In today’s installment of our RGT Rock Guitar video lesson series, we will be checking out an excerpt from the RGT Rock Preliminary Grade Exam Track – ‘Let Me Tell You This.’
To take the Preliminary Grade Rock Guitar Exam, you will need to play three pieces from the six provided in the RGT exam handbook, one of these pieces could be ‘Let Me Tell You This,’ which you can hear and view in the video below.
This excerpt from ‘Let Me Tell You This,’ demonstrates the melodic nature of the major scale in a rock song setting, as the entire guitar lead line is taken entirely from the one-octave open position G major scale.
For contrast, the piece starts with some strummed open position chords – G, D and Am – followed by a short lead lick.
Listen to the audio examples provided below to hear how the piece should sound, and take particular care to get the timing of the guitar lead line right.
You can also click here to purchase the RGT Preliminary Grade Rock Exam book, which contains the full music to ‘Let Me Tell You This,’ as well as all of the other musical requirements for this exam.
To view more articles in this series, please visit the “RGT Rock Guitar Video Lessons Archive.”
Let Me Tell You This Practice Tips
To help get you your feet wet when learning this song, here is a quick tip on how to navigate ‘Let Me Tell You This.’
“The single-line lead guitar part of this piece is taken directly from the open position G major scale, and so all the notes can be found on the first three frets of the top three strings. Try to hold each note for its full length, as demonstrated in the audio below. The entire piece can be viewed in the RGT Preliminary Grade handbook (available from www.BooksForGuitar.com)”
RGT Let Me Tell You This Lesson – Audio
As well as viewing the video lesson below, here are two audio tracks that you can jam along to as you work with ‘Let Me Tell You This’ further in the practice room.
It would be a secure practice goal to start playing with the audio track for ‘Let Me Tell You This’ first, so that you learn to play along in time with the recorded guitar track.
Once you can play along to the recorded guitar track, the next practice goal would be to play along with the backing track for ‘Let Me Tell You This’ only, so that you can play the entire song without the help of the guide guitar track.
Here are both of those audio tracks for ‘Let Me Tell You This’ to check out.
Click to download the full backing track for ‘Let Me Tell You This’
Click to download the backing track for ‘Let Me Tell You This’
RGT Let Me Tell You This Lesson – Video
Video presented by Chris Bird, Music Editor of Total Guitar Magazine
RGT Rock Guitar Initial Books
To find out more about the ‘Let Me Tell You This,’ and the RGT Rock Preliminary Exam, please download the RGT Rock Guitar Exam Information Booklet.
You can also check out the Rock Guitar Preliminary Exam Book, which comes with a CD and contains notation and recordings of all the exam pieces, as well as diagrams for all of the chords and scales that the pieces are based on.
Not a Registered RGT Teacher yet? Visit the Join the RGT Page to find out the great benefits that membership has to offer.