Music Monday: The Top 20 Acoustic Guitar Intros of All Time

I’ll get right to the video, and add my thoughts below:

Besides all these great songs, the thing that impressed me the most was this guy’s ability to play all these songs off the top off his head. I don’t know much about playing the guitar (I tried to teach myself a few years ago, and failed miserably), but this seems like quite the feat.

So just who is Rick Beato? Here’s some info from his web site:

Rick Beato is a musician, teacher, and father of three. Rick has worked as a writer/producer with various bands in the rock and country genres. Two albums that he produced for NeedtoBreathe – “The Outsiders” (2009) and “The Reckoning” (2012) – won Dove Awards in the Best Rock/Contemporary category. He co-wrote “Carolina” with Parmalee in 2013, which climbed to number 1 on the Billboard’s Country Music Chart. He is certified to teach grades K-12 and holds a bachelor’s in music from Ithaca College and a master’s in jazz studies from the New England Conservatory of Music.

In other words, he’s got some credibility. Rik has close to 1 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, and this video has over 2 million views.

Now on to the songs themselves.

First, I’m not really sure what he is trying to get at when he talks about having a hook/signature and why Landslide would not be considered a melodic hook. Anyway…

Here are some general comments on the video and the musical selections:

• loved seeing a Harry Chapin song make it onto the list
• Rick’s right, I’m not familiar with Alice in Chains
• I’m not sure why he doesn’t play the Heart song; is it a difficult one to learn?
• loved the Fire and Rain intro
• can’t go wrong with a Beatles song, and the opening to Here Comes the Sun is so recognizable
• Roundabout brings back lots of good memories
• Wish You Were Here is a classic
• the opening to Over the Hills and Far Away is one of my favorites as well
• I recognized the music, but I never knew the name of that Beatles song was Norwegian Wood
• what’s with the Eagles and their copyright protection??
• and is there any list that doesn’t have this song as Number One?
• not sure why he switched guitars for one of the songs

I guess of the songs Rick has chosen, I probably would put Here Comes the Sun as my top choice, with Roundabout, and Over the Hills and Far Away rounding out the top three.

As to songs I might have included on the list that aren’t on Rick’s list (many of these were triggered by reading through many of the 11,000 comments that the video has generated):

• Landslide – still not sure why it can’t be on the list. I’d probably have it as number 1.
• Tears in Heaven
• Thick as a Brick
• Dust in the Wind
• Ventura Highway
• Blackbird
• Peace Train

I’m amazed how many of these songs seem to be from the 70s, which is the musical era I most closely associate with. Not sure if that was the heyday of great music in general, or just for acoustic guitars in particular.

Anyway, it was a fun video to watch, and as one person commented, “Anybody else out there that could have sat through Rick’s, “TOP 1,000 ACOUSTIC GUITAR INTROS OF ALL TIME” Ha! What a treat this was!!”

I’d have to agree.

A special thanks to blogger Ray V. at Mitigating Chaos who alerted me to this video.

*image from Sam Ash Music