Grateful Dead Guitar Lesson: 7-4-89 Deal Solo - Lesson 12

Part 12 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 12 of 12

Lick 12

This is the final lick of the solo, and the “tag” that Jerry uses to transition back into the verse of the song.

Lick 12 is very similar to the opening lick of Deal – both are classic country licks that are based in the G shape of the A chord, as well as the G shape of A Mixolydian.

Putting It All Together

The quickest way to learn to play this solo note for note is to go back to the original video I posted – this is the one where I play the solo along with Jerry, with the guitar TAB at the bottom of the screen.

Use the speed feature that's built right into the desktop browser version of Youtube, and play along to the solo at 50% speed. Once you can nail that without any mistakes, play along to it at 75% speed and keep going until you can play the whole solo without any flubs.

Once you can nail the solo at 50% and 75% speeds, try it at normal speed.

Be patient and take your time with this step! : )

Feel free to email me if you have any questions, I'm here to help.