The Only Guitar Lesson Beginners Actually Need (Start Here)

0:00 Welcome to my four [music] chord freedom series. Four chords, one repeatable system. And by the end of this, you won't just be able to play a full song, but you'll be able to play all the classic songs that [music] follow the same four chord model. No music theory, no years of lessons, just a system that works. My name is Michael Rice and I run the largest guitar community on school. And I've helped thousands of complete beginners go from frustrated to actually playing the songs they love without a single bit of music theory. And I've personally been playing guitar since I was seven years old. And I spent the last three years traveling and performing live. So learning songs was my actual job. And in this series, I've condensed everything I learned in that time to help you build the same confidence to play all your favorite

0:46 songs and maybe even sing along without any music theory. So here's the plan. It's four short episodes. This one gets your foundation set. Episode two, you'll learn the four [music] essential chords and how to switch between them with ease. Episode 3 is all about strumming and rhythm. And I promise to make that way simpler than you've been told. And in episode 4, we'll put it all together and play a full song start to finish. That's it. Four episodes, one system to get you playing for real. And [music] even if you're a total beginner, this series will completely transform your playing. If you've tried before and quit, that wasn't a U problem. It was [music] an order problem. And each episode focuses on one thing in the right order, so you're not overwhelmed trying to stack [music] strumming on top of chord switching, which usually breaks

1:32 the minds of most beginners. And if you stick it through to the third episode, you're going to be strumming a natural rhythm, the kind where people watching just assume you're a pro. Now, before we touch the guitar, I just want one thing from you. A small commitment. This works if you give it 10, [music] 15 minutes a day. That's all. Progress on guitar isn't about getting it perfect right away. It's about consistency and picking the guitar back up even when you don't get it right away. Almost [music] everyone who quits quits right before it starts to click and right before it starts to get really fun. So, don't aim for perfect. Aim for showing up. So, here's my ask. Drop a comment below right now [music] and just tell me that you're in or that you're committed or that you're ready. That's your line in the sand. It also lets us cheer you on as you go. All right, so let's get you set up. So, let's start with how to hold

2:18 the guitar. Sit nice and relaxed. Just rest the guitar on your thigh, [music] tucked into the curve of the body. You want to keep it roughly in line with your torso, kind of parallel. And you want to tilt it slightly just so [music] you don't have to hunch over and, you know, mess up your posture. Now, let's talk about your fretting hand. And this matters a lot. First things first, you want to keep your elbow at roughly 90° with an open [music] palm. Okay, now let's talk about grip. And this one's really important. So, start with an open palm. And if you look at your hand, you're going to see this kind of meaty part right underneath your thumb. And that's the part that we want to be gripping the guitar neck with. A lot of people will drive that thumb into the back of the fretboard, but that's just creating a lot of unwanted tension. It's called death gripping. So instead, we're just going to have a nice solid grip just hugging the fretboard with that meaty part of our thumb with [music] our

3:03 thumb just on top. All right. Next is string pressure. And this is something that's going to save your fingers because you need way less pressure than you think. So here's a quick test. Just take any of your fingers and place it on any string, any fret, and just apply very, very light pressure. almost like you're not touching at all. Then start strumming that string and then slowly increase pressure until it rings clean. That's how hard you press. That's it. Any harder and you're just hurting yourself for no reason and causing finger pain. But don't get me wrong, your fingertips will be a little tender in the first week or so, that's totally normal. You're just building light calluses. It will fade fast. If you press only as hard as you need to, it'll barely be an issue. And if it still feels like brutally hard to press those strings down, you might want to consider checking your guitar's [music] action,

3:48 which is basically just the distance from the strings to the fretboard. Sometimes it's set pretty high, which makes it a lot harder to press. You can take it to any guitar shop and they'll fix it for you for super cheap. All right, next. Let's go through the strings and the frets. They're good to know just so you're never lost when I name something. So, the thickest string is the top string. That's the sixth string. And it moves all the way down to the first string, which is the [music] thinnest string. And each string has corresponding notes starting with the E string, the A string, the [music] D string, the G string, the B string, and then back to the E string. And a good acronym to remember is Eddie ate dynamite. Goodbye, Eddie. This stuff is easy to remember, but it's not required to memorize right the second. Now, the metal bars that you

