Full transcript of “Learn these 4 Levels to play a Pretty Rhythm / Strum Pattern + a Melody line - Guitar Lesson - ML138”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 All right, so have you ever been frustrated when it comes to playing rhythm guitar? Specifically when it comes to strumming something and making it sound pretty and like you have good timing. I used to get frustrated when I would watch guitar players doing that especially singer-songwriters. You know, they'd be closing their eyes and not even looking at what they're doing. It just looked completely effortless and then I would try and play what they're doing and it always just would fall apart. I'm talking about to give an example [music] something like this. >> [music] >> Real simple, right? There's not a lot going on there but when you try and do it it it starts to fall apart and especially when you start trying to weave in a melody line like this.
0:48 >> [music] [music] >> So you can hear a little melody happening. Another thing that I would see guitar players do is they would add these extra chords. So you'd hear something like this. >> [music] >> It's like where did that chord come from? And what was it and why did it work, you know? The the last little thing that I'll kind of mention and we're going to cover all of this in this lesson. That's what I'm leading up to is that [music] you would hear I would hear a substitute chord for like the five chord. So an example of that might be >> [music] >> you'd hear this. It's like woah, what is that? That's pretty or you'd hear something like
1:34 So anyway, these are just examples of things that we're going to talk about in this video. I want to go through a sort of four levels of how to get to that to to what I just showed you there. We're going to start with the strum pattern and once you get the strum pattern the rest of it kind of falls into place. So I wanted to start with that as the foundation. We'll work up to how you work weave in a melody line and then how to add those extra chords to your playing to make it sound more interesting. That's the idea behind it. So, we're going to go through all of that in this video. I do have a part two video where I'll show you how to do this in other keys. So, we'll be playing up and down the fretboard so you can take this concept. The strum pattern will be the same, but I'll show you how you can weave in and out of chords all over the fretboard looking at major and minor chords and how you do that. So, if you'd
2:20 like to watch that part two video and get the tablature for everything I'm going to talk about in this video, you can get those extra materials by going to activemelody.com and doing a search for ML138. Okay, so let's start off with three chords. It's a 145 chord progression, our good old 145 that I always lean on. You can see why I lean on it because it's so versatile. It spills into country and blues and bluegrass and everything. Um >> [music] >> and once you can understand how to do a 145, you you you can do just about anything, just about. Um okay, so we're going to be in the key of D. So, our three chords are going to be D, >> [music] >> G, that's our four chord, and then A. Actually, we're going to be playing A7 for [music] the five chord. Let me show you how I'm making these chords. You
3:05 know how to make the D chord. The G chord I'm making like this where we've got that D note in there. Uh and then for the A7, this is how I'm making it. And pretty much anytime I make an A chord, if it's a major chord, I'll make my A like this. I'll just go ahead and make [music] that A7 just because it's so easy to grab. I hate trying to cram all three fingers into [music] that fret. That's always just been difficult for me anyway. So, when you play like [music] this, you've got the flat seven in there. And it allows you to, you know, your pinky's free to do some embellishments and stuff. So, those are the three chords we're going to be looking at. All right, so the first thing we're going to do, we're going to make the D chord, and then we're going to start with this strum pattern. So, we're going to go like this. >> [music] >> It's really simple, all down strokes. And the first thing we're going to do is
3:51 play the D note, the fourth string, and then we're going to strum. >> [music] >> And what I'm trying to hit when I strum is strings four, three, and two. If I happen to bump the first string, that's okay. It's a note that's in the chord, but I'm just trying to do this. >> [music] >> So, just start off with that. And And I know that even that can be difficult when you're new to this. Just trying to be accurate and not bump other strings. That's just It's just You'll get better at it the more you do. But, if you need to set a metronome and go real slow, that's totally fine. But, just try and get that D [music] chord. Okay, then we're going to do We're going to do four of those. Then we're going to go to our G. >> [music] >> Notice it's the same cadence where we
