Chords for The Spinners - I'll Be Around Guitar Lesson (with TAB)

[Abm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Abm] _ _ [Ebm] _ _
[Abm] _ _ [Ebm] _ _ [Abm] _ _ [Ebm] _ _
[Abm] _ _ [Ebm] _ _ [Abm] _ _ [Ebm] _ _
[Abm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Abm] _ _ [Ebm] _ _
[F] Hey gang, today we're going to do the Spinner's 1972 Soul Classic, I'll Be [N] Around.
Not too much to it in terms of the chords and the notes, but a great vibe on this song.
Alright, we'll see you in just a second.
Alright gang, let's go over this now line by line.
First things first, you can download the tab from the link in the description.
It's going to make your life a little bit easier.
And second thing is the sound.
So I just want to talk about this a little bit.
I'm actually using the middle position, there it is, which is both pickups on this 335.
I thought about not only using the neck position, but also rolling off the tone knob on it.
I didn't do that because I listened to the record and it was more treble than I remembered in it.
So that's what I went with.
You can do what you want to, but make sure you just keep it clean.
Clean sound.
Alright, now, [A] let's talk about_
[Eb] I'll tell you what, let me do the riff first.
I'll just do it a couple times and then we'll go over it line by line.
Okay, so here's the riff.
1, 2, 3, 4.
1, [Abm] _ _ _ [Ebm] _ _ [Abm] _
2, [Ebm] 3.
_ [Abm] _ _ _ [Ebm] _
_ [Abm] _ _ _ [Ebm] _ [Gb] Okay, really cool groove and it just kind of gets repeated ad infinitum so that people
can dance or do whatever to it.
Alright, it is soul music after all.
Alright, so, really cool, right?
I mean a little octave riff and then some chords.
So the octave riff, let me show you what that is.
Now, if you've already done octaves before, let me just show it to you very slowly.
If you haven't done it, and then you can move on and you can probably fast forward.
If you haven't done it, we'll spend a little bit of time on that.
So here it is.
I'm going to give you the top voice, the fret of the top voice of the octave.
Okay, so it's 7, [B] 9, and then on the second string, and then on the top string it is 7 and 11.
[Eb] _ [G] Okay, so on the second string 7, [Ab] 9.
Top string [B] 7 and 11.
_ Okay, again, if you're familiar with octaves, you can go ahead and [D] fast forward a bit and we'll get to the chords at the end.
If you haven't, I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking a bit about octaves and how to get a good sound out of octaves.
So, first of all, what are octaves?
They are _ basically, they're two notes.
They're two note chords where both of the notes are of the same quality, but spaced out by 12 notes.
[Gb] Okay, so I'm playing, for example, this one is two F sharps.
I'm playing an F sharp on the fourth string, fourth fret, and an F sharp on the second string, seventh fret.
Okay?
Now, notice that I'm not playing [N] a note in between.
I'm skipping a string, so I'm skipping the third string.
So there's a couple of different things about playing octaves.
By the way, if you haven't heard octaves before, do yourself a favor, spend a good half hour, Google West Montgomery and just have a blast.
That guy was the best.
He played them all with his thumb, _ [A]
which is another great way to get a good sound on octaves.
I'm doing it with a pick.
Okay, so what's going on here?
Well, with this octave, when we're playing it, there's a couple of things to think about.
First of all, I'm deadening the center string, in this case the third, with my left hand, not my [B] right hand.
So I'm playing this by deadening that center.
Right?
So it's not like this.
[Gb] It's not that.
It's [Gbm] this.
That's going to take some time.
_ [Gb]
And I'm also being pretty precise with my right hand and only hitting strings four, [Gbm] three, and two.
[Em] So that's another thing.
The only other thing to think about when we're playing this is that these are usually down strokes.
[Gbm]
[D] Okay?
They're almost always down strokes.
So we're going to play all down strokes here.
And that as you're playing it, one thing I can tell you [N] is that, oh, the spacing is always going to be, when we're playing it on the fourth and second strings, or the third and first strings, as we will a couple of them,
the spacing is always going to be three frets.
So that's something to keep in mind.
So when I'm playing seven on the top, the bottom one's four.
And when I'm playing nine on the top, nine minus three frets would be six.
[Eb] So it's nine and six.
_ [E] So I really only have to think about one of those notes.
I tend to think about the top one. All right?
So that's why, as I'm thinking about the voices on this, I'm thinking about the top voice moving from, on the second string, seven to [Ab] nine.
[B] And then on the top string, seven to eleven.
[Eb] _ [Gb] And that can get me through the whole thing.
All right?
So hopefully that helped a little bit.
What I would suggest is, you know, if you haven't done octaves before, practice [Ab] until you can get that center string depth [Gb] by using down strokes.
And you have a pretty accurate hitting the strings with your right hand, with your pick hand.
All right?
And then just rely on the tab and you'll be good.
You'll figure out that pattern of the top and bottom voicing soon enough.
All right.
Take it slowly, though.
Now let's talk about the chords.
The chords [Abm] are as follows.
_ [Ebm] _ _ [Abm] _ _ _ [Ebm] _
_ [Abm] Okay.
So this one gets a long stroke.
This one gets a short.
[Ebm] And then another long.
[Abm] _ So [E] it's almost like there's just an in-between chord there, [Abm] right?
So there's a chord, a little spacer chord, [Ebm] and then another one.
_ _ [E] _ [A] Okay.
So what are they?
Well, the [Abm] first one is an E major seventh.
Okay?
So it's played on the [Gb] 5, 4, 3, and 2 strings.
Okay.
If you hit the top string, it's okay.
But we're going to play on the 5, 4, 3, and 2 strings respectively.
[Abm] 7, 6, 4, 4.
Okay?
That's an E major seventh chord.
[G] All right.
Now we're going to play this one, which is a G sharp [Abm] minor.
All right.
And I'm just playing the top four strings.
So 6, 4, 4, 4.
You'll recognize that easily as your G sharp minor,
but we're not playing against all six strings.
We're just playing the top, top four.
And then [Ebm] finally, this one.
Now I put my finger around like this, and that's okay,
but I'm only playing the top four strings,
so I'll emphasize it right here.
Okay?
So I'm playing 4, 3, 4, and 2.
And that I'm going to call a D sharp minor with an F sharp in the bass. _
And that's [Abm] it.
Basically, it just kind of repeats.
_ [Ebm] _ _ [Abm] _
_ _ [N] Now everything's happening on the 3 of this.
You heard me counting in the beginning,
and when I was counting out the whole thing,
it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, [Abm] 2, 3, _ _ [Ebm] _ [Abm] 2, 3, 2, [Ebm] 3.
_ That's just kind of how it is, all right?
So if you don't know those chords, you can find them in the tab,
[N] and we just went over them, or you can keep going back and forth.
That's about it for this one, folks.
Really easy, but really awesome sound.
I can tell you I have a ton of fun playing this.
I always had a ton of fun playing this sort of stuff in Motown bands,
and I still enjoy it.
All right.
[G] Well, there you go, gang.
Short and sweet.
Hopefully that was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun for me.
I love this kind of music.
It's a lot of fun to play, and I hope you enjoyed