BC-137 • Easy Songs for Stage 3

[justinguitar]

Questions and song suggestions (not requests, but if you know a good song that just uses the chords known at this stage)...

Lesson Link: http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-137-EasySongs.php

[Linsen]

Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors by the Editors is a nice song that only uses G, C, Em, D and Am I believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff6oLnLHQ0g&fmt=18

[Andy Tighe]

Excellent stuff so far but are these supposed to be easy songs for the beginners? I truly am a beginner, only picked up the guitar maybe 2 months ago and have tried to follow your lessons (which have been great) but when I got to these "easy" songs all of a sudden different chords and strumming patterns have been thrown in which I haven't got yet. I just think you should keep these easy songs until you have covered everything, chords and strumming patterns, so drop these songs in later on.

Sorry about the whine.

[teryvalencia]

Hi guys,

is there a place i ve missed where the strumming are explained for easy songs stage 3 ? Justin seems to say he only details chords in the video because strumming is detailed somewhere else on the site ?

where please ?

thank you very much

[Tourniquet]

I'm going to throw "Fat bottomed girls" by Queen in the suggestion box.
D,C,G,A All major chords, a good strong tempo that's not too fast and a flexible rhythm.
you can get away with only downstrums on the beat but as you get better you can double your tempo to match the song and spice up the rhythm.

http://www.4shared.com/file/128708499/c5f24e2f/fat_bottomed_girls.html
Short recording of both the simple and then more complex rhythms. It's a bit rough and ready but it's just to give an idea
Sounds best with a touch of distortion but I've done it clean to make it easier to hear.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/q/queen/fat_bottomed_girls_crd.htm is a decent tab.

Hi guys,

is there a place i ve missed where the strumming are explained for easy songs stage 3 ? Justin seems to say he only details chords in the video because strumming is detailed somewhere else on the site ?

where please ?

thank you very much

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php
Any lesson with "rhythm" in the title

[teryvalencia]

Thanks for the link

nevertheless, it does not seem that justin is using this pattern :



on songs Hey Joe, Knocking on heavens doors, ... right ?

(I might be wrong, more than probably)

thanks for your help.

[Tourniquet]

They are a bit different, try this post
http://www.justinguitar.com/forum/index.php?topic=10481.0
It discusses the rhythms for those songs from several perspectives.

[teryvalencia]

Thanks Tourniquet.

i ve found what i looked for  , for Knocking on heavens doors .  did i miss the 'hey joe' strumming ?

thanks

[myfingertipshurt]

Hey Tourniquet!

Great call on the fat bottom girls. I can't wait to get at this one it's one of my favorite songs (going to master Justin's Hey Ya! first though).

I suck at up strumming, and I don't think I quite understand the rhythm behind different strumming patterns yet.

Would you be so kind as to post the strumming pattern you use for the awesome sounding version of the chorus in the mp3 you uploaded?

I should probably be able to figure this out myself but for some reason it's not clicking, and I'd really appreciate being able to throw the strumming pattern in with the tab. I would ask how many times to play each chord too but I figure I should try to figure some things out on my own.

[Tourniquet]

Hey Tourniquet!

Great call on the fat bottom girls. I can't wait to get at this one it's one of my favorite songs (going to master Justin's Hey Ya! first though).

I suck at up strumming, and I don't think I quite understand the rhythm behind different strumming patterns yet.

Would you be so kind as to post the strumming pattern you use for the awesome sounding version of the chorus in the mp3 you uploaded?

I should probably be able to figure this out myself but for some reason it's not clicking, and I'd really appreciate being able to throw the strumming pattern in with the tab. I would ask how many times to play each chord too but I figure I should try to figure some things out on my own.

Upstrums are part of that version so it's as good an excuse as any to work on them
The rhythm for the more interesting version is something like this (it's improvised so they may not be identical)

Code:

(D)Are you going to (C)take me home (G)tonight
D               C       G
1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4&1&2&3&4&
D   D DUDUD D DUD   D DUD   *(percussive mute)
+   +   +   +   +   +   +   +

That's the first line.
The + indicates the simple downstrum rhythm at half tempo, might help see how they fit together.
The second is much the same but with an A instead of a G
The rest of the chorus and the verses are quite different but if you can wrap your head round that pattern and play it you probably won't need any more help.
Your chord changes also need to be up to speed as they tend to come off the back of an upstrum.
Good luck with it

[myfingertipshurt]

Thanks so much!

[myfingertipshurt]

Ok, still having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around this but that's ok because I still haven't mastered Hey Ya and Peggy Sue (I've actually been avoiding playing peggy sue for some reason) and I've still got a bit of a ways to go until my chord changes are up to par.

However I still plan to dick around with this having printed out the tab you linked and wrote the strumming pattern down on it, simply because I love this song.

Forgive my noobism, but what does this mean?

The + indicates the simple downstrum rhythm at half tempo

Tempo means how fast the bars progress right? So does that mean that you play the ones with the plus sign below them twice as fast?

[Tourniquet]

Not quite.
The plus signs represent the rhythm of the first recording I did which is half tempo
It is a completely seperate rhythm to the pattern above it (the second recording), but if you look each + sign matches a downstrum of the more complex one
I put it alongside the more complex rhythm so that you could see that the downstrum only of the half-tempo version fits into the full tempo version directly above it.

[myfingertipshurt]

oooh gotcha.

[Tourniquet]

Another song that works well that this stage is

"What's up" by 4 non blondes.

Capo the second fret and cycle the chords G, Am, C, G the whole way through the song.
It's a song that really helped me to understand rhythm and later to start singing along.
If anyone has serious dificulties with the rhythm I'll post it, But this really is one of the easier ones to figure out so give it a good try.