The Carpenters – Rainy Days and Mondays Guitar Lesson Info
Learn how to play The Carpenters – Rainy Days and Mondays note-for-note on guitar with our detailed step-by-step guitar lesson.
This lesson teaches Rainy Days and Mondays by The Carpenters as a fingerpicked acoustic guitar arrangement based on the song’s beautiful piano accompaniment.Rather than simply strumming the underlying chords, the arrangement translates the piano part to guitar, preserving the flowing movement and rich harmony that give the song its unmistakable character. It’s an excellent study in playing jazz-influenced chord voicings on acoustic guitar, introducing shapes such as Cmaj7, G11, and other colourful variations that add sophistication without being unnecessarily complicated.
The lesson is not aimed at beginners, but experienced fingerpicking guitarists will find that the technical demands are very manageable. The emphasis is on smooth chord transitions, clear arpeggios, and allowing the harmony to ring naturally.
There are barre chords and one thumb-over chord in the arrangement. However, for players who prefer not to use the thumb-over technique, a fully workable alternative fingering is demonstrated, allowing you to play the song comfortably without sacrificing the musical effect.
If you’re looking to expand your chord vocabulary while learning a classic song, this lesson offers a rewarding introduction to jazz-style harmony in a practical, song-based setting. The download includes the full video lesson, a play-through performance, and detailed tab and chords so you can learn the arrangement exactly as demonstrated.
- Difficulty level: Intermediate
- Barre chords: Yes
- Thumb over chords: Yes (but an alternative is shown)
- Playing Style: Fingerpicked
- Tuning: Standard
- Separate Solo: No
- Separate Bass Part: No
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The Carpenters – Rainy Days and Mondays 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 7 files as follows:
- Part 1: Guitar Video Lesson – Intro
- Part 2: Guitar Video Lesson – Verses 1&2
- Part 3: Guitar Video Lesson – Bridge
- Part 4: Guitar Video Lesson – Outverse
- Part 5: Performance-standard Playthru Video
- Part 6: Songsheet with tabs & lyrics
- Part 7: Guitar Tab
Total Download size: 472.1 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 Carpenters – Rainy Days and Mondays Lesson Previews
Playthru & Intro
Tab Preview
Chords & Songsheet Preview
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