Learn to play Steve Lacy's Night Owl on guitar. Section A loops a four-chord minor-7 progression with an eight-beat Em and F major hold. Section B repeats a different progression four times, ending with a 12-beat Dm7 stretch. Count out loud to nail the timing.
All right. Hey, what's up? I'm back. I'm here to help you guys learn the Night Owl. A lot of people requested this one. It's so funny because, like, nobody even knows about this song, but you guys want to learn how to play it anyways? I got it. It's actually very simple. It's only two sections. I'm gonna play the first section right now. So that was two times through in the actual song. It goes. The drum break is like 16 bars, and then it's going to go through this whole loop four times that I'm about to teach you. And then I'll go to the next section, which I'll teach you later or show you, rather. All right. So it's pretty simple except for the counting. The counting kind of throws you off, so you have to be vigilant and actually count. Try using numbers. That's what I do. So you're going to start with a D minor seven chord on your fifth fret. And these are all going to get two B. So it's going to go. And then you're going to go to. And A minor seven chords, same fret, just different chord. So we're gonna Go D minor 7, A minor 7, G minor 7. Same exact shape. Just shift your hand down two frets, and then you're gonna go to your open E minor chord, right? So those. That first part again is 1, 2.
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Right? You got that? So where it can kind of throw you off is this E minor chord. It actually lasts for six beats. And I'll show you how it works.
So it's gonna go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6.
Actually lasts for eight beats. And then our last chord before we go back top the 78 is going to be F major, 7, 8, right? So we're gonna go D minor 1.
2, A minor, 3, 4, G minor, 5, 6, 7, 8 is E minor. And then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, eight is the F major.
And then the loop starts over again, Right? It can kind of throw you off, but as long as you know that the E Minor, you count 7, 8, and then you count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, all E minor. And then that when you go back to 7, 8 again, it's the F major chord. Great. So that's going to happen four times after you get through the first progression. Play it four times. You're going to go to the next part, which is going to go like this, Right? And that also repeats Four times. Great thing. It's all the same chord shapes that we use. This song is like almost all just minor seven chords. Great. So we're going to start on our familiar A minor 7 chord, right, for four beats. Then to an E minor 7 on your seventh fret that is also four beats. And then you're gonna go back down to our G minor, same shape as the A minor, 2, 3, 4. And then D minor, right. Really simple. So that happens four times. Repeat that four times after you do it four times. This is where it's also weird. The weirdest part about the song is the counting. After you play your Last D minor 7, 4. And as if you were going to repeat the loop, you're now going to sit on this D minor 7 for 12 more beats for three more measures. So it's gonna go 1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4 dot 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
Start over one. Now we're back to the original loop.
1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7,8.
Great. Does that make sense? So it starts with the drum intro. And then you play the A section, the first part that we learned. You're gonna play that four times. And then you're gonna play the B section also four times. But after you play the B section, you're gonna just sit on that D minor chord for 12 beats. And then the A section begins again. You're gonna play that four times in total. It's like two times just by itself. And then the vocals come in on the third and the fourth time, like the second time that the A section happens. And then you're gonna go to your B section again. And then the whole rest of the song is literally him just sitting here. They just sit on this D minor for like the rest of the song. And he does the solo. Cool, quick one. But I hope it was simple and it's not too difficult of a song. You just gotta count using your numbers. Alright, have fun. As always, you know, I'm doing more of these. Keep leaving your requests down in the comments. I'll get to them. A lot of people requested this one, which is why I did it. Okay, bye. Have a nice day.
