As you expect from the Foos, Learn to Fly is a straightforward rocker. So a lot of strumming and nothing too intricate.
The trickiest part comes in some of the quick switches from G to Dm. One of these shows up for the first time in bar 5. Here there’s an open-G used as part of the melody to give you a little extra time to change chords. The second comes in the chorus (at the end of bar 13). Here you strum all the strings open and hammer-on an entire Dm chord.
Intro: The classic Here Comes Your Man riff. Played with a few extra supporting notes to beef it up.
Verse: Nothing too challenging here. Just open chords until the build up into the pre-chorus.
Pre-Chorus: Bars 24-25 are the trickiest part of the song. There’s a big leap up to a bend at the tenth fret for the, “so long, so long,” backing vocals. That makes for an easier transition into bar 25. But you might prefer the way I originally arranged it:
Chorus: Back to the riff mixed in with the melody. There’s plenty of jumping up and down here but I find this section fun to play.
First Solo: A nice little melody for the transition back to the verse.
Second Solo: Much less melodic. The original is mostly bashing out chords with a few bends. For this take, I’ve shortened it down but there’s still a lot of bashing.
This arrangement is very simple and the tempo is slow, so this is a very approachable tab to take on.
Intro: I hadn’t realised until starting on this arrangement that the No Diggity riff isn’t a straight sample of the original. In his version, Bill Withers has an Esus4 chord missing from that version. I went with the No Diggity version for this arrangement (and so did Gregory Porter’s guitarist).
If you want a more authentic version, you could play it like this:
Verse: A couple fingerings to help with the chord changes here. At the end of bar 5, play the A-string, 2nd fret with your index finger barred over all the strings. That’ll set you up for the B7 chord in the next bar.
In bars 10 and 11 (and in the repeats), play the A-string, 2nd fret with your middle finger so you have your index and ring fingers ready for the A7 chord.
Outro: A little minor pentatonic lick to finish things off.
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Intro: Matching the Willie version by following the bass notes using the thumb on the g- and C-strings. Followed by strums.
Verse and Bridge: Continuing the thumb-plucking and strums, and adding the melody line. Most of the melody line is picked with the fingers, but some notes are part of the strummed chords.
There’s a simple lick in bar 11 and a couple of lines inspired by the walking bass in bars 12 and 20.
Solo: With Willie playing a nylon string guitar, his solo suits the ukulele fairly well.
The one problem is the bends. It is much easier to do bends on a uke in the middle of the fretboard. So I’m bending the E-string at the 7th fret rather than the A-string at the second fret. That does require some shifts up and down the fretboard.
Although the song is in swing time, the descending line at the end of the solo (bars 43-44) is played straight.
It’s a very propulsive song even in the very sparse sections. So in the verses, where it’s just the melody line, I’m using strum blocking to keep the energy up. The verse melody is busy. But it’s fine to miss a couple of notes so long as you keep the song moving along.
Verse: Like a lot of Joni’s songs, there are a lot of words crammed in. So you’ll need some quick alternate picking to fit them in. I have cropped out a few notes here and there to make it more playable.
Chorus: A rare case of a song getting softer at the start of a chorus. Tone it down for the first half of the chorus, then start blasting for the second.
In the second chorus at the end of the song, there’s a brief pause added on “gone” to look out for.
Outro: I love the goofy ending. She knocks it up an octave for “they paved paradise,” then drops below the original melody for the rest (sadly, not room for that on the uke).