4:36 hit the bass, strum, bass, strum. It's much like a drummer would be doing on a drum kit. You've got the kick on the one and the three, and the snare on the two and the four. So, we have kick, snare, [music] kick, snare. We'll do four of those, and then we're going to do the same thing for the A. Now, for the A, we're going to hit the open fifth string. That's our A note. And then strum. [music] All right, and then back to our D. This is what I'm calling level [music] one. Everything we're doing here is level one. You've got to be able to do level one before you can move on and do level two. So, make sure you can get through all three of those chords without making too many mistakes uh before you're ready to move on to the next uh the [music] next level. So, let's look at level two. Now, what we're going to
5:22 do is we're going to That's kind of boring, right? We're going to make that sound more interesting. So, check this out. >> [music] >> Now, it's starting to sound [music] like something. You can hear a little bit of a little bit of nuance happening, a little bit of uh dynamics are happening as I hit some of the things harder than others. And now, the rhythm is staying exactly the same as da da down up down up down up down up. We're still going to be hitting those bass notes on the one and the three. So watch this. You hit the bass note and then we're going to go up down up. So [music]
6:07 bass >> [music] >> All right? The other thing to notice is that I'm a little more heavy-handed on the three. So just check this out. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 [music] I'm really kind of accenting that three. Now I'm I'm exaggerating it just to kind of prove a point. I'm not quite that heavy with it, but you'll hear a little bit more emphasis on that three and you and that goes for all three chords. Let's do four of these. [music] We'll go to the G. Same thing. Down up down up down up
6:52 down. Same for the A. >> [music] >> And the reason for that heavy-handedness is it's creating the rhythm. Like without a drum there, you can already feel where the kick and the snare are. >> [music] >> Even at a very slow tempo like this. Like you can >> [music] >> move your head to it, right? You wouldn't really clap along to this cuz it's so slow. But if you were sitting there and somebody's strumming this, you might be kind of swaying to it a little bit. You can feel it. >> [music] >> All right. So now let's weave in a little bit of a melody to make it sound more interesting. And there's a few obvious places to do that. So the first
7:38 place is off of this D chord. [music] There's the sus two and the sus four. And all I have to do is lift my middle finger to get the sus [music] two. That's easy enough. And then all I have to do to get the sus four is I have to put my pinky down on that third fret first string. >> [music] >> That's called a D sus four. It's a suspended fourth. So there's the sus four, [music] there's the sus two, and then there's the D. And so you can see that my index finger, my ring finger stay locked down. The only thing that's moving is my middle finger and my pinky. All right, so now what I'm going to do is apply some of this to the rhythm that we've just learned. So we'll keep the same cadence going with the right hand. But now I can
8:24 >> [music] >> like I can lift my middle finger there. Then you can start to hear a melody that's happening with the rhythm. You're doing kind of both parts at the same time. Even though your right hand isn't doing anything new, just by lifting that middle finger in that one spot, it's creating a difference in the notes. >> [music] >> And notice I put it back down. >> [music] >> So just practice this. Now you've also got your pinky, so you can add that in if you want. Check this out. >> [music] >> You can hammer on like that.
9:10 So there's all kinds of little things you can do with the sus two and sus four chord off of that D shape. The same is true for your A chord. We're going to skip the G chord. We're just going to play the G chord as is. But for your A chord like this, I can lift my ring finger >> [music] >> to get the A sus two. I can put down my pinky on the third fret second string to get the A sus [music] four. And that will give me the same kind of melody variations off of this A. So, [music] look at this. >> [music] >> Just play around with some of those. Lift your finger and leave it up >> [music] >> for the sus2 or put the sus4 down and leave it down.