4:33 see on the guitar [music] neck are what we call frets. And when I say second fret, just know that it's the space between the first and the second metal bars. That's all you need for now. Now, tuning is the last [music] thing. And don't skip this. Make sure you're in tune. You could be the best guitar player alive, but an out of tune guitar is still going to sound bad. I like to grab one of these clip-on tuners. And then you can see if I play the E string, it'll recognize it. And you can see I'm a little bit low there. Now I'm in tune. [music] Easy as that. You can also grab a free tuning app. Uh there's a bunch of different ones to choose from, but super easy. Just make sure you're in tune. So, that's your whole foundation. Posture, relaxed, thumb resting, light on top, light pressure on those strings, and in [music] tune. Took 5 minutes, and you're already ahead of most beginners. And a quick heads up for the song that we're going to be learning. We're actually going to be using a capo on the second

5:20 fret. You don't need it right now, and we'll go through how to use it in episode 4, but if you don't have one, you can grab one off Amazon for super cheap. But the cool thing about the capo is that it lets you use the same chord shapes up the whole neck. So, it literally unlocks thousands of songs. Uh, just this little thing right here. So, it's definitely worth the five or 10 bucks. Now, [music] the next video is where this is going to get really fun. We're going to be learning the four essential chords being the G, C, E minor, and D. These four unlock thousands of songs, including the one we're building towards. Now, I'll show you the standard open version of these chords, but I'm also going to give you an option [music] of what I call the anchored chords. a slightly different way to play those same four chords that [music] makes switching between them way easier. And you'll get to choose which path feels right for you. So, get your

6:06 guitar, get tuned, get comfortable, and I'll see you in episode two. All right, welcome back. This is the episode where it starts to feel real. By the end, you'll know the four chords and you'll be switching between them. And these are the same four chords that unlock thousands of songs, including the one we're building towards. So, here's the plan. First, I'm going to show you what a chord actually is and how to quickly read a chord diagram so you're never confused again. Then, I'll teach you all the four chords, starting with the standard way and an easier to switch between variation of those chords that makes chord switching so simple. Then, I'll give you a trick that kills all that buzzing sound that you might be hearing. And we'll finish off with a chord switching drill to make it all automatic. So, let's get into it. All right, so first, what even is a chord?

6:51 Well, to give you the simple version, a chord is just a few notes played together that sound good as a group. That's it. When you press a few strings down in a certain shape and then [music] strum those strings, they ring together and your ears hear it as one full sound. Now, you don't need to know the theory behind why they sound good. That's the whole point of this. You just need to learn the shapes. If you just learn a handful of those shapes, you can play basically all the songs in your playlist. Now, before I show you the chords, let's quickly break down a chord diagram because every chord I show you lives inside of one of these. So, when you see one of these diagrams, I want you to picture the neck as if it were standing straight up. Now, the vertical lines you see are the strings, and those horizontal lines are the frets. The thick string on the left is your low six

7:37 string, and the thin one on the right is your high or your first string. Now, those dots you see tell you where to put your fingers. And the number on each of those dots tell you what finger to use. Your fingers are numbered 1 through 4, starting with your index as one, your middle as two, your ring is three, and your pinky is number four. So, a two means put your middle finger there. Now, two more symbols. Now, if you see an O above a string on the chord diagram, that just means open. [music] Play it open. Let it ring. No finger there. It just means that you strum that string without a finger needing to be on that string. Now, if you see an X, it means don't [music] play that string at all. That's all it is. So, that's the whole language. Once you can read this, you can teach yourself basically any chord on the internet. Now, here's one thing that I want you thinking about from the

8:22 very first chord. Finger placement matters way more than you think. And here's why. A chord never lives alone. It's always moving to the next one. So, the goal shouldn't be just to play a chord however feels comfortable for you in that moment. It's to place your fingers in a way that makes getting to [music] the next chord easy. We're going to set our fingers up for efficiency from the start, so switching feels smooth instead of like a fight. So, keep that in the back of your mind. And just know if you follow my finger placement, you'll be fully taken care of. All right, so let's learn the four chords. I'm going to teach the standard open versions first. These are the most common and the most transferable shapes that you'll see everywhere. But if they feel too challenging, don't worry because after I'm going to show you a much simpler way to play these four chords that only involves moving two

