Samba Pa Ti Guitar Lesson – Santana

Genre:

Difficulty:
Length: 17:17

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Artist website
Music video

• Hammer-ons
• Pull-offs
• Scales
• Slides
• String bending
• Trills
• Unison bends

Samba Pa Ti is an all-time classic Santana masterpiece, which is actually not that difficult to play. Before you learn this song, check out Santana's very own explanation of what he was trying to express with this song.

Our Samba Pa Ti guitar lesson will teach you how to play the main sections of the song, as well as give you an introduction to what scales you'll need to learn to be able to improvise to the remaining sections of the backing track. The tutorial starts out by teaching you the main riff of the song, which is followed by a sweet little turnaround lick and continues on to teaching the second main riff.

You'll find that it is actually not that hard to play, but the song does involve lots of lead guitar techniques you may not be familiar with yet. But of course, practice makes perfect, so once you get your techniques down, you'll be playing this song pretty quickly.

After the second main riff, Santana starts improvising.

Samba Pa Ti is played in the key of G major, so it would be a good idea if you brushed up a bit on your guitar scales and relevant theoretical areas. You'll notice that all of the notes you play can actually be played on the G major scale itself, which is a scale you'll need to get familiar with if you want to solo along with the backing track to Samba Pa Ti (available to premium members).

If you find the G major scale a bit difficult, you can solo on the G major pentatonic scale as well, which will sound great as well!

Samba Pa Ti song details

Samba Pa Ti is Spanish, meaning "Samba For You". The song actually does not follow the normal rhythmic style of samba, it is more of a Latin rock piece. It was originally released on Santana's Abraxas album back in 1970.

Even though the song was originally recorded more than 40 years ago, it is still a favorite song of millions to this day, which is why it was remastered and released in 1990, 1998, and 2008 as well.

Santana is one of the greatest guitarists of all time, who started out in the 1960s and is enjoying huge popularity to this day.

I've personally been to at least 5 Santana concerts that I can recall off the top of my head, but there were probably more. The interesting thing about his concerts is that he is the main attraction, but he doesn't really sing or take away the spotlight. He is basically the "brand", plays a couple of nice solos and guitar riffs, and that's about it. But still, seeing him live is really worth it.

If you want to refine the skills you learned in Samba Pa Ti, check out these lessons on songs by clicking these links:
Hammer-ons / Pull-offs / Scales / Slides / String bending / Trills / Unison bends

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