This song boasts an engaging chord progression and strumming pattern. Additionally, its chords are relatively easy to outline on guitar.
Fleetwood Mac’s classic song written by Stevie Nicks and released on their self-titled album in 1975 has also become famously covered by Dixie Chicks.
Learn to play Landslide by Fleetwood Mac on guitar step-by-step with this lesson set of five lessons and five playthru videos.
Key of C
Landslide, originally released by Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and written by Stevie Nicks for their performance, represents one of her earliest songwriting contributions to their band. This popular acoustic tune expresses Nicks’ feelings that her personal life has fallen apart.
Pop music often utilizes chord progressions that incorporate slash chords, which are formed by combining guitar chords with bass notes. Slash chords help reduce jumpiness between one chord and the next by keeping their root note close to that of its predecessor chord.
G/B chords use a B bass note as an easy replacement for G, making this an accessible slash chord used by guitarists. These slash chords can especially benefit acoustic guitarists as they don’t possess the ability to perform string bends like electric guitarists do.
Verse 1
Guns N’ Roses have created this song from their legendary rock group to showcase a mix of finger picking and strumming rhythms, as well as slide and hammer-on embellishments in the arrangement.
Intro/Verse is an excellent place to begin working on this song as it contains most of its chord progression. The chord shapes used don’t need much explanation and are straightforward for picking out on guitar. One challenge comes from shifting from Amin7 into G/B which requires shifting of fretting hand – until this transition feels natural, practice it over and over until it feels comfortable!
This song provides a great opportunity to learn how to use capos on the guitar. A capo is a tool which attaches directly to your fretboard and allows you to effortlessly play complex chords.
Verse 2
This song requires some practice to achieve smooth chord transitions when using a capo on beats 2 and 4, particularly since you must ensure your hammered-on and pulled-off notes fall in time with one another.
You will use Travis picking for both the intro and verse, with your left-hand thumb playing bass strings while index and middle fingers pick treble strings; this technique is known as strumming.
This song’s verse begins with an exciting transition from C to G/B chord change – perhaps one of the hardest changes for fingering! Before becoming proficient with it, however, you’ll likely have to work at practicing and mastering G/B for quite some time before moving forward with this song.
Verse 3
Nutshell by Alice in Chains was written as a song about feeling overwhelmed by life’s hardships, making it one of their most emotive tracks and becoming even more poignant following Layne Staley’s passing away.
To play this song, use a capo on the third fret to enable open chord playback and make playing easier for you. It is an ideal song to learn for beginners who wish to begin their guitar journeys.
The chords in this song are straightforward, while its picking pattern may present challenges for beginners. Therefore, practicing is necessary before being able to successfully play this tune; nonetheless, this tune makes a good choice as a first song since its easy chord progression and catchy melody make for enjoyable accompaniment.
Chorus
Fleetwood Mac’s classic ballad Landslide was one of Stevie Nicks’ earliest contributions to Fleetwood Mac and first appeared on their 1975 self-titled album.
Lindsey Buckingham lent an electric guitar solo and also played the acoustic guitars on this original studio recording of “Night Ride.” Without using a capo, he played chords without strumming them with string bends requiring more complex handwork on an acoustic.
For this song to sound its best on an acoustic guitar, use a capo at the third fret to ensure an authentic rendition of its sound. This will enable you to produce its full effect.