Learn Steve Lacy's guitar solo from "Lay Me Down" fret by fret. The instructor breaks down the melodic phrases played mostly between the 12th and 15th frets, shows how they repeat and connect, and explains the underlying chord loop: Dm9, G7, Fmaj7.
You smell that? It's a beautiful day outside. You guys know I love you, right? I've been working arduously all morning to put this together for you guys. It's the solo for Lay Me Down. This has by far been my most requested video. So here we are. If you're looking to learn the chords, skip to the end of the video or go to my channel and see a more in depth tutorial for it. But this video is all about the solo. Sam, You ready? Okay, first I'm going to show you the last little lick that he plays with the. And you lay me down. So that's going to go like this. And there's a little tab right here. Disclaimer. I did not write this tab. I found it on this guitar tabbing website. It was like tabs, bro. But I think it's pretty accurate. So we're going to start on our 13th fret of our B string. And then 15th fret, bend up. And then we're gonna go like release the bend but keep it ringing. 13th fret, E string, 12th fret. And we're gonna get a little flourish and then 15th to 13th fret. Okay, let's get into it. So first, our hand is not going to leave this area of our guitar. From our 12th to our 15th fret, which is good. It stays in the same position the entire time. The solo is going to start with this little figure which is this little like hammer on to 13, back to 12. That's going to happen three times. And then on the fourth time, it's gonna do it again. And that's gonna do what I'm gonna refer to as the full thing. That figure right there is the full thing. It should be tabbed right there. And so this is a screenshot from my notes. This is the order of things. And here's. I'm gonna explain what I mean by that. So when I say the full thing again, that is gonna be this figure. And when you see full thing with double ending, it means this. So instead of going, we're going. Does that make sense? So here's. Here's the first. The first part. So it's gonna go. This is gonna happen three times. Fourth time, That's one full time, that's one double ending. So it's gonna go three times and then the fourth time with. With the full thing and then the double ending. And then it's gonna go the full thing two times. So I'm just gonna start from the first full thing. And now we're going to go to the full thing twice in a row, And then it's going to do another double. And then after the double, we're going to go back to the full thing. So let me just. Let me just play it up to that point. So we have 1, 2, 3, and then a fourth time. Double. Then the two full times in a row, Double again, and then full thing one more time. And then after that time, it's going to be a little bit different. It's not going to be one that we've seen before. It's going to be what I'm called, like the. The repeated note or like the. It's kind of like a triple. So it's like. So this is. This is the full time before that. Now. So it starts similar to the full time, but it's a little bit different. So let me just play that one more time so you can get the difference. This is the full time and this is like the repeated note. And the reason I call it the repeated note is because after you go, normally you would go, but now we're gonna go. And that's gonna happen three times. One, two, three. So those last two times again are. Or. So the last time is. That's the single, like the full time. Got that? It's a lot to take in, but just follow this sequence, which is. It's three times of the da da. And then the fourth time, you do the da da one more time, and then you do the first full time. After the first full time, you do a double. After the double, you do two full times in a row, and then you do another double, and then you do another full time, and then you do the final one, which is the repeated note. I'm gonna play that last section we just covered one more time. So in its entire. Fourth time, It's a lot of repetition, but you guys can get it. The most important thing I'm going to stress is that you got to just play along with Steve on the recording. This is the guidance, and this can help you figure out where to put your fingers. But really, you got to just play it with them because otherwise you're not going to be able to do it. So after that, we're going to go. Do it one more time. Slow, should be tabbed right there. The only tricky part about this is the first time we hit this 15th fret. So first time, and then when we return, we almost. We're not even going for this note. We're kind of going for the note a half step above it. And then it's going to go, which is just going to be a bend from your. From up. From your 15th fret. And you kind of want to let it. Let the sound of it sliding back down. Be there. 13, 14 on your B and your G strings. And then finally we're going to go. So that's gonna go. It's. It's similar to like the other. Like that we played at the beginning. When you lay me down. It's. It's really similar. So it's. So you can do that bend the. That's gonna happen four times. So 1, 2, 3. On the fourth time. So that last section after like the. The part that repeats, we. Yeah, the rhythm on that wasn't perfect. But again, you're gonna have to just play along with the record to really get the rhythm. I can show you guys the notes, but I can't show you guys the rhythm. I mean, I could notate it out, but if you're coming to me, you probably don't read notation that well and I don't want to write all that. So I hope this is clear for you guys. Once again, what I provided is a roadmap. It's about the best I can do. You're gonna have to go back. You're just gonna have to keep scooting the recording back and playing it. But once you get it, once you start to get the pieces and see how they fit together, it's really a pretty simple solo. It's a lot of repetition and just knowing where to place what. So yeah, I hope this was helpful for you guys. This is actually a lot of fun for me to do and have a great day. Bye bye. Let me know if anything was unclear and drop more song suggestions in the comments. Alright, since I want to have this all in one video, here are the chords for those who are not acquainted with the other one. We're gonna have a. It's gonna go like this, Then it repeats. Really simple. First we got a D minor 9 followed by a G dominant chord followed by an F major 7. Make sure you're not hitting. Mute that. Mute that second string and then we're gonna go. You're gonna pick your top three strings on that F major seven. And the loop is gonna start and end with the D minor 9 chord so it go. Top of the loop. Enjoy.
