Let's check out this awesome Joni Mitchell tune on acoustic guitar

Wow, I fell in love with Coyote by Joni Mitchell the first time I heard it on her 1976 album Hejira. What a tune! It's just incredible.

I remember I bought Hejira because I knew Larry Carlton and Jaco Pastorius played on it. Their work on Hejira is just lovely, but then I ended up getting hooked on Joni Mitchell too. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to love her that much, but her performance blew me away.

Joni Mitchell really is one of a kind. Her lyrics are deep, her tunings are unique as can be, and she's an incredible lyricist. Her vocal phrasings are all over the place - in a beautiful way! If you don't know the album, go and check out Hejira - you won't regret it.

About Joni Mitchell

Born in 1943, Joni Mitchell has a diverse and unique sound, which blends folk, jazz, and rock. At the age of 9, she fell sick with polio, which affected her hand mobility. Amazingly, this led her to develop her own playing style. She needed to tune the strings differently to make it possible to play!

Her story shows how challenges can turn into opportunities - those strange tunings were precisely what led to her unique melodies. She didn’t let anything stop her from following her passion, and her 1971 album Blue was ranked #3 in Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2020.

💙 Check out her live in-studio performance in this video Urge for Going. One of you suggested this video in the comments, and wow! Her music even blew away her band members. :)

How To Play "Coyote" By Joni Mitchell On Guitar

The Tuning

Joni Mitchell songs are so fun to explore on guitar. She always uses pretty odd tunings, and it's no different on Coyote. To sound just like her, you'll need to tune your guitar to CGDFCE. :) Here it is in more detail:

Joni Mitchell Guitar Tuning

I don't know any other song or artist that uses this guitar tuning. If you do, please let me know in the Discussion section!

It's a pretty weird set of notes. If you strum the open strings, you get a chord that sounds airy and suspended. This gives space for so many exciting things!

Coyote by Joni Mitchell: Intro Chords

There are some beautiful chords on Coyote. Because their names are complex, many names exist for each one. We'll explore my take on it, but don't get fixated on the names - they don't really matter!

The first grip in the intro looks like a standard open A chord, except it's not! With your fingers holding an "open A chord", the notes from thickest to thinnest are CGEGDE, so it's really a Cadd9. ;) She then lifts off all her fingers to reveal the open strings. I think this sounds like a G chord, so it's technically a G13/C.

💡 Drone Chords: Up for some more lush chords? These drone chords in standard tuning sound great on acoustic guitar, work great as barre-chord substitutes, and are handy for songwriting.

Verse Guitar Chords

The Coyote verse starts with an E♭6 chord. It's got a few extra notes in there, but the full name is unnecessarily horrible! Luckily it's easy to play. ;) Put fingers 2, 3, and 4 on fret 3 of strings 6, 5, and 4, and make sure you mute the thinnest string.

We slide that grip up four frets to get G13 and play all six strings. After that, we repeat the intro riff once.

Next up, we barre all six strings at fret 7 (Gadd11) then add fingers 3 and 4 to strings 4 and 3 at fret 9 to get G Major. We repeat this movement but two frets down (Fadd11 to F) before returning the intro riff.

Repeat this entire progression twice, then play two bars of E♭6 followed by four bars of G13.

🎸 Jam Along to Consolidate: Check out the video for a full play-along with the chords on screen. :)

Coyote by Joni Mitchell: Strumming Pattern

There are loads of rhythmic variations in Coyote. If you struggle with strumming patterns, remember that the key thing is to keep your hand moving consistently, even if you're not hitting any strings. You'll notice that Joni does this in live versions.

This Joni Mitchell tune can be a tricky one to play and sing along with. It's almost like the guitar and the beat are disconnected - she sings right over the beat lines while keeping a strong melody. I don't know how she does it! Check out my 10-step method to singing and playing at the same time if you need extra help. :)

Intro

We look at a general rhythm pattern for the intro riff. You can hear variations on this pattern in the intro, but it stays pretty consistent in later parts of the song, and the variations aren't super important. In fact, if you want to sing too, train yourself to play the standard version only and forget the variations.

You also want to pulse the chord a little bit, relaxing your fingers after each strum. It makes a difference to the feel. There's also a cool slide in there. ;)

Rest of Song

You can play eighth-note patterns for the rest of Coyote: strum down-up-down-up continuously and give it some movement by adding accents on beats 2 and 4. We do this by striking the thicker strings on beats 1 and 3 and strumming all six on 2 and 4.

Practice Until It Feels Good

Rhythm patterns tend to feel clunky when you first play them, so practice them until you can feel relaxed and comfortable as you play. It should feel easy, not rigid!

Here's a tip: make yourself smile! Seriously. When I play, I force myself to smile even when I'm not feeling happy and I remind myself that I'm playing guitar, which I love! This helps me get it to feel good, and this impacts the sound.

There's so much to explore here: the unusual tuning, the extended chords with strange grips, the vocal melody, the dynamics, the feel... This is a fantastic workout for acoustic guitarists! Enjoy. :)

🎵 Get verified chords, guitar tabs, and lyrics for Coyote and hundreds more songs at JustinGuitarTabs.