How to play Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac
Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win) by Fleetwood Mac is their classic ‘70s hit from the album before Rumours, the one that turned the Mac into a global household name. Released in 1975 on their self-titled album, Rhiannon became a moderate international hit in 1976 but has since become a big streaming hit in the 2020s. With it’s distinctive double-stops riff, memorable melody and floating harmonies Rhiannon makes an appealing number for both acoustic and electric players.
Chords: Am F Fmaj7 C
Pick or Fingers? Both can work; it’s an adaptable guitar piece. Fingerstyle works okay on acoustics but try either pick only, or hybrid-picking on electric; pick plus two fingers for the thirds on the 3rd/2nd strings; pick strumming for the rhythm sections.
Acoustic or Electric? Whatever you have at hand. As just said, Rhiannon is an adaptable number. The original is electric guitar with a fairly clean tone and a typical 70s reverb but in a small live performance setting it works well on acoustic.
Lead guitar : The lead solo fills are in A pentatonic minor / A Natural minor (aeolian mode).
How does the strumming timing work? The rhythm is mostly straight crotchets and quavers. The rhythm pattern in the verse is counted as “1 2 and 3 4 and | 1 2 and 3 and 4 and”. The two-bar pattern in the chorus has a tied strum in the second bar. Where you see a slur line connecting two strums there is a downstrum missing; it’s important the following strum is an upstroke.
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : To learn more about the chords and rhythms used in Rhiannon go to pages 12-13, 19, 10 and 20-21.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 is the perfect companion for our song guides. It will teach you how to read the rhythm slash notation used in our charts (and in professional theatre and studio charts) and is specially designed to help beginners speed up their chord changes, master strumming patterns, and many other techniques.
