Skip to content

Brown Eyed Girl- Van Morrison

    Song Facts

    • Tempo: It’s about 140 beats per minute. That’s very brisk
    • Time Signature: Standard 4/4 time- each measure gets 4 beats
    • Key Signature: It’s in G
    • Chords: There are only 4 different chords in this song: G, C, D, and Em

    Brown-Eyed-Girl

    Intro

    There’s a quick 4 measure lead guitar part that begins the song. As it turns out, it’s the hardest part of the song to play, so if you get through these first measures, you should be good to go.

    brown eyed girl intro

    A little slower…

    Playing It…

    Measure 1 introduces the main lead theme. Use your 1st finger on the 7th fret on the high E and your 2nd finger to fret the 8th fret on the B string. For the next series of notes use your 1st and 3rd fingers to fret until the end of the measure where we’ll end the measure with the same two notes we started the measure with. Again, we’ll switch back to using our 1st and 2nd fingers. One thing to keep in mind is the rests that appear between the 2nd and 3rd note pairings and the 3rd and 4th note pairings.

    In measure 2, we’ll take the whole pattern that was found in measure 1 and just move everything up 5 frets.

    Measure 3 is the same as measure 1.

    Measure 4 begins with a hybrid pick. Use your pick to get the note on the 7th fret of the G and use your middle finger on your picking hand to simultaneously pluck the note on the 5th fret of the high E. Using the hybrid picking technique allows us to skip the unwanted B string. Close out the measure by using your 3rd finger on the 7th fret of the B, your 4th finger for the 8th fret note, and finally your 1st finger for the very last note.

    Overall it’s a little bit tough to play cleanly up to speed, so put in some practice time until you get it down. It sets the whole tone for the rest of the song; playful and nostalgic.