Below is the lesson for “Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who.

Helpful Tips

An elegant fingerstyle adaption on one of the most beautiful songs to come out of the classic rock era. From a fingerpicking perspective, this is a pretty straightforward song to play. At the beginning of the lesson, Matt will offer a few approaches that you can use.

The most difficult part of this arrangement is the heavy use of syncopation. Syncopation means that we are accenting the weak beats (the &’s). This can be tricky because accenting weak beats doesn’t come as natural as accenting strong beats (1, 2, 3, 4). Therefore, I’d recommend tackling the syncopated bars ‘by ear’, but also ‘by counting’ the rhythms.

Playing by ear simply means to memorize the beats. In other words: if you can sing it, you can play it. Whereas counting rhythms requires an understanding of rhythmic notation.

If you really want to gain a thorough understanding of rhythmic notation, there is no better way than by learning to read standard notation.

Part 1 – Performance & Free Lesson

Tab Play Along