanted to play this one, and with major thanks to you, I am starting to get it down tight. Thank you for teaching it so meticulously and making it easier to understand.
Pat Simmons of The Doobie Brothers plays some fine fingerstyle tracks on many of their albums. He plays a nice little intelude track like Bron-Yr-Aur on The Captain and Me album called Busted Down Around O’Connolly Corners that I can’t find a lesson for anywhere, and wondering if it might be one you would consider, please. Thanks, Carl. Very happy to get you a substantial donation for it! Seriously. Take care and Happy Holidays…