SIMPLE Mustang Sally Guitar Lesson For BEGINNERS

Hey, guitar enthusiasts, I'm going to show you how to play Wilson Pickett's Mustang Sally. But I'm going to show you a really easy way to play this using only one finger per chord. Let's get into it.

Now, in order to do this simplified version, we're going to need a capo. We're going to be taking our capo, and we're going to be placing it at the third fret of our guitar. And I'm going to show you why we're doing this in one second. So you want that capo. It's almost to, like, the middle towards the front of the fret. You don't want it towards the back of the fret. And we're going to play all of these chords relative to the capo. So let me show you what chords we're going to be playing. First, we're going to be using all power chords, okay? So we're going to be using an A5, an E5, and a D5. And what we're going to do for these chords is we're just going to be using our first finger, okay? And all of these fingers are going to be in the second fret. So for A five, we're going to put our first finger on the second fret of the D string, and we're going to play the open A string and the string below it. Okay? So that's a five. Now, to get to D5, we're just going to move our first finger down one string, and we're going to play the open D string and the second fret on that G string. So that's going to be our D chord. And then we're going to move our first finger up to the fifth fret on. Or, sorry, the fifth string second fret. And then the open E string at the same time would be E5. So we have E5. Move the finger down 1. A5. Move the finger down.

D5. Now, the reason we're putting the capo here is because this original song is in what we call the key of C. Now, a key is just a family of chords that sound really, really good together. And to play this song without the caper requires a really big stretch in your hand, which a lot of my older learners don't quite have yet, especially if you're a beginner just getting started with the guitar. So if I wanted to try playing along to the record with this, doing what they're doing in the song without the capo, I'd have to do this big Stretch here, look at.

Okay. At this point, it's a five fret and sometimes a six fret stretch. And while these frets are smaller up here, a lot of my older students, especially those with arthritis, that can be a little bit tricky for them. So I'm going to show you how to do that in a simplified way. First off, we're going to start with the rhythm. So we're using an eighth note strumming. So we'll start with that, a five chord. And all downs are going to go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

Okay. And you want to practice because you want to make sure you're getting both of those strings at the same time. And you can kind of hear this first finger. I'm muting the string below just in case I hit it, it won't come through.

Okay? So you want to practice that.

So that's our eighth note strumming. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 in all down strums. Now, this song follows somewhat of like a blues progression that we're going to be playing A for a bunch of times. Then we're going to go to D, then we're going to go back to A, and then we're going to play the E chord eventually. And I'll do a little playthrough of the chorus for you guys. But what I want to do is show you the movement we're going to add with our other fingers so that we can get it to sound more like the song. So on the A chord, we have that first finger on the second fret of the fourth string. Right. So forget that. Open a string for now. I just want you to play the notes. The second fret, then we're going to reach the third finger to the fifth. I'm sorry, the fourth fret now. And then the pinky is going to get that fifth fret. So it's going to be.

Okay. Just. You might need to just practice this to start. Okay. To get your fingers used to it, because we do want to use the first finger, the third finger in the pinky. Okay. And there's a very specific reason why. And I'm going to show you right now. So the pattern, I told you was an eighth note pattern. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so it's going to be 1 and 2. So when we get to 2, we're going to put our third finger down. So it's going to be 1 and two, and then we're going to lift the third finger up. And so it's going to BE 1 and 2. And okay.

After you do that, we're now going to go to our pinky. And the pinky is going to be the third beat, 3. And back to the first finger. Then back to the third finger, 4. And so it's 2, 2, 4, 2, 5. 2, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4, 2,. 5, 2, 4, 2. Let's try without me saying the numbers over it. Ready? And.

One more time.

Now you'll notice I'm keeping my first finger down the entire time. But these two fingers, I'm lifting and moving them as needed. So now we're going to throw that open a string on the top and it's going to sound like this.

Again.

Last time.

Now you see, if you don't practice and you don't get both of those strings, you're going to be moving your fingers but you're just going to be getting the A string.

That happens to a lot of people. So if you're here hearing that, you're not getting this movement.

You're not getting that movement. Maybe just pause the video for right now for a little bit and practice just focusing on hitting those two strings. Now the great thing about this pattern, this is a classic blues pattern. I teach this in my blues guitar course. It's a very classic blues pattern. Even though we're not playing it in like a shuffle that you would think a blues would be in. We're going to copy that pattern for all the other chords. So when we play a D chord now you're going to. And we move our finger down to that G string.

It's the same movement, same pattern, same for the E chord up here.

Okay, so you can hear that. So what we're going to do is I just want to practice going between A D and E. Alright? We'll go very slow just for you guys to practice. And then I'm going to show you how we're going to apply this to the actual song. So we're starting with the A chord. We're going to play two measures. Then we're going to go to the D chord, two measures. E chord, two measures. Back to A for two measures. Ready? One, two, Ready? And.

Now d.

E.

A.

So if you need to practice that, pause the video because what we're going to do next is I'm going to just do a little playthrough of the chorus so that you guys can hear how this rhythm pattern goes underneath the lyric. But before I go through this chorus, I just looked at my sheet. There's one thing I Got to make a note for you guys. So basically what we're doing is we're doing eight measures of A, four measures of D, then back to A for four measures. Then we have two measures of E. We come back to the D chord, but instead of playing the rhythm, what we do is we play the chord once and then we mute the guitar. Okay, so it'd be like playing a D chord and then muting for two measures. All right, we're just going to play the D chord and we're going to go one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. And then it comes right back into the A. Okay, I'm going to show you right now. One, two. Ready?

And. All you wanna do is ride around, Sally Ride, Sally, ride.

All you wanna do is ride around, Sally Ride, Sally, ride to D All you wanna do is ride around, Sally Ride, Sally, ride A Again. All you wanna do is ride.

Right, Celery? Right, E. One of these early mornings Woo. Gonna be wiping your weeping eyes.

If you really dig these style of songs, then you're really gonna want to check out my very simple 12 bar blues lesson right over there. We're gonna use the same chords we used in this lesson. Go check that out and learn how to play the 12 bar blues.