The Band – The Weight Guitar Lesson Info
Learn how to play The Band – The Weight note-for-note on guitar with our The Band – The Weight Guitar Lesson.
The Weight by The Band is one of the great roots-rock songs of the late ’60s, built around Robbie Robertson’s earthy acoustic guitar part. In this lesson, we’ll work through the original studio version, focusing on the loose, rolling strum that drives the song and gives it that unmistakable feel.
The opening hook isn’t a straight strum — it’s a series of picked double-stops drawn from the pentatonic scale, setting up the groove before the main rhythm kicks in. We’ll break that lick down slowly before moving into the full chordal accompaniment.
The rest of the song is played with a laid-back, swung strum that sits beautifully under the vocal — simple on the surface, but full of subtlety once you get into it. Everything is demonstrated step by step, with full video lesson, playthrough, and printable PDF tab and chord sheet included.
A great choice if you enjoy that roots/Americana rhythm feel and want to add a classic to your acoustic repertoire.
- Difficulty level: Easy (The opening lick is intermediate)
- Barre chords: No
- Thumb over chords: Yes
- Playing Style: Strummed (the opening lick is picked 2 strings at a time)
- Tuning: Standard
- Separate Solo: No
- Separate Bass Part: No
Return to Individual Songs page
The Band – The Weight Download Details
The complete lesson contains a lesson video and a performance-standard play-thru video. It also contains the guitar tabs as PDF files and a songsheet with the chords and the lyrics of the lesson (if applicable), also as PDF files.
The videos are MP4 format and will play on PC’s, Macs and most mobile devices.
You’ll receive an email with a Zip file containing a total of 5 files as follows:
- Part 1: Guitar Video Lesson – Intro Lesson
- Part 1: Guitar Video Lesson – Song Lesson
- Part 2: Performance-standard Playthru Video
- Part 3: Songsheet with tabs & lyrics
- Part 4: Guitar Tab
Total Download size: 301.08 Mb
You’ll need to extract the MP4 and PDF files from the Zip file/s to be able to use them and you’ll need software to do so. If you don’t have a Zip program on your PC you’ll need to install one to open the file. I use Peazip which you can get free, here.
If you want to download to an iPad or iPhone you’ll need an app to do so, please read here to know more about it.
The Band – The Weight Lesson Previews
Playthru & Intro
Tab Preview
Chords & Songsheet Preview
Return to Individual Songs page
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