How to play acoustic guitar like Ryan Adams

A tab and audio lesson

Guitar Techniques (Stuart Ryan), Thu 27 Aug 2009, 4:17 pm BST

Although he may be best known for his stunning acoustic cover of the classic Oasis song, Wonderwall, Ryan Adams is one of America's best alternative songwriters with a sound that is constantly evolving and increasingly incorporating elements of country music.

As with many songwriters, Adams' guitar style is in service to his vocals and songwriting so you won't find any virtuoso histrionics here. However, there are many well chosen chord voicings and strong rhythm skills to work on.

This particular example affords you the opportunity to work on 16th note strumming rhythms and you will have to be particularly clean on the chord changes to get everything in time.

This kind of playing is quite simple but you'll need to be able to hold down the fundamentals to really nail it. Make sure you don't drop notes or lose the last chord in the bar before the change. Although this has a slowish bpm, you have to maintain a fairly brisk strumming pattern throughout, ensuring that you make the chord changes at the right time. It's a good idea to play this with a metronome as, although you may think you have rock solid timing, the metronome may prove otherwise!

There are a number of interesting chords here as well, so have a good listen to those you like and get them in your arsenal. Remember if you are playing/singing in a different key, the addition of a capo will enable you to transpose all of these open chords easily.