Georgia On My Mind

Description

"Georgia on My Mind" features a nylon string guitar, accompanied by a beautiful arrangement and Nelson's awesome voice and guitar playing. The twisting and turning chord progression is reflective of the jazz style, and in this tutorial we are going to cover how to play that progression in the key of C so we can use some open chords. Nelson's signature lead guitar playing, which is very often overlooked, is present in this song and I am going to approach teaching you the song using some of his licks along with ways to simply strum the song. I will be using my Taylor 614, with medium strings and a small pick. This makes it so I can really make it count with it's time to strum, but with the small pick I can really dig in and play some of those melodies and licks as well.

As an added bonus, I also wanted to teach you the harmonica solo on guitar! So many of those licks work great on guitar, and it also gives you an example of how to play a very melodic solo over a moving chord progression that doesn't stay in the same key the whole time. This is a skill that can be hard to pull off without lots of practice and ear training, and in this song you get a great example of how to be melodic and musically interesting at the same time. I won't be covering all the licks at the end, but feel free to learn some of those if you want once you have the solo down.

The tone and effect settings for Guitar #2 are:
- Gibson ES335 - Bridge Pickup - w/11 gauge Elixir Strings
- Standard Tuning
- Clean Tone through 2x12 Combo
- Spring Reverb. Mix @ 40%, Decay at 15%

Our goal here, as with any song, is to find a way to learn vibe of the song while staying true to the vocals and songwriting. The guitar licks, chords, and solo all play vital roles in the song but it's the melody and song form that really shine in a traditional standard like this. From there, you can take what you've learned and play this song solo, or with others. This song is also a great intro to some jazz chords if that is a new arena for you and your guitar vocabulary.