9:57 >> [music] >> Notice the strum pattern is that [music] same one though. I haven't changed that. >> [music] >> Now, we'll go back to the one chord. So, now, let's take those ideas, the sus2 and the sus4 stuff, and I'm just going to improvise. I'll I'll tab it out so you have that, but I'm going to improvise a little melody using what I just showed you there. And I think of this as level three. All right, so check this out. >> [music]
10:43 [music] >> Isn't that pretty? It sounds like a song already. So, that's the idea then. It's starting to just take shape and instead of you going like >> [music] >> you know, the kind of thing that you might be compelled to do in the beginning. I mean, that's what we all do at some point, you know? But instead of doing that, this gives you some some nuance and some some dynamics to your playing. It makes it sound a lot a lot prettier and just a lot more professional, I guess. Maybe that's the word. Um the last little thing I want to add to this is uh so adding some extra chords. And one that happens a lot is
11:29 when you go to the four chord you can all and you can do this in any key. This is not just something we do here in the key of D. But the four-chord in this key is our G chord. But before I go to that G chord, I can always play its four-chord. So, the four-chord [music] of G, this is outside of the key of D. We're just thinking literal now. A G chord, what is the four-chord of a G? If we're playing in the key of G, the four-chord [music] would be C, right? So, I can play that C o- off of the G, and I can go back and forth. All right, so here's a quick example of that. Here's my D. >> [music] >> Here's my G. Notice I went G, >> [music] >> C, G. I pivoted from the one from that G chord to its four-chord and back to the
12:15 G. And that's that thing I talk about all the time, that kind of gospel blues piano thing, where you're hanging out on a chord, you can play that chord and then its four-chord, and just go back and forth. And it works great if you're hanging out on a chord for a long period of time. If it's a quick change, you don't have time to do a lot of that. But uh so, in that example, I went to the G and then played the C. I can also, instead of me doing it that way, I can play the C first >> [music] >> and then go to the G. And that's what we're going to do. So, check this out. Here's our D. >> [music] >> C. Down to the G. Then we can go to the A. And back to the D. Isn't that kind of a nice >> [music] >> little
13:01 added chord? Now, you wouldn't necessarily have to do it every time, but it is kind of nice to weave that in there. >> [music] >> Sometimes I hear it done that way, where it's a sort of a quick change. So, the timing can change if you want, but the idea is you're playing the four-chord of that G. >> [music] [music] >> Back to my D. Um the other idea, uh let me just give you two more, is instead of me playing the A for the five chord, [music] what I can do is I can play that G, which remember the G is our four chord, I can play the the four minor. So, I can play a G,
13:46 >> [music] >> a G minor, and then back to the D. That's kind of a Beatles move, the Beatles would do that quite a bit. They'd have played the four chord, the four minor, and then back to the one. So, here's what that sounds like, it's very pretty. >> [music] >> Here's my G, watch this. Isn't that cool? That's a nice change, instead of me playing the five chord, which is a very high tension, this is a different kind of tension. It it's still tension, but it's a it just pulls it in a different direction. And you can also add your pinky to that fifth fret first string. >> [music] >> As a little embellishment off of that G minor.
14:31 And that kind of works nice because it kind of plays into the whole melody line. So, watch this. >> [music] >> That you can hear the melody. And it's coming out of those chords. The last example I want to give you, instead of playing that uh that G minor, is you can play a G diminished seven. >> [music] >> That's another nice little uh tension chord. All of this stuff is tension, that's all music is anyway, it's just tension and release. You can boil down everything that you've ever heard and liked in music, it's just tension and release. So, here's my D. Here's my G, watch this G diminished
15:18 seven. >> [music] >> That's another kind of variation instead of me playing the A, >> [music] >> the A7, I can play that diminished seventh chord. It creates a different kind of tension and then I can resolve it back to the D. All right, so I hope you picked up a few ideas in this. Remember I have a part two video where I show you how to play in different keys. So we could >> [music] >> I show you how to play up and down the fretboard. So we're not locked down into these sort of cowboy chords, but we can now apply this to really any chord shape. And you can apply that to minor chords as well. All right, leave a comment below and let me know if this has been a breakthrough, if you've had
16:03 any sort of light bulb moments. I always love reading those. It It's sort of It helps me know what's resonating and what isn't. And if you've got questions about anything, you can leave those too. I do read through all the comments. All right, we'll see you in part two.
