Saturday Songwriting: Van Morrison

Into the Mystic is a classic Van Morrison Song, (and number 474 on Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time).

It’s simple enough for a guitar player who’s starting to learn chords, but as is often the case, there’s a lot that goes into that simplicity.

There’s the strumming that opens the song, and feels like a boat rolling over the waves the sea. There’s the single string mute midway through the pattern that sounds something like a rope or pulley thwacking against a mast.

The thing that sticks out for me however, are those little melodic guitar fills in the chorus of the song. Those are something a songwriter could steal and use in their own song. This week we’re going to focus on those melodic fills.

They could be complicated to explain. Someone could spend a lot of time talking about what key they’re in, and what interval they are. Not me though. I skipped all that and did the hard work of getting rid of the complicated bits.

This weeks sheet is all about those melodic fills. There’s a video too, so you can see and hear more clearly what the sheet is talking about. Once you learn how to play those licks on this song, you can go and use them anywhere you want.

Enjoy!