“Moonflower” by Santana Difficulty: Intermediate

Composer – Coster

Where to find this song – Moonflower track # 12

Release Date – October 1977

Main Theme

Below is what the main theme to Flor D’Luna (Moonflower) sounds like with guitar and bass. You can learn both parts in this lesson.

Guitar

The lead guitar part is mostly based around D natural minor (aeolian) pattern
below.

Video Breakdown

Notice that in the first video you will be primarily focusing with your 1st finger as a pivot point. One thing to try and keep in mind here is that you will need to keep your fingers parallel to each other. You will rarely have to alter much here. What we mean by this is that if you allow your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fingers to hold their space in the riff, you won’t have to shuffle your fingers around as much. You will be playing quite a few notes, but notice that your 1st finger only plays within one fret of each note almost the whole time.

In the second video, look closely at the frets. You aren’t really playing anything much different. Santana has an amazing grasp on musical theory, and tries to hit all the notes within the give scale that he can. That is why you see that the 1st finger isn’t moving around too much, but IS hitting many different notes. You can almost always guarantee that in a given riff, the 1st finger will be the pivot point, with you 2nd, 3rd, and 4th finger playing the harder to hit notes. It is common in a new guitarist to use one finger to play. By doing that, you will limit yourself to mostly slides. Here, Santana focuses on a great deal of hammer-ons and pull-offs.

For the last video, you will be using a great deal of your 3rd and 4th finger. This compliments what we said earlier, where the 1st finger is STILL your pivot point. The 1st finger should set the standard for the rest of the notes being played. As you can see, once again the 1st finger doesn’t move much, and the other fingers seem to fall into place, playing the appropriate notes shown.

Bass