Chuck Berry is without doubt one of the most influential guitar players of all time. In this Johnny B. Goode guitar lesson I'm going to take you through the intro, verse and chorus for this legendary Chuck Berry song!
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Dan Holton
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These days we can often see his skills as quite limited, and very fixed in one niche, back in his era he was quite revolutionary. The combination of blistering rock and roll licks, combined with a love for performance and putting on a show, made him a true icon and guitar master of the 50s. So, let's get straight into one of the most iconic guitar intros of all time…
Johnny B. Goode Intro Guitar
This intro is fast paced and relies on a good knowledge of the major and minor crossover that we have spoken about before, and is covered in all of our blues courses. We'll talk about it again here, specifically in relation to Johnny B. Goode, but if you want to read over a post dedicated to the idea then check this out.
Or dive deeper here…
I would also recommend checking out these blues courses if you want to dive much deeper into the subject and start to experience the ideas in practical ways with example tracks and experiential learning.
So for the intro, and the whole song, we're in the key of Bb. This was quite a common key of the day as bands tend to feature horn sections, and they are generally tuned to Bb. It's kinda like saying that today's most common keys are E and A, because those are very natural keys for the guitar (and most bands have a guitar player).
We're therefore using a mixture between the Bb major pentatonic, and the Bb minor pentatonic, working around that Bb7 chord that is the root of this key. We call this kind of key a "Bb Blues", rather than major or minor, as it is unique to rock and roll and blues, and combines both elements. So, let's take a look at those scale shapes:
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As you work through the video, practicing along with the exact notes I offer for the intro, try to visualise these scale shapes, and see how we sometimes use one, and sometimes use the other. It's really interesting to see how they all come together in one larger scale pattern, and yet they are generally seen as separate.
Dan Holton
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Gradually, through the act of doing and experience, you will see common ways to combine these two scale shapes in the blues, and start to be able to use them practically for yourself!
The Verse and Chorus
We're now getting into the next part of the track, which is the main chord progression and loop of the song. If you've studied any blues or our blues courses, you'll understand what a 12 bar means! If you haven't, that's some pretty core knowledge and we go through it in the courses listed above. For this song, we're doing a 12-bar blues in Bb which looks like this:
So when we analyse that in terms of theory, we can see that we have a progression like: I - I - I - I - IV - IV - I - I - V - IV - I - I - Remember that the 'I' is the root chord, 'IV' is the 4th chord and 'V' is the 5th chord of the key. That's worth remembering for sure! Now you can play these chords as basic dominant 7th chords, but the "Rock & Roll" way to play them is using a powerchord and shuffling on and off of the 6th degree of the scale. Here's an example on a Bb chord:
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You simply take this idea and apply it to every single chord in the sequence, as I show you in the video. Once you get used to the stretch it's nice and easy, but getting used to the stretch can be tough. I have loads of tips for you in the video for that, just to help you move forward no matter how big or small your hands are!
Dan Holton
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Finally, in the chorus we repeat the same 12 bar loop, but now Chuck Berry is moving joyfully between the shuffle as talked about above, and some pretty simple rock and roll licks. The lick is shown in detail in the video, and here is an easy way to see when to bring that lick in:
Conclusion
Rock & Roll is a fantastic genre, and there is no better place to start than with this song! I'm also very excited to mention, as of this publish date in Jan 2025, that we have a full Chuck Berry player study coming out this year. Thomas will be guiding us all through 4 units of rock and roll joy, breaking down the theory and giving us plenty of practical tunes to apply the new skills to. Keep an eye on that Player Study list this year, and be sure to sign up to our mailing list by starting a free account here if you haven't already.