This month’s Guitar Accelerator Song of the Month is a popular fiddle tune called “Devil’s Dream”.
This piece sounds great on guitar and is fun to play too. I’ve specifically arranged it to improve your pinkie strength.
This piece also uses string skipping, alternate picking, hammer-ons and pull-offs.
Like many of the other songs we have looked at in the Guitar Accelerator Songs of the Month, this one is a short 16 measure piece that consists of two sections that each repeat. This is known as binary form.
The entire piece is performed in second position. This means your first finger will play any notes found on the second fret. Your second finger will play notes found on the third fret. Your third finger will play notes on the fourth fret. And finally, your fourth finger will play notes found on the fifth fret. If you are not too sure about how fret-hand fingerings work, check out this tutorial: Four Finger Fingerings for Guitarists: How they Really Work.
When you look at the tab for Devil’s Dream, you will see that your third and fourth fingers are used a lot in this song. I’ve arranged this song so it will emphasize your third and fourth fingers.
Why?
Most guitar players tend to neglect their pinkie. This means they tend to play most music using only fingers one, two and three. This significantly limits guitar skills. When you have strong third and fourth fingers, you will be able to play things that otherwise would be very difficult to play. On top of that, having good strength and dexterity in your third and fourth fingers means you will be able stretch much further—this will open up many, many more melodic possibilities.
Below you will find the link for the fully-printable PDF guitar tab sheet music for Devil’s Dream.
Recommended Resource
Did you know that the more scales you know, the faster you will learn songs? When you know how to play the scale fingerings that are used in a song, you just need to learn the order that the notes are used. Check out The World of Scales: A Compendium of Scale for the Modern Guitar Player, for a complete step-by-step guitar scale course that makes it easy to understand and use guitar scales. Learn more now…