9:08 fingers. All right, so we're going to start this off with the G chord. So for the G chord, what we're going to do is again take our thumb, place it on the top of the neck for a nice comfortable grip. We're going to start by placing our middle finger on the second fret A string. All right. Then we're going to place our ring finger on the third fret E string. And then we're going to take our pinky finger on the third fret high E string. All right. So, we have these three fingers here. Now, if your pinky feels a little bit uncomfortable there, that's okay. It's going to feel a little bit weird at first, but just know that that pinky will build more strength. So, if you look on that G chord diagram, there's no X's, which means we strum all [music] six strings. Now, stay right here for a second because you're probably hearing some buzzing. And I'm going to fix that for you right now. So, buzzing just means that your fingers are making contact with strings that they're

9:53 not supposed to. So, here's the fix. All you're going to want to do is roll your knuckles forward slightly. Not too much where your wrist is super collapsed, but just enough where you can create space between those strings so they're not making contact with the wrong ones. The goal is to see more of those 90° angles on your finger joints so they create space between the strings. And the simplest cue is if you hear buzz, just roll your hand and knuckles forward. That's it. Now, a great way to just practice these chord shapes one by one is what I call the forming exercise. So, all you're going to do is start with an open hand and then form that chord. Open form. Open form. Just try to place those fingers all at the same time and build that muscle memory and that neural connection in your mind so it becomes automatic. This is going to take time, but this is a great way to do it. All right, so we got the G chord down. Next

10:40 is the C chord. So, if we take our fingers off for a second, all we're going to do for the C chord is basically place our ring finger here on the third fret A string. And then we're going to place our middle finger, the string below on the D string on the second fret. And lastly, we're going to take our index finger on that first fret B string. So [music] we have, and you can see on that C chord diagram that there is an X on that [music] top or six string. So we're just going to strum the bottom five strings. There's your C. So we got two chords down. And you can practice if you want going back and forth between the G and the C. I like to keep that index finger almost like hovering over that first fret just so it's easy and nice and quick. All right, next is the E minor chord. And this is the easiest one of them all. So

11:27 all we're going to do for the E minor is place our middle finger here on the second fret. And that's going to be the A string. And then we're going to place our ring finger on the string below on the same fret. All right. So for the E minor chord, you can see there's no X. So we're going to strum all six strings. There's your E minor. So, so far we got G, C, and E minor. The last chord is the D chord. And I'll give you a couple ways to play this because the way that I play it is different than a lot of beginners. So, the way that I play the D chord looks like this. Starting with your index finger here on the first string on the high E string. And then we're going to take our middle finger, two strings above that on the same fret. And then we're going to take our ring finger, the fret next to it on the B string. So we

12:13 have All right. And you can see on the D chord diagram that there is an X on the top two strings. So we're just going to strum the bottom four strings for this one. Now some beginners like to play the D chord like this instead. [music] And all I did there is basically just switch these two fingers around. So my middle finger is on that bottom E string [music] and my index finger is on that G string. So first version, second version. [music] Super simple. Just pick whatever one works better for you. And again, if you're getting any buzz on any of these chords, just roll those knuckles in that hand forward [music] and you should hear a nice clean chord. So that's your four. We have G, C, E minor, and D. Those four chords unlock literally thousands of songs. So we're going to start with that

12:59 and we're going to build our foundation from here. Now, I promised you a different way to play those same four chords that make switching between them super easy. And I call these chords the anchored chords. So the idea is simple. All we're going to do is place our ring and our pinky finger on the third fret on the second and first [music] strings. All right? And we're going to keep those fingers anchored for all four of these chords. So, they're slightly different than the version that we just learned, but it makes switching [music] between the chords super simple cuz you're only moving your middle and your index fingers. So, let's start with that G chord. So, once these two fingers are anchored, we're going to start by placing our middle finger here on the third fret, low E string. And then we're gonna place our index on the A string just below on the second fret. All

