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Acoustic Guitar Educational

Lindsey Buckingham’s Never Going Back Again Tutorial

Never Going Back Again played by guy on a bench
Man on bench playing “Never Going Back Again”
look inside Never Going Back Again By Fleetwood Mac. Pop, Rock. Guitar TAB. 4 pages. Published by Hal Leonard – Digital Sheet Music (HX.262326).
look inside First 50 Songs You Should Fingerpick on Guitar By Various. Guitar Collection. Fingerstyle, Pop, Rock. Softcover. With guitar tablature. 128 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.149269).
look inside Fleetwood Mac Guitar Play-Along Vol. 157. By Fleetwood Mac. Guitar Play-Along. Pop, Rock. Softcover Audio Online. With guitar tablature. 64 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.101382).

Several times while teaching guitar I had requests to teach Never Going Back Again by Lindsey Buckingham. The first time when I was asked I had never played it before, and at first listen I thought that it sounded simple.

Because I thought that it was simple, I decided to go through this song again and make a video tutorial. It was actually a little more involved than I had thought but it was a fun challenge. So what are the challenges?

What are the challenges?

If you haven’t yet developed good bar chord technique your first challenge may be to hold down the bar chords. However, if you are comfortable with bar chords, then you may have more difficulty with the next challenge.

The second challenge may be the fingerstyle patterns. I consider myself quite capable of playing fingerstyle. However, Lindsey’s accompaniment DID take me a little more time than I had expected to learn. But it’s fun to play once you have learned it, and it’s a nice challenge.

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Lindsey Buckingham teaches how to play his song in a YouTube video that you can find. However his explanations are not as detailed as you may want to hear. Watch my videos to help you to play this piece.

Tutorial Part 1

Tutorial Part 1

Tips

Use a Music Practice Log to save you time and create a practice routine

Keep all your hand written TAB or Notation in one place with a page numbered book of blank TAB or Staff paper

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are ‘affiliate links’. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.


The first video has details of the right hand finger picking patterns that you’ll need to learn in order to play this. Lindsey calls the first pattern a “backwards Travis Picking” style. You use a thumb and 2 fingers to play that.

Use a thumb and 3-fingers to play the second pattern. While cycling through the a, m, i, a, m, i finger pattern, alternate the thumb between two strings. This is probably the more difficult of the two if you are not used to using 3 fingers and a thumb.

Tutorial Part 2

Tutorial Part 2

Learn the second part of Lindsey’s song accompaniment using the same finger-style patterns as in Part 1.

Get the TAB and Standard Notation for this song accompaniment.

Tutorial Part 3

Tutorial Part 3

Develop your “bouncing thumb” accompaniment first while working on the solo part of this song. You’ll need to keep that going while you play the melody along the 2nd string.

Try Another Great Fingerstyle Guitar Piece

Jim Croce dies in a plane crash, but he left behind a legacy of great songs. Watch a video lesson on Time in a Bottle that Jim wrote for his son A.J. Croce who is a performer in his own right.

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