SURFIN’ USA by The Beach Boys (Acoustic Guitar Lesson – Riffs & Chords) – Song Lessons

Aug 7, 2024 | Learning Guitar, Online Guitar Lessons, Song Lessons | 0 comments

Today we learn how to play Surfin’ USA by The Beach Boys in this acoustic guitar tutorial. This song from 1963 is one of my favourite Beach Boys songs. It’s a great fun, uptempo song sprinkled with rock n roll.

There are only actually 3 chords in the song but it has so much more than that going on. The original recording is in Eb but today the lesson is transposed into D to give us more possibilities in how we can play this. It also makes the song much more accessible to a wider range of abilities. We can then put a capo on fret 1 and slide everything we’ve learned up a fret and that will put us back into Eb just like the Beach Boys.

I’ll start off with the iconic intro riff which has ROCK N ROLL SURF GUITAR all over it. The Verse section consists of Rock n Roll riffs in A D & E. I have shown open string and fretted variations. The chorus has a great upbeat, bouncy rhythm using the same chord sequence but now using either open chords or barre chords. The outro fuses a few bits together…

THE SONG:

The Intro –

Follow the tab below for the ICONIC intro

The Verse-

The Rock n Roll Riff plays through positions in D, G & A. I have included a version using the open strings (1) as well as a fretted version (2)

1)

2)

The Chorus:

The chorus is made up of a bouncy rhythm throughout. I play this with barre chords as I prefer the percussive quality they lend. I have included the option below of open chords so you can substitute with those if you prefer.

The Rhythm:

(The ‘X’ mean mute the strings)

The Chords-

Barre Chords