How to play Lodi, Creedence Clearwater Revival
Oh, Lord! I’m stuck learning how to play Lodi by Creedence Clearwater again! Yes, that’s true! Last summer I joined a band and had to revisit my Lodi licks, and I ended up coming away with MORE LICKS! If you’re a Creedence fan, you’re going to be stoked. Today we’re covering every single note of CCR’s Lodi! So grab you’re Les Pauls (or whatever you’ve got) and let’s get playing!
Below, you’ll find the tablature for this CCR classic. Not sure how to read tablature and feeling intimidated? No need for that! I’ve got a YouTube lesson to accompany this post, so you can see how the song is played on an actual guitar. Want to download the tabs?! No problem. You can access them by becoming a supporter of The Smelly Tele on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/smellytele. Or if you prefer one-time purchases (rather than a subscription), you can also purchase the tabs at Sheet Music Plus: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/lodi-digital-sheet-music/22272050
Gear Corner
When learning how to play Lodi, you’ll need to decide if you love the early John Fogerty with all his growly Gibson prowess! Or a mature John Fogerty, who livens up his old tunes with some Spanky Telecaster!! If you didn’t know already, I love the Telecaster. But alas, I must make a decision. I am going to stick to the record from Creedence Clearwater Revival since it is the original tone and some could argue that this is the “correct way to play it.” I can make an argument for the Telecaster, but then this wouldn’t be a guitar lesson.
The exact guitar you’re looking for here is a 1960 black Les Paul. If you don’t have a black Les Paul, then you’re probably doomed by the guitar tone gods, so just throw away your burst finish LP’s. And make sure you tell me what day you’re throwing it out, so I can go fish it out of your garbage can. In all seriousness though, any Les Paul here will do. And for that matter, and Gibson guitar with humbucking pickups will get you close to John’s sound on the record.
I like to pair this with a Fender Twin Reverb, and I think that’s the combination that Fogerty used when recording the song. There is not a lot of distortion on here, so there’s no need for overdrive pedals or any fuzz. If you want that little bit of crunch that you here occasionally, I suppose you can turn the Twin up to 5, but that Twin will make you need hearing aids later in life. If you’re a “turn that Twin up” kind of person, Godspeed.
The Chords
Nashville Numbers
Playing Lodi by the book is going to require some bar chords. And it’s all bar chords folks! There are ways to get around this like putting a capo on the first fret and playing the song using an A shape. But rather than ramble on about every theoretically possible way to play the song, we’re going to talk about music theory right now.
Lodi’s intro and first part of the verses follow a simple I-IV (1-4) chord progression. The second progression in the verses follows a I-VIm-IV-V (1-6m-4-5) progression. The song is in the key of Bb. Ready? GO!
“OK, not so fast. What do all them numbers mean?” To figure out the chord numbers, we need to assign a number to each note of the major scale in ascending order. The first note of the Bb major scale is, you guessed it, Bb. The second note is C, 3rd is D, 4th is Eb, 5th is F, 6th is G, and the 7th is A. In the previous paragraph, we said we needed the 1, 4, 5, and minor 6 chords to play Lodi. So, we grab the notes that correspond with these numbers, and we get a Bb, Eb, F, and Gm chord.
But Wait! There’s more!
Yeah, so CCR didn’t make the song THAT easy. They had to throw a key change in there. In many songs, before the new key begins you’ll hear a band play the 5 chord from the new key *(not an F chord from the Bb key in our case, but the 5 from the new key we are going to). The new key we are heading to is C, and to transition from Bb to C, we need to find a way to get to the 5 chord from the C major scale. The 5 chord in the key of C is a G chord. But how do we get to a G chord? If you jump right to it from a Bb, it sounds terrible!
First we gotta change what our ears hear so we can make this G chord sound good. The keys of Bb and C share an F chord. The F chord is the 5th to Bb, and the 4th to C. So regardless of which key we are in, this chord will fits. So we’ll play the shared chord, F, and then go to a C Chord. The C chord is the 2nd to the Bb key (though you will usually see this as minor 2nd) and it’s the root note to the key of C. So it will also sound like it fits now that we’ve changed the palette by playing F previously. Finally, we pull out G chord, which would be a minor 6th to the Bb key, AND THE 5TH to the C key! Phew! we made it.
Key of C Nashville Numbers for Lodi
I love some good theory, but even I want to get to the lead guitar licks now. Let’s make this fast. From what we learned before:
We’re in the key of C. We want to play the same chord progression, but this time in C. So we use the same Nashville Numbers, 1-4-5-6m. Check out the chart below. From here, you can see that in the key of C, the 1- chord is C, the 4 is F, the 5 is G, and the 6 is A. Since we want the minor 6, we’ll use Am. There. Now you have chords. Happy? Me neither. I want guitar licks, dag-nabbit!
Lead Guitar!
I know this is what most of us have been waiting for. Learning to play Lodi is going to impress your friends, and the lick is actually pretty easy. A combination of double stops out of the major bar chord shapes, and you’re well on your way to getting stuck again.
Intro
Starting with the intro (because where else would we start), we’re using the Bb bar shape to get the first double stop. Note, that there are (3) double stops. The first is the 8th fret of your D string and 7th fret of your G string. The next double stop is the 10th of the D and 8th of the G, and finally we have the 12th of D, and the 10th of the G. These three positions will make great sounds for your out of ANY bar chord! Try it out at your next jam session!
1st Chorus
You can take a break in the first verse, or if you’re playing live, feel free to noodle around a bit here. But, tasteful noodling only! I don’t want any blistering licks, tapping, or whammy dives! Less is more.
When the chorus comes around, you’ve got a simple bluesy lick. It’s very easy to pick up and is another lick that you can steal from Lodi. It can be thrown into almost any other southern rock or folk rock tune.
2nd Chorus & Guitar Solo!
The second chorus lick is just like the first (and if you noodled during the 2nd verse, heed my previous warning). Then you have the guitar solo. The guitar solo is almost exactly the same as the intro, but our turnaround licks are going to change this time. Check out the tabs below!
3rd Chorus & Key Change!
The 3rd chorus lick does not change here, and when we hit the key change, the fun begins. This one is a bit of a mind-bender because as we discussed earlier, the transition from one key to the other takes a few chords and a bit of time. So what do we do as guitarists? Noodle, you say? No, not this time. Instead, we’ve got a few more double-stop licks that will sound similar to the intro licks! This lick really ties the key change together and helps guide the band through these chords into the new key!
Final Chorus & Outro!
We made it folks! It’s time to bring it on home to my house! We’ve got another chorus lick here, and (if you can ignore the fact that we’re playing in a different fret position) our fingering for these licks stays exactly the same. Just ignore the fret board, and let muscle memory take over!
The Outro lick is going to be very similar as well. We can rely on some muscle memory, but we do need to learn a new turn around. Check out the tabs below. When you’ve got it all mastered, print out the tab, have your parents sign and date it and stick it on the fridge.
That’s It!
Now you know how to play Lodi by Creedence Clearwater! If you’re looking for more CCR songs, check out our lesson for Fortunate Son (smellytele.com).
Remember, if you would like to support this webpage, please become a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/smellytele! A perk of being a patron? You’ll be able to download the practice track, backing tracks, and tabs so you can follow along with the video lessons & our lesson posts!
Also, go and check out some of our other electric guitar lessons! We have country guitar lessons for Billy Joe Shaver like Georgia On A Fast Train (smellytele.com) and for You Just Can’t Beat Jesus Christ (smellytele.com).
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