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Home , Billie Jean, Black or White, Dirty Diana, Smooth Criminal, You Rock My World

12 Jackson You Can Play On Guitar: A Free E-Book From Play It Loud

Everyone loves ’s music. So why hasn’t anyone taken time to make it playable for guitar?

As of this writing there is only one tab book from Alfred Publishing that covers his stuff, which I don’t have. All that I have is the PVG (Piano-Vocal-Guitar) book, which has chord diagrams above the sheet music and leads.

Most players will not have the theory or fretboard knowledge to take what they’re hearing on record, and then translate it to guitar. In this E-Book, you’re going to get over a dozen of his riffs to play.

Written by Matthew King at www.PlayItLoudBlog.com So first I’m going to do . The Chords are F#m, G#/F#, and F#m7 for the verse, then Bm7 before returning to the verse chords, and then using D and F#m to lead into the chorus. Play around with these chords until you can hear for yourself where they belong in the .

The tab would look something like this. ---2----4-----5---4------2----4-----5---4------2----4-----6---4------4-----4---4------

Now to play a song like this you must identify how the chords match up with the melody, which in this case consists of the notes F#, G#, and A. Play these to get the melody in your head. The other chords (D and Bm7) aren’t strummed but could work nicely if arpeggiated.

The guitar line later in the song consists of left hand mutes and the notes A, B, and C# which all lie within the key of F# minor. Playing them on the G string sound the best to me. G--X-X--2h4-2-x-4s6--X-XX--2h4-2-X-XX--2h4-2---

This is a little extra where I synced the bass line with the chords. Give it a shot if you want a challenge. --2------4------5-----4------2------4------5-----4------2------4------6-----4------4----2-4-2------4---2-4-2------4--4------4-2-4----4------4-2-4-- --2------

Written by Matthew King at www.PlayItLoudBlog.com

Another great funk line is from Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough which consists of the notes E – F# - A – B that can be played in the B minor pentatonic box. ------9-X-9------7-9-9------7h9------

While we’re on that song here’s two more riffs: the first is the main chord sequence (A/B and B) then the short riff around the 2:41 mark. The chords for the second one are B - D/E - E/F# - B - A - B.

------5-5-5-5--55-55---5-5-5-5--55-55--7-7-7-7--77-77-- ---6-6-6-6--66-66---6-6-6-6--66-66--8-8-8-8--88-88-- ---7-7-7-7--77-77---7-7-7-7--77-77--9-9-9-9--99-99-- ---X-X-X-X--XX-XX---X-X-X-X--XX-XX--X-X-X-X--XX-XX-- ---7-7-7-7--77-77---7-7-7-7--77-77--7-7-7-7--77-77--

Written by Matthew King at www.PlayItLoudBlog.com The chords aren’t played this much in the song but these chords sound a lot like something Pete Townshend would do so I put that up instead.

This next riff is from the breakdown around the 2:30 mark.

--7-7--5--5-5--4--4-4--2---2-0-2--4-5--- --7-7--7--7-7--5--5-5--4---4-2-4------8-8--7--7-7--4--4-4--4---4-2-4------9-9--7--7-7--4--4-4--4---4-2-4------0--0-0------2---2-0-2------

What I’ve been doing is using a chord melody style of playing to give the guitar more of a synth or piano vibe. You can do this with not just Michael’s songs but lots of pop songs from just about anybody.

Songs like , , and are dominated by riffs that accent the drums. Once you know the notes, it’s quite easy to apply octaves or power chords to it in order to play it in more of a rock n’ roll way.

The bass line of Bad for instance consists of the notes A – C – D – D# - E and repeats. I put power chords on it to thicken it up. Other than being really easy to throw in with just about any melody, power chords are great when you need something other than a full chord. ------2--5--7--8-9---2-5--7--8-9--- --2--5--7--8-9---2-5--7--8-9--- --0--3--5--6-7---0-3--5--6-7------3--5--6-7---

Written by Matthew King at www.PlayItLoudBlog.com

Dirty Diana consists of the Gm – Eb – F, which can be played with a power chord at G, and then this shape (653), consisting of part of an Eb arpeggio, moving to F at fret 8 on the A string. You can play the following tab or just the chords. --3------3------4------6------3----3---3----3------5------5----5------5------7----3h5------6------8---8------

Smooth Criminal’s bass part goes like this on the 6th string: E--5-5-5-5-3-5-7--7-----5-7-8--8----7-8-7--3----5--

One more really cool riff that I’m very glad worked out so well is . They’re R&B chords so use your thumb and pay attention to those top notes.

Written by Matthew King at www.PlayItLoudBlog.com ------8-7-5--5-5--5-7-8--8-8-- --7-7-5--5-5--5-7-7--7-7-- --9-7-5--5-5--5-7-9--9-9------5-7--7-7-- --8-7-5--5-5--5------

The last song I’m going to talk about is one written especially for the guitar, . I’m struggling to figure out the logic that made the publisher decide to put a guitar-oriented song in PVG since it would mostly appeal to us anyway, but I’ll rest my case.

Here’s the tab for my version the main riff: --5-5-5-5-5-4---2-2-2-2-2-2--4------5-5-5-5-5-5---5-5-5-5-5-5--5------4-4-4-4-4-4---4-4-4-4-4-4--4------

Keep the 3rd finger anchored to the 5 (E) while using your other fingers to play the melody and other chord tones.

One more really cool riff from this song I want to share is played during the “I am tired of this devil” section: ------X-3-3-3------X-5-5-5------X-3-3-3------X-5-5-5------X-1-1-1------X-2-2-2------X-2-2-2------0-3p0-5p0-3p0------0-3p0-5p0-3p0------

Well I hope you were able to cope with my unconventional style of sharing tabs and chords, and learned a couple of Michael’s songs that you wanted to learn. If you’ve got any questions about any of this I’ll be glad to help out.

Written by Matthew King at www.PlayItLoudBlog.com