Yo Olive! Guitar 101!

Lesson 4: the song!

This is the song itself.




The riff is a little off putting at first. It used to distract me when I first got given the song. But after a while it becomes natural, and you soon pick it up.

THe intro and the verse have the same chords.

The sequence is Em, Em, Em, Em, C, D, Em, Em. But not flat out like that! They're in bars, and it's 4/4 timing.

So each chord is for a count of 4.

The strumming pattern.. play it how you want. If you want it uber simple to start, you could just strum once and hold the chord for the four like 'Em two three four' or you could go strum strum strum strum like 'Em Em Em Em'. It's easiest to strum down, but you could go up and down or up up down or whatever you please, that's the fun of it. Although you can't do that for every song, hell no. This is just for starting out.

Now, when you get to the 'Hold on to what we've got..' bit, which is the bridge, the chords go C, D, D, Em, C, D, D, Em, C, D, D, Em, C, D. And it's quicker changes now.

Two counts of C, two counts of D. That's your first bar.
Two of D, two of Em. Second bar.
Then you repeat that, so you've done four bars.
Now we repeat that again so we're at bar six.
Now for bar seven, ghold your C chord for the four counts.
And the last one's fun. It's the D chord, but strum four times. Like 'BAMBAMBAMBAM'.

Now we're onto the chorus. Hey, you're doing well!

It goes Em, C, D, G, C, D, Em, C, D, G, C, D.

Bar one is your Em and C. Two counts of each.
Bar two is four counts of D.
Bar three is two of G, two of C.
And bar four is four of D.

And then you repeat that. Sorted!

Keep practising your chord changes. Like Em D C G. Mix them up. Try and get quicker. It's slow at first, but you get used to it after a bit.

And the song's basically that. At the end, it goes a bit higher, but that doesn't really matter.. it's easy to find chords for that on the web, and I can easily help you with those.

Now, for the riff. If you're really happy with your chords. You could play this instead of the intro.

------------------------------------------
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----7---5------7---5--------------------------
--o---7---o-o--------------------------------

All single notes, they're easy!


And if you're really stuck, there's this. But he's a bit of a creep.




Or, just come and find me sometime. I'm happy to help.

Or, come to my place!

I have no life, so I'm pretty much always free [apart from Saturday 4pm-5pm].

I'm going to give you the chords on paper at school.

Have fun.

Lesson Add On: Some more videos by the creepy guy!

Ok. I decided to look at the rest of creepy's vids, and they're actually kinda good.

Here are two easy riffs for you to work on, both by Queen. It's good to learn a combination of chords and riffs, as you use both.





The next songs I want to teach you are Wonderwall by Oasis, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. Some more of my first songs, and I have all the music sheets for them still. (: I'll give you the Wonderwall sheet with the Bon Jovi sheet.

If you don't have a capo [or your dad/ mom/ sister doesn't have one you can steal], that's no problem. You can still play those two songs without one. But it really helps if you do, because it won't sound right playing them to the track without it. Soooo get one. I got a cheapo one from frets for 7 quid, don't do that! They're really shitty and they don't work. Spend about a tenner, or at least don't get the bog standard dunlop one. I love dunlop, but it's an awful capo.

That is all.