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You are here: Home / Guitar / Adam Rafferty – “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson – Solo Fingerstyle Guitar

Adam Rafferty – “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson – Solo Fingerstyle Guitar

By Adam Rafferty 20 Comments

I can’t believe this is almost 10 years old….Enjoy! – AR

Filed Under: Guitar, Online Promotion, Videos Tagged With: Adam Rafferty, Billie Jean, Fingerpicking, Fingerstyle, Guitar, Lesson, Michael Jackson, Tablature, Tabs

About Adam Rafferty

I’m Adam Rafferty – a guitar player born and raised in New York City, and currently spending most of my time on tour playing concerts and coaching my guitar students online at StudyWithAdam.com

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Fulvia says

    June 3, 2010 at 4:41 am

    Very beautiful and touching.

    Reply
  2. Frank says

    June 5, 2010 at 4:41 am

    Love your style and have enjoyed you for a while. When are you going to put out an instructional dvd on some of M. Jacksons great songs like this one? You are one of the best. You really inspire me.

    Reply
    • adamrafferty says

      June 5, 2010 at 5:56 am

      Thank you. Well, blame the Jackson estate but they are not allowing me to release instruction on Billie Jean.

      I am however doing a J% dvd later this month. Of course at workshops and at private lessons I can teach BJ.

      Sorry for the news. Oh well – the new DVD will be awesome, I promise.

      AR

      Reply
  3. Alan Butryn says

    June 7, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    Hi Adam,

    I just am catching up on some of your blog postings – thanks for opening up your life and heart to us. I just caught your May 31st post where you played Billy Jean. Very cool. Very inspiring. I am new to fingerstyle and look forward to playing proficiently and confidently some day. I am a Pastor of Worship Arts here in Toronto Canada and want to use this style of playing in our service one day. Any one book suggestion for a beginner to learn fingerstyle? How can we get you up to our beautiful city some day?

    Blessings,

    Alan

    Reply
    • adamrafferty says

      June 7, 2010 at 4:29 pm

      Hi Alan

      Wow, thanks. If you have not heard of Doyle Dykes, check him out – he is a fingerstylist who is also a pastor, I believe. I only know him as a player and he’s awesome.

      FYI I have a Christmas Tabs book on the way – that may be of interest.

      I’d love to come up to Toronto. Been there once. If I could nail 3-4 gigs down, I’d be there for sure. Maybe we can scurry something up…

      All the best, thanks for reaching out!

      Adam

      Reply
  4. jim mezzanotte says

    June 25, 2010 at 11:34 pm

    u rock

    Reply
  5. chris says

    July 4, 2010 at 3:39 am

    OMG man wonderful. Absolutely awesome

    Reply
  6. Gil Barata says

    October 23, 2010 at 12:48 am

    (PORTUGUESE)

    Olá Adam, parabens pelo seu trabalho, é muito bom. Sou Brasileiro , Cantor e Compositor e gostaria de enviar uma bossa nova minha para você escutar. Aí está meu email

    gilbarata@gmail.com

    Reply
  7. ed lane says

    November 20, 2010 at 3:34 pm

    is there TAB available for Billie Jean?

    Reply
  8. Richard says

    February 3, 2011 at 4:04 am

    Hey i’ve wanted to learn some songs with that weird technique u used in the whole song, how u do that? slapping the low E string and picking at the same time o.O any tips plz

    Reply
  9. ed lane says

    February 3, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    What the tuning for your version of Billie Jean?

    Reply
    • adam rafferty says

      February 4, 2011 at 4:12 am

      Standard tuning…capo 2nd fret! Enjoy…

      Reply
  10. peter conway says

    June 11, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    mate you gotta get your stuff out there.your as good as anyone i’ve seen thats including tommy emmanuel….i’ve been picking for 33 years around australia so please come down here and get yourself noticed cheers from australia

    Reply
  11. Andres says

    August 19, 2011 at 9:36 am

    Awesome!!!

    Reply
  12. Steven A. Chaparro says

    August 31, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    This is so awesome. I gave up guitar playing because I felt that if I was going to do something right, I needed to give it all I had. Soon, other things got in the way. I just may pick it up again.

    ~Steve https://www.StevenAChaparro.com

    Reply
  13. Ray says

    September 7, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    I love it so much

    Reply
  14. Ray says

    September 7, 2011 at 1:58 pm

    Could you please send me the playing method to me.
    Thank you very much…
    My mail is : zheng-ruijian@msn.com

    Reply
  15. JD Richard says

    April 26, 2013 at 4:05 pm

    I am now going to Quit Playing Guitar…you win.

    Reply
  16. Jeppy says

    July 25, 2014 at 9:09 pm

    Hello Adam,

    So impressed by your billie jean version!!
    I would love to challenge myself with this version.
    Acconding to your website, tablature should be available here : https://adamrafferty.com/freetabs
    but I unfortunately could not find it … did I miss something?

    Thanks so much
    Jeppy

    Reply
    • adamrafferty says

      March 3, 2015 at 12:08 am

      Jeppy, I have free blues tabs sorry if that misled you. All the best – AR

      Reply

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