How to Play "Keep Your Hands To Yourself" by The Georgia Satellites!

Who's up for some proper rock and roll? Keep Your Hands To Yourself by The Georgia Satellites sounds wicked on acoustic guitar! If you're a beginner, you can keep it simple and still make great music.

The Georgia Satellites are such a killer band, aren't they? I saw them back in Tasmania in the ‘90s at one of my first concerts. What a great night! I even hooked up with a girl that I really liked! :)

Anyways, we'll keep it simple things this lesson and focus on the chords and rhythm guitar. Let's go!

Guitar Chords

You only need the A, D, and E chords to play this one. If you're following my Beginner Guitar Course, Keep Your Hands To Yourself is perfect for the early stages of Grade 1. And you can play along with the original with these three easy open chords - no capo needed. :)

Chord Progressions on Guitar

You'll find the full chord progressions and a guitar–vocal demo in the video lesson. Good news: the sequences are standard 12-bar blues that you'll likely play hundreds of times on your journey. But be careful - the verse and chorus progressions are slightly different. ;)

You'll notice that in bar 11 we play the A chord on beat 1 then mute the strings. It's easy - just rest your fretting hand or the side of your strumming hand on the strings. :)

💡 No Chord! In sheet music you'll often see silent bars written N.C. - no chord - and in Keep Your Hands To Yourself the silence lasts two bars.

Strumming

Start by strumming on the first beat of each bar, focusing on the timing of beat 1 and where it falls in relation to the lyrics. After some time, strumming once per bar gets a bit boring! Let's spice it up. :)

The next step is to play four strums per bar. Play along with the record and try to soak up the feel - that's what makes your playing sound great.

If that's cool, let's switch to even eighth notes with accents on the backbeat - beats two and four. The accents really bring the rhythm to life. :) You can make your rhythm sound even cooler by strumming all-down eighth notes with the backbeat. See the video for all the details.

🔥 Super Strumming Tip: The best way to master a strumming pattern to mute your strings when practicing it. Once it feels natural, add the chords.

Keep Your Hands To Yourself by The Georgia Satellites: Song Structure

The structure of this one is pretty simple:

Intro - four bars
Verse - 12-bar blues with stop
Interlude - four bars
Verse
Solo - 24 bars: two reps of 12-bar blues
Verse
Solo
Outro - solo chords to fade

Remember that the verse and solo progressions are slightly different. :)

Keep Your Hands To Yourself by The Georgia Satellites: Meet the 12-Bar Blues!

This song is a 12-Bar Blues in the key of A, and you can make it into a classic rock 'n roll tune by playing around with the chunka-chunka rhythm. Check out my free Grade 2 module, Introduction to Blues, to learn all about 12-Bar sequences. :)

🎸 Backing Tracks: Want high-quality backing tracks for your song practice? Check out my Beginner Song App!

Definitely come back to this song and jam with the original when you've learned the shuffle. The Georgia Satellites have an excellent time feel - you'd do well to absorb it. It's also full of killer blues licks that you can learn by ear when you've done some lead playing. :) Enjoy!

👉 Put your A, D, and E chords into action with these awesome three-chord guitar songs!