Tag Archives: guitar

January 27, 2015 · 4:58 pm

George Ezra – Blame It On Me Chords

Download the chords here: George Ezra – Blame It On Me

Blame It On Me was another one brought to me by one of my younger guitar students. While just three chords, it is a great tune for working on strumming and feel. It is also a good one for beginners to work on their G to C changes – a difficult one when you’re first starting out!

If you are struggling with the Gsus4 (which Ezra plays on frets 320013), you can just play a regular G chord. The Fmaj7 is played as x33210, and Ezra alternates between the C and Fmaj7 to create an intro chord riff, which returns as a fill throughout the song.

Ukulele players and guitarists without capos can play along to the live versions – all the versions I’ve heard have been in the key of C.

Strumming

Suggested strumming pattern for the verses:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + D D _UDUD D _UDU

Suggested strumming pattern for the intro:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + D D _UDUD DU _UDU C________F____C

Notice the Verse strumming pattern is just the same pattern repeated twice (D D _UDU). I have included the “_” underscore as a reminder to leave a space there where there would be a downstrum (but keep your arm swinging downwards!)

Intro/Fills
The Intro is slightly trickier – I have marked out where the chord changes are underneath the strum pattern. Ezra hammers onto the F chord with his little finger after the downstrum on the C on Beat 3, and then returns to the C chord for the last “UDU” of the pattern. As always, listen to the recording as much as possible to get the sound of this into your ear, as it can be hard to get the nuances from the written page!

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Tagged as beginner, blame it on me, chords, F major 7 chord, fills, george ezra, Gsus4 chord, guitar, guitar songs, intro, key of C, songs, strum, strum pattern, strumming, teaching

December 16, 2014 · 5:30 pm

John Newman – Cheating Chords

Download the capo free version here: John Newman – Cheating (Bm Version)

Download the bar-chord free version here: John Newman – Cheating (Easy Version)

This song was brought to me by two of my younger students, 8 year old Bodie and Louis. We looked at it with the capo on fret 2, using simplified partial chord shapes (e.g. G as xx0003, C as xx2010). Without the capo it makes a good bar chord workout for more advanced students. Ukulele players will need to play it in Bm to match the original recording key.

In a full band situation advanced players may want to try partial chord shapes up the neck, as you can see John Newman’s guitarist playing in this live band version. These are mainly chords played on the top four strings, based around the 7th fret (e.g. Bm: xx9777, A: xx7655, E: xx7775).

For the solo singer/guitarist you are better sticking to the full open chords, as in this live acoustic version. The more advanced of you can work out some of those licks too!

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Tagged as advanced, bar chords, beginner, Bm chord, cheating, guitar, guitar chords, intermediate, john newman, partial chords, songs, tab, ukulele

December 3, 2014 · 11:22 am

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here Chords

Download here: Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here is a great song for working on mixing up picking individual notes with full chord strumming. The chords are fairly basic, the main challenge being the D/F# chord.

Slash Chords

With slash chords, the note after the slash (/) is played in the bass. So D/F# is a D chord with an F# bass note. On guitar this can be played like a regular D, with your thumb wrapped over the 2nd fret of the low E string. There are other ways to finger a D/F#, without the high E string, but the full 6 string version sounds great on this song if you can get it. If you’re struggling to get your thumb over or find another way to play the chord, a regular D chord will sound fine.

Strumming

Suggested strumming pattern for the verses:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + D d DUd D d DUd

Suggested strumming pattern for the intro:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + B DUDU U UD

Beat “4” and the “and” of the intro are taken up by the single notes of the riff (see the tab).

To get the intricacies and variations of the strum, you really need to listen to the record – I’ve just given you a starting point. Pay attention to the small down strums (lowercase d’s) – these are softer strums. Also, on the record there are two guitars strumming slightly differently, one panned to each side, so you can take your pick when playing along.

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Tagged as chords, D/F# chord, guitar, guitar chords, picking, pink floyd, strum, tab, wish you were here

November 27, 2014 · 3:30 pm

Fantastic Resource for Guitarists

DS Music have put up a very useful free resource page for guitar and reading music.

There are well laid out sheets on reading standard notation and tab, as well as a host of useful guitar fretboard chords and scales (useful for both students and teachers of guitar).

For beginners, you can find, amongst other tools:

Basic guitar chord diagrams
Fretboard note layout
Chord flash cards

For those going beyond basics:

A sheet to explain the CAGED system
A scale dictionary
A useful explanation and diagram of the Circle of Fifths

Master Each Concept

It is worth taking your time with these resources, making sure you have mastered one scale or concept, and explored and integrated it into your playing, before moving onto the next. It is much better to have one scale that you can actually make music with, than to know loads that you can’t use! Working with a good teacher can help you manage this process. Finding ways to test yourself without looking at the sheets is also a good idea, as you don’t want to become reliant on them.

Uke & Other Instruments

If you play ukulele or another instrument, the standard notation and tab sheets still have a lot of useful info that can apply to any instrument. This is one of the advantages of standard notation over other methods of notation.

Keep Exploring

Also handy are the pages of blank chord, practise and notation sheets for you to fill in yourself. These are great for checking you have retained things, or for keeping a record of other chords and scales that you discover along your guitar journey.

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Tagged as basic chords, blank sheets, CAGED, chords, circle of fifths, flash cards, guitar, guitar resources, guitar teaching, mastery, resources, scales, standard notation, tab, teaching, teaching resources, tools

September 30, 2014 · 6:15 pm

Simon & Garfunkel – I Am A Rock Chords

Download here: Simon & Garfunkel – I Am A Rock

I Am A Rock is a great tune for practicing your B minors (it’s a bar chord both on guitar and on ukulele). It’s a little tricky, as you only have two beats each on Am and Bm, so it’s worth drilling that chord change until it’s comfortable.

Recorded in 1965, the song was featured on Simon & Garfunkel’s legendary Sound of Silence album, and before that on Paul Simon’s solo album The Paul Simon Songbook. As usual from Paul Simon, it features some wonderful songwriting.

Suggested strumming pattern:
DUDUDUDU

The trick to the strum is to keep your strumming hand moving steadily up and down, without pausing. Once you’ve got the hang of that, you can focus on feel – listen to the recording for emphasised strums and variations to the pattern.

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Tagged as Bm chord, chords, guitar, I Am A Rock, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, songs, strum, tab, teaching