Midnight Rider Guitar Lesson – The Allman Brothers Band
In this Midnight Rider guitar lesson video, I will show you how to play this hit by The Allman Brothers Band in it's entirety.
We will be using standard tuning just like the original recording.
I will first show you how to play all of the acoustic parts which were played by Duane Allman on the original recording. The second half of the video lesson will be dedicated to Dickey Betts' lead guitar parts including the very cool interlude section.
At the very beginning of Midnight Rider, we hear a repeated arpeggio picked guitar riff. I will demonstrate an easy way of recreating that riff that will allow you to immediately jump into the main riff.
That main riff is very simple and is based around a D5 power chord shape.
The chorus contains just two chords (G min - C/G) with a very simple strumming pattern. I will then finish up the acoustic guitar sections with a look at the rhythm guitar parts under the guitar solo and interlude.
I will start the electric guitar portion of the lesson taking a look at Dickey Betts' unison bends during the chorus sections.
After that, we are on to the guitar solo. The guitar solo has a very country guitar vibe to it with lots of oblique bends based around a D major pentatonic scale shape.
When the harmony finally changes we have reached the interlude which contains two lead guitar parts playing separate melodic figures that compliment each other very nicely. This is my favorite part of "Midnight Rider" and I hope you will enjoy it as well.
Gregg Allman has stated that "Midnight Rider" is "the song I’m most proud of in my career." This video lesson is my tribute to a man that meant so much to Southern Rock fans all over the world. RIP Gregg Allman!
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