Here's a quick recap of what we worked on last week:
Guitar 3 slogged through the rest of the detail work on Ziggy Stardust. Kudos to you for sticking with it and hammering out that intro. It starts with one big strum on a G. K-R-A-N-G! Let it ring for a full beat. On beat two, you have to subdivide into sixteenth notes, so say to yourself "two E and Uh" while you strum a D chord (on two), and then add and take away your pinky at the 3rd fret to play that suss chord on the "E and Uh" bit. That's the first measure!
The second measure is a C chord that you arpeggiate. Say it with me now: "trip-el-let" There's a one-two-three, one-two-three feel to the first two groupings. Modify the bass note of the second one (your finger will be on the 5th string, 2nd fret to produce a B note), and then take your fingers away completely for the last pair of eighth notes (four and).
If you can get that far, I'll be very happy. Take a look at the rather busy strumming pattern written out on the Stuff & Junk page and see how much of that you can grab in the verses too. We're almost there!
In Guitar 2 Rep we really buckled down on our alternate bass strumming to give Stand By Your Man that country see-saw feel. When in doubt, you can always consult the worksheet in the front of the packet to figure out where your root note is, and where your 5th is (that's the alternate note).
We also started in on Ophelia, which you can do some bass pickin' with on the one, but the key strumming technique there is the "jangle jangle!" It's only a pair of eighth note groupings at the end of the measure that you put a bit of extra energy behind. Keep your wrist super loose and just let go and have fun!
C7 is a c chord with your pinky added to the 3rd string 3rd fret, and G+ (the + means "augmented" if you really want to know!) is a G chord with your index finger added to the 4th string 1st fret.
Small changes that make a big difference!
And in Guitar 1 Rep we warmed up with Under the Boardwalk, which is sounding great! That "Golden Strum" is really coming along nicely. You can use it for the REM song too! Remember to read the riff at the bottom of the page like this: top number = string number, bottom number = fret number. If the bottom number is 0, that means you play the string open (so you could also think of that as an "O" for "open!")
The timing of the riff is: One...and three and. You let the first note ring for a beat and a half. Throw that riff in instead of the first measure of Em in the "FIRE!" section. And don't forget to add drama to other measures of Em by doing a dramatic upstrum or "rake!"
As if that wasn't enough, there's also the Calypso strum which you can apply to Bobby Darin's Dream Lover. On the first beat, pluck the root note of the chord all by itself (just like we did on Evangeline). The root note is going to be located on the first string your pick makes contact with when you're strumming a chord, so sometimes it'll be an open string and sometimes it'll be a string with a finger on it as part of a chord shape. Then on beat two, you'll D-R-A-G out your strumming motion just a little bit to give it a more deliberate sound. Finally, to really polish it up, add a mute to the third beat where you aren't strumming anything. So it looks like this all together: Root Drag-Up (mute)-Up Down-Up
Thanks to all of you for your hard work and good attitudes! Let's chase these winter blues away with tunes.
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