You can learn how to play Over The Rainbow by Eva Cassidy!
Originally featured in the blockbuster movie The Wizard Of Oz and written by Harold Arlen, the gorgeous Over The Rainbow was voted #1 song of the last century by several prolific organizations.
I’ve recorded the Eva Cassidy live version, which didn’t become famous until after her death.
In Eva’s version, there is an intricate picking pattern and elaborate chord extensions which gently move the listener from one chord to the next. This creates a similar effect to that of the original orchestral arrangement.
This video above is an exact, note for note replica of Eva’s arrangement, mistakes included!
Chords
Too complex to reveal in its entirety here, as Eva changes the chords over the three choruses and two verses. Below is the intro, chorus 1 and verse 1.
This may be helpful once you actually learned the arrangement using complete TAB (this is available in the course).
Intro
| Gadd9 | Gadd9/D I Am11 | 6/4 D9sus4/A |
Chorus 1
| Gsus2 | Em | Bmb13 | G7 Amadd4 /B |
| Cadd9 | Cm6 | Gmaj9 | G9 Amadd4 G/B |
| C | Cm7 | Gadd9 G/F# | Em |
|Am13 | D7sus4 D/F# | Gadd9 | A7omit3 D/F# |
Verse 1
| Gadd9 | Gadd9 | Am11 | D/F# |
| Gmaj9 | Emadd9 | Am7 | D6 D9sus4 |
| Gadd9 | Gadd9 | F#7 | F#7 |
| Bm | Bm/Bb | Am7 | 7/4 D7/F# |
There are plenty of movements to discuss in these sections, and more in the other choruses and verses, which are different!
In the advanced acoustic guitar course, we spend many hours investigating, complete with TAB loops to practice along with.
In the end, you’ll be able to play the song, like Eva did by just reading the chords above, because you will fully understand the song.
Eva Cassidy’s guitar style
Eva Cassidy’s guitar style is heavily inspired by classical guitar techniques. A gentle and floating right-hand technique is seemingly preferable.
Using counterpoint movements, we never feel as if anything sudden happens in the arrangement. This approach relaxes the listener and moves the focus to the elaborate vocal melody.
Take the advanced course and you get eight in depth guitar lessons on how to play and arrange as Eva does when she plays Over The Rainbow, the best song in the world!
Over The Rainbow – Guitar Lessons
You can learn how to play Over The Rainbow by Eva Cassidy!
Step 1 (Vocal melody 3 ways & Chorus 1 guitar part) – Step 2 (Chorus 2 & 3) – Step 3 (Verse 1 & 2) – Step 4 (Solo) – Step 5 (Intro & Outro) – Step 6 (Complete song) – Step 7 (Lydian, 2 master exercises) – Step 8 (Lydian, 3 master exercises).
Over The Rainbow – Lyrics
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,
there’s a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue,
and the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.
Go to Over The Rainbow – Lyrics.
Doris Day – Biography
Having achieved success as a big band singer, film actress, recording artist, and radio and television performer, Doris Day became one of America’s best-loved entertainers of the 50s.
Hits include Dream A Little Dream Of Me, Que Sera, Sera, and Over The Rainbow.
Go to Doris Day – Biography.
Eva Cassidy – Biography
Eva Cassidy was an American guitar player and vocalist who didn’t reach fame until after she passed away on November 2nd ’96.
Four years later, an amateur recording of Eva playing Over The Rainbow in her local pub was played on Top of the Pops 2, a TV show in the U.K.
Go to Eva Cassidy – Biography.
Harold Arlen – Biography
Harold Arlen wrote over four hundred songs. His 1938 song Over The Rainbow was voted the twentieth century’s #1 song by the RIAA.
Nobody has had more songs represented in the Great American Songbook than Harold Arlen.
Go to Harold Arlen – Biography.
Judy Garland – Biography
Judy Garland shot to worldwide fame when she sang Over The Rainbow in the 1939 Blockbuster The Wizard of Oz at only sixteen years old.
Amazingly, she had made an astonishing twelve films prior to the release of The Wizard Of Oz.
Go to Judy Garland – Biography.
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