Behind the Light - Joshua Hyslop

Hello everyone and welcome to this new guitar tutorial! Let’s start with something quite unusual: it’s not every day that you come across a song with over 20 million streams on Spotify and no tabs available online. Well, Behind the Light by Joshua Hyslop is that rare exception! Unfortunately, there’s more than one reason why no one has tackled this song yet — but don’t worry, I’m here to guide you through it.

First things first: tuning. You’ll need to retune your guitar to an open G tuning — specifically G B D G B D. If your sixth string struggles to stay in tune at G, don’t panic — it happened to me too. Even placing a capo on the sixth fret helps only up to a certain point, so be patient and tune carefully.

Now, let’s talk about the time signature. In order to write readable tabs—mainly using eighth notes—I had to notate the piece in 5/8 at 164 bpm. But trust me, practicing at that speed with a metronome is almost impossible. That’s why I suggest setting your metronome to the 2/4 equivalent — 131 bpm — which is also indicated in the YouTube video description.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s another rhythmic challenge: the eighth notes are played with a swing feel. In practical terms, this means that in a bar of five evenly spaced eighth notes, the first, third, and fifth are slightly longer than the second and fourth, creating a distinctive syncopated groove.

Let’s move on to the hands. As with many open tunings, the left hand benefits from simpler shapes than in standard tuning. Watch out for the hammer-on on the fourth string! As for the right hand, the thumb will take care of the bottom three strings, the index will handle the third, the middle finger the second, and the ring finger the first. Normally I’d tell you that the middle finger can cover the first string too, but in this case—especially if you want to play the song at its original speed — I strongly recommend always using the ring finger for the notes on the first string.

One final note about the bridge section: in the studio version, you’ll hear the first string ringing out during the first two chords. In the tabs, though, I chose to follow what Joshua plays in the only live performance of this song available on YouTube. Feel free to decide which version you prefer for that part!

As always, you’ll find the full tabs on my Patreon page. Have fun learning!