Grateful Dead Guitar Lesson: 7-4-89 Deal Solo - Lesson 11

Part 11 of a 12 part course on how to play Jerry Garcia's awesome solo from the 7-4-89 Deal with the Grateful Dead. For the free & printable tab of this whole solo, keep scrolling down.

In this lesson, you will learn the guitar techniques that Jerry Garcia uses when improvising. You'll also learn the music theory behind why his licks sound so good.

Jerry Garcia's 7-4-89 Deal Solo with the Grateful Dead – Lick 11 of 12

Lick 11

In this lick, Jerry is giving a signal to the band, subtly telling them that he’s about to wrap up his solo. Playing chord based licks like this is an age old, traditional way to wrap up a solo. This is something i’ve heard musicians do in folk music, bluegrass, jazz, country, you name it. It’s almost a universal signal in many ways. But the key to this approach is that Jerry isn’t playing full chords, he’s playing partial shapes here and there.

We start with a C shape of A. Then the C shape of G. Followed by the G shape of D. Jerry repeats those shapes for the second half of the lick and then ends on an E shape of A, or A7