Learn how to play the classic tune Phantom Rider by Tora Tora in this free lesson from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman. Be sure to get the free tabs to go along with the step by step video instruction.
Introduction
How’s it going everybody? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you how to play Phantom Rider by Tora Tora and this is a pretty fun and easy chord progression that sounds really good and it’s one of those songs that kind of sounds harder than it actually is. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look.
Phantom Rider – Intro & Verse
So starting off we’ve got E minor add 9 (Emadd9) and basically if you just take the regular E minor chord that you already know and we’re going to add this f sharp here on the second fret of the high E string… You can do it like this which is the way I do it; I just do the E minor with my second and third finger and then I pick up that second fret of the high E string with my pinky. So we start off we just hit the open low E string and that’s a half note tied to an eighth note so it’s like one two three and four and one two three four or excuse me three and four and that’s the first two measures… Then we’re going to switch to a D major chord; so my first finger on the second fret of the G string, my second finger onto the second fret of the high E string and my third finger onto the third fret of the B string… All right, so we’re going to pick the D string and then the G string and then we’re going to come to the high E string and lift your middle finger off pick that and then hammer it back on followed with the B and G string so that’s the third measure… And then on the fourth major we pick D, G, B and now we’re going to take our pinky and we’re going to put it on to the third fret of the high E string and pick and pull off back to the second fret and this is like D suspended two (Dsus2) and D suspended four (Dsus4) and you just want to keep that middle finger there on the second fret of the high E string and that’s D, G and B, put your pinky down and pick pull B and G and that’s the first four measures… All right and then going on to the fifth measure we’ve got a B minor; if you’re new and you’ve struggled with barre chords this one you don’t actually have to barre because the high E string is supposed to be open. So I’ve got my first finger on the second fret of the A string and my third finger on the fourth fret of the D string, my fourth finger on the fourth fret of the G string and my middle finger onto this the third fret of the B string. Now we’re going to pick A, D, G and E… and that’s one two and three and four and, and then on the next measure the downbeat of one is tied to the and of four of the previous measure so we’re starting on the and of one with the A, D, G, E and then we’re going to play the open A string… Now when we play this open A string we’re actually going to be transitioning to a C chord and this is how I like to do it… and then I just lift my fingers off and hit the open A string which gives me time to get over here to grab C and we’re gonna go to the second fret of the A string, to the third fret and drop your fingers on for C; so it’s like little pickup notes or a little walking bass line kind of a thing… D, G, B, E, B, G and then on the fourth measure D back to the A string A, D, G and E and then use your third finger on the third fret of the low E sting on the downbeat of four with a little vibrato and then it would just basically start over again… So this riff is the intro and it’s also the verse…
Phantom Rider – Chorus
All right now we’ve got the chorus and for the chorus we’re going to start off with this D shape here and we’re going to do Dsus2; so our first fingers on the second fret of the G string and third finger is on the third fret of the B string and the high E string is open we’re going to pick D, G, B, D, E, B, G, B and we have two measures of that. Then we’ve got d suspended two over c so we’re going to take that middle finger that we’re not using and we’re going to bring it up to the third fret of the A string and now we’re going to do that same picking pattern, but we’re going to start with A, B, G, D, E… two measures of that… and then D suspended two over G (Dsus2/G). So now we just take that middle finger we move it from the third fret of the A to the third fret of the low E with the same picking pattern but now our bass note is on the low E and there are two measures of that. All right and then we’re going to go to the first fret of the low E string with just your first finger and we’re going to play that and then the D and the G strings open; so it’s like one and two and then on the and of two we’re going to go to the third fret of the low E; so the low E and then the D, G, D and then the next measure first finger to the first fret of the A string and we’re going to go A, D, G and then to the third fret of the A string, D string open and then you’re going to pick it again and do a hammer-on to the second fret and a pull-off… and then back to the Dsus2 and hammer-on to the second fret of the high E string with your middle finger and then we just go right back into another verse.
Conclusion
All right, so there you have it. Phantom Rider by Tora Tora and like I said not too terribly tough, a really good sounding chord progression and again it’s just one of those songs that sounds harder than it actually is. So if you like this lesson be sure to give me a thumbs up and leave a comment down below if you have any questions about this or other guitar related topics. If you have not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss out on any of the content that we upload throughout the week. That is all I have for today. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
