Van Morrison Into The Mystic Tab

Getting the Right Tab for Into the Mystic

The main challenge with learning Van Morrison Into The Mystic Tab is that most free tabs online get the fingerpicking pattern wrong or flatten out the chords into something way simpler than what he actually plays. The song sits in standard tuning, which helps, but the rhythmic feel is subtle and easy to mess up if you're not paying attention to the actual recording. Here's the actual structure. The progression loops through four chords: E, A, E, F#m. That's it for the harmonic skeleton. What makes it sound the way it does is the fingerstyle pattern layered on top. Your thumb plays a walking bass line alternating between the 6th string root and 5th string fifth, while your fingers handle a simple melodic ornament on the higher strings. The thumb alternates E on the open 6th string and B on the second fret of the 5th string. Then you move to A, where the thumb goes A on the open 5th string and E on the second fret of the 4th string. The F#m is where people stumble—the thumb hits Fon the open 6th string and Con the second fret of the 5th string. The actual tablature looks like this:

E string: 0-0-2-0-0-0-2-0 | A string: x-x-x-x | D string: x-2-2-2 | G string: 1-1-1-1 | B string: 0-0-0-0 | high E: 0-0-0-0 That's just the first beat. Repeat the pattern four times for each chord before moving on. The eighth-note pulse underneath everything is what locks the whole thing together. I spent probably three weekends trying to nail this because the tabs I found online just showed chord shapes without the picking pattern, which made it sound nothing like the record. The workaround was to slow down the original track to about 60% speed using a free tool like Amazing Slow Downer and listen specifically to what the right hand was doing. You'll hear the thumb is consistently alternate-picking the bass notes in an alternating pattern, not strumming or flatpicking. Once I mapped that, the left hand was trivial.

The Details Most People Miss

There's a counter-intuitive thing about this progression that trips up a lot of players. The transition from F#m back to E feels awkward at first because your hand wants to stay anchored on the low E strings, but the next chord opens up the D string at the second fret while your fingers need to reach for the G string first fret. The fix is to let go of the F#m shape slightly earlier in the measure—don't hold it for the full eight counts—and preemptively position your ring finger on the second fret of the D string during the last beat. This creates a smoother voice leading that mirrors what Morrison actually does. Another detail nobody emphasizes: the D major chord in the middle of the pattern. Some tabs skip it entirely and just go E-A-E-F#m, but Morrison plays a quick D insertion on the third pass through the loop. It's D on the fourth string second fret, G string second fret, and B string first fret. It only lasts about a beat and a half. Missing it makes the progression sound hollow. Including it gives it the warmth that defines the recording. The pick attack matters more than you'd think. He uses a medium-gauge flatpick but plays with his thumb and fingers simultaneously—a hybrid approach. If you're strictly fingerstyle, try using your thumb for the bass notes and your index and middle fingers for the treble strings. The sound gets closer to the original than pure fingerstyle alone.

Practical Breakdown of the Full Loop

Count it like this: one-e-and-a, two-e-and-a, three-e-and-a, four-e-and-a. Each measure gets eight eighth notes from the thumb on the bass strings. The melody notes land on the "and" of beats two and four. Play the G string second fret on the and-of-two and the B string first fret on the and-of-four during the E chord. Switch to D string second fret and G string second fret for the A chord. For F#m, move to D string second fret and G string second fret with your middle and ring fingers. tempos: the record sits around 92 BPM. Practice at 70 BPM and build up gradually. Most people rush to 92 too fast and end up with a muddy, uneven sound. The clarity comes from even dynamics across all four beats, which takes patience. I've recommended this song to students for years as a fingerstyle stepping stone. It's short, the chord shapes are basic, and it teaches you to think about bass movement independently of melody. That's a skill that carries over to everything else you'll play afterward. The downside is that if you only memorize the chord shapes from a bad tab and don't internalize the alternating bass pattern, it won't sound right at all. It'll just sound like someone strumming E and F#m in a circle.

Free tabs exist all over the internet. Just.com, Songsterr, and various forum posts have versions. Most are close enough for casual playing. If you want accuracy, slow down the original and transcribe it yourself. It takes about twenty minutes and you'll learn more than you would copying a tab that got the pattern wrong. The song runs for about three minutes on the album version, but the loop is eight bars and repeats constantly. There's no verse-chorus structure to worry about. Learn the loop once and you can play the whole thing. Add the D insertion on the third pass through and you've captured the essential harmony. If you get stuck on the F#m transition, isolate just that one change. Play E to A to E slowly, then add F#m at the end. Loop that segment until your thumb stops hesitating on the bass note change. It usually takes about an hour of focused practice for most players. The rest comes from repetition.