🎸 Needle and the Damage Done • Guitar lesson w/ intro tab (Neil Young)

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Hey friends, new Neil Young lesson for you today! This one dives into his 1972 classic The Needle and the Damage Done, the second-to-last track from his album Harvest. This one is a bit challenging, but an absolute joy to play once you've fully learned it.

The entire song uses a single chord progression, but Neil puts together an amazingly distinctive riff you hear during the first 8 measures. It will require some mastery of alternate picking and "targeting" specific strings -- but as I said, it's a pure joy to play after you've put in the practice. I'll walk you through everything, step by step (including the verse strumming and the E-fill Neil plays at the end of each verse).

Video lesson timestamps:

0:00 Preview & Lesson Summary
1:24 Song Structure, Big Picture!
2:24 Riff: Chord Shapes Needed
5:34 Riff: Down-Up Strum Technique
7:20 Riff: 1st Half, as Neil Plays It
13:22 Riff: 2nd Half, as Neil Plays It
18:28 How to Strum the Verses
21:31 E-Riff (End of Each Verse)

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