Love in Vain - Robert Johnson - Tutorial + Free Tab

 

I want to have a look at the classic blues song Love in Vain by Robert Johnson. The song was written by Robert Johnson and was originally called Love in Vain Blues. It now is usually just called 'Love in Vain'. The song has been covered many times by numerous different artists. The most famous versions of these are probably by The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. Robert Johnson did slightly different versions too. This is close to his original recording of 'Love in Vain'. 

The guitar part is fairly easy to play and uses extensive palm muting on the lower strings to subdue the bass notes. The music is in 4/4 time, is played on a guitar in Standard Tuning, and is a fingerstyle piece.

Below are some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.

Love in Vain Downloadable Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT

 

• Palm Muting - The guitar part makes extensive use of plam muting during the song. This is common in Johnson's music and by subduing the bass notes of the guitar it puts more emphasis on the vocals. To employ this palm muting you have to rest the palm of your hand gently on the lowest 3 strings of the guitar to mute them but still let the highest 3 strings ring out. this can be quite a tricky technique if you are not used to it. If youa re struggling with it, just omit the palm muting and let the bass notes ring out.
  

• Small Slides - Throughout the music there are little slides from fret 2 -3 on the 2nd string. These are when an underlying G7 chord is being played. These slides are quite tricky as they really have to be played using the pinky on the fretting hand so your fingers are in the correct place to form the G7 chord afterwards. It can be easy to get the timing of these slides wrong and lose time in the piece. It can also be easy to fluff the notes by not using enough pressure on the string with the pinky. You also have to form the G7 chord very quickly afterwards. Although these small slides add some nice variation to the music, they aren't necessary. So if you are struggling with them, just omit them.
  

• Timing the Ending - Timing the ending can be a little tricky. The 2nd last bar of music has a short break in it for 1 1/2 beats (or 3/8ths if your prefer). Try to get the timing right on this as it will make the music sound better and properly in time. As with all music, you should play with a metronome initially to get over any timing issues. However, if you are still struggling to get the timing, a nice trick you can employ is called Rallentando, which is musical direction for slowing down. Slowing the tempo gradually at the end of the music not only can give a nice change of pace for the finish of the song, but it can also be a handy way of partially disguising timing errors when playing.
  

This is about all I need to say about this piece. It is quite a simple piece to play if you are comfortable with fingerstyle guitar and employing palm muting. However, as I have said above it there are some aspects of the music youa are struggling with, it can be played in a more basic form and still sound good.

Thanks for Reading,
Neil