Learn to play the classic Journey song Wheel In The Sky from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman. Be sure click the link for the free tabs to go along with this killer How To Play Wheel In The Sky By Journey guitar lesson.
Introduction
Hey everybody how’s it going? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to teach you how to play Wheel In The Sky by Journey. So this is a pretty cool song and it has a lot of cool riffs and in it. The intro on it just sounds really good and it’s one of those things that sounds a lot harder than it actually is; it does involve a little bit of finger picking so if that’s new to you we will try to go through that the best we can to help you along with that. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at How To Play Wheel In The Sky By Journey.
Wheel In The Sky Intro
All right so starting off Wheel In The Sky By Journey for this intro, like I said it’s got some finger style that you could play it with a pick, but you would have to hybrid pick to be able to play the strings that you’re playing simultaneously and I’m a lot better of a finger picker than i am a hybrid picker so this is just the way that i do it. So we start off we’ve got a D minor, but unfortunately it’s not the open one, it is a barre chord. So I’ve got my first finger barred across the first five strings of the fifth fret, my second finger is on the sixth fret of the B string, my third finger is on the seventh fret of the D string and my fourth finger is on the seventh fret of the G string. Now this pretty much is completely contained to strings two through five so if you put your thumb on the A string, your first finger on the D string, your second finger on the G string and your third finger on the B string. So we’re gonna start off picking the A and B strings simultaneous and then the G string and then the D string… Then we have E minor; so we just take this shape and we move it up a whole step and now we’re going to pick the B and A strings again and then quickly move to an F major. So for the f major we just move this shape up a half step so now we’re barring at the eighth fret and then how I do is I just lay my third finger across the tenth fret of the D, G and B strings and you pick the A and B strings together to the G to the B, back to the G and that’s the first measure… Now we’re going to take that F major barre chord shape and we’re going to move it all the way down so we’re barring at the third fret with our first finger and the fifth fret with our third finger and that’s C major. So now we’ve got B and A together to G and then D and back to the B and then we’re gonna do C suspended four (Csus4); so you just keep this chord shape and just use your pinky to pick up the sixth fret of the B string and we’re gonna pick that and then do a pull off back to the fifth fret followed by the G string and then we’re going to do C suspended two (Csus2). So now i just roll my third finger up so that way the B string I’m picking it up on the third fret where I’m barring and we’re going to do that and then hammer-on back to the fifth fret and then follow that with the G string; so that’s the first two measures… Okay then going on to the third measure we start off the same way again with that Dm, Em, and F and now it says on there to a C, but it’s a different C. so now we’re going to do is we’re just going to move our finger our first finger up so we’re going to barre all six strings, but now we’ve got the major chord with the root note on the sixth string; so barring across eight with my first finger, my second finger is going on to the ninth fret of the G string, my third finger is going on to the 10th fret of the A string and my fourth finger is going onto the 10th fret of the D string and we’re going to pick both E strings simultaneously to B, to G, back to the E string… Then take your pinky and move it up to the 10th fret of the E string and play the D and E strings together and then pull-off back to the B string then you put your pinky down on the 10th fret of the G string and pull that off and then or it ends on the D string okay so that whole measure again this is this is one of the hardest parts of the whole song and you just kind of slide out of it but never really do that because it’s like really hard to get it quick enough I just hit that note and then because it just immediately moves on back down to the C here again… Now we’re going to hit the C it’s like a power chord and slide it down to the first fret and then this is where it actually picks up and switch over to the overdrive channel. So I’m not going to be able to make this change in real time unfortunately, but basically like I said I’m playing with my fingers so I was doing this I would probably just be holding the pick just in my mouth so that way I can do this and then when I do that last part… I come down to there and that where I slide down is on the very last sixteenth note of the four and then that’s where you would switch over to the overdrive and now we’re just gonna do a full on B flat. So if we take the shape like we did for the C, but we just move it down a whole step and it’s a whole note tied to a dotted half note; so it’s like one, two, three, four, one, two, three, and then we’ve got these pickup notes where it goes into the main riff of the song. So we’ve got open A string to the third fret and then to the third fret of the D string and then the D string open. So now we’ve got a D5; so if you just take the regular old D chord you already know, but you just don’t play the first string, so I just kind of let my second finger just kind of rest there so that way it’s muted… Now this part here the timing on this is really kind of weird and it’s really hard to get it precisely. There’s parts where he’s only hitting two strings and he hits three strings; so just as long as you’re not hitting all these lower strings, just kind of playing at the top of the chord and you’ll be fine… And then take your first finger off the second fret of the G string and you’re going to strum the G and B strings together and then hammer it back on and pick it again and then back to the B string again… and then that just kind of repeats… that’s like the whole intro to Wheel In The Sky and then that’s where it leads into the verse for How To Play Wheel In The Sky By Journey
Verse
All right, so the verse for Wheel In The Sky by Journey just continues off with that same thing we were doing… and after it does that a total of three times I believe and then we just stay on that G and then we gotta C barre chord and that’s a whole note and then you move it down a half step for B flat and it’s a half note tied to an eighth note… and then the G string open… this part is like kind of weird. So you have the open G string and then you put your third finger down as if you were playing a D chord or on the third fret of the B string and you’re going to hit the open G and the B string together twice and then take your second finger off and play both the strings open… Then it just kind of goes back into that same riff… and so that’s the whole verse and then that whole entire sequence repeats… So then that leads us into the chorus section of Wheel In The Sky by Journey.
Chorus
All right so for the chorus section of How To Play Wheel In The Sky By Journey it’s like the intro, it’s those chords, but we’re just going to be strumming them now. So we start off with the Dm; one, two and then on the & of two we go to the Em and then on the downbeat of three we go to the F and then on four we go to the end and slide out of it. So one, two, four and then we’re down here to the C and it’s; one, two, three, four, one, two, three… so it’s three quarter notes and a sixteenth note and then a dotted eighth note; so just kind of you kind of have to feel it… Then back to the Dm, Em, and F and then back to the C again; so this time we’ve got one, two, three, and… back to the Dm, Em, F, C… and then back down to the B flat and then that just leads back into another verse. All right so those are all the parts. It’s really easy after you get the parts down and be able to recognize which ones are which from the song and put it all together. It’s cool song and I think Neil Schon’s a great guitar player and he comes up with some really cool melodies, I’m a big fan of his of his playing.
Conclusion
All right so there you have it, there’s a Wheel In The sky by Journey and all of the parts so now you can put it together and play through the whole song. So if you like this video 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 subjects. If you have not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss any of the content that we upload throughout the week. Anyway that is all I have for you today. Thanks for watching How To Play Wheel In The Sky By Journey and have a great day.