13:44 right. And we're gonna get a nice clean [music] G chord. Strumming all six strings. Moving from the G chord down to the C chord. All we're going to do is move these fingers down one string each. That's it. So from G to C. That's all it is to get us a C add9. But again, we can just call it C for this example. So G [music] to C. Next is the E minor. All we're going to do for the E minor is swap these two fingers around to kind of get a staircase. So index, middle, ring, pinky. And again, we're going to strum all six strings. All right. Lastly, we have the D chord or the Dsus4 in this example. So all we're going to do is basically place our middle finger on that second fret G string. And we're going to strum the bottom four strings. All right. So G, C,

14:36 E minor, D. The only trade-off with these chords is they sound a little bit similar to each other since we do have [music] that ring and pinky finger anchored. The other chords are a bit more distinct, but those anchored chords still sound beautiful and they're so much [music] easier to switch between. So try both of those sets and commit to one for the rest of the series. Whichever one you choose, that's your set. Consistency is what builds the muscle memory. So make the call now and stick with it. If you're unsure, just go with the open chords and drop down to the anchored chords if it feels too tricky at any point. And at the end, I'll make sure to include playthroughs for both versions. Now, let's make those chord switches automatic. This is the exercise that changes everything. Forming chords is one thing, but switching between them on time is the real skill. So, we're going

15:22 to isolate just that. All right. So, here's the drill. We're going to switch chords on every other click. So you play a chord, [music] let it ring, and on the next click you switch, and then you play the chord on the following click after that. So if I set my metronome to 60 BPM, we'll do chord, click, chord, click, and then repeat. So to keep your practice most efficient, we're going to practice switching those chords in the order that they show up in the song, which is G, E minor, C, and D. [music] So let's start with those first two chords. start the metronome and then we can go G click E minor [music] click G G click E minor click giving your fingers plenty of time to make that switch. Now, if you're using the anchored chords,

16:08 that would look something like this. G [music] click, E minor click, G click, E minor [music] click. Then you can move on to the next pair, which would be E minor and C, right? >> [music] >> E minor C or that would be E minor C E minor [music] C if you're using the anchored chords. Then the last pair would be C to D C to D or using the anchored pair C D C D. Once you're confident switching all these pairs, you can put it together and use the metronome to get a full chord progression that sounds like this. G click, E minor click, C click, D [music]

16:55 click. Or if you're using the anchored chords, G click, E minor click, C click, D click. Again, you guys don't have to start it at 60 BPM. I just like 60 because it's 1 beat per second, which is more familiar to your brain cuz it's just a second each click. All right. Hey [music] everyone, this is Michael from the future. I wanted to pop on here because I recently built something that I think is really going to help you with these chord [music] switches. So, if you look below the video, you'll see a link that says practice tool exercises free trial. So, if you press that link, [music] it'll take you to a free trial of my new guitar interactive practice app where you can see a full visual of the chord switches with a metronome built in. So, [music] it's all in one place. And you can actually switch

17:42 between the anchored chords and the open chords with this button up here. So, whatever path you choose, you can, you know, try both. And if you press start, it's going to count you in G [music] E minor, C, D. So, it's the exact same exercise. And if you get confident, you can always increase the speed. You can pull it back if you want to slow it down. So, it's a really cool way to see a full visual while you're practicing. And if you like this practice tool, I actually built an entire 30-day transformation with over a 100 exercises using this practice tool, starting from easy [music] and progressively working towards more advanced exercises that get you fluent in your first 30 days. If you want to check that out, I'll leave a link below. Also included with premium is my song accelerator where I break down all the

18:29 classic songs with full playthroughs, chord switching, and strumming exercises, and even lyrics for you to sing along with. [music] But more on that later. Back to the video. All right. So, here's your homework. Spend 10 or 15 minutes practicing forming and switching those four chords being the G, E minor, [music] C, and D. Ideally, in that order, because that's the way it shows up in the song. And listen, if your fingers are feeling clumsy today, that's completely normal. Every single guitarist started exactly here. The time you spend on these chords is the most valuable time in the whole series, so don't rush it. The next video is the fun one, strumming and rhythm. and I'm going to show you why you never have to memorize a single strumming pattern ever again. I'll see you there.

19:14 Welcome to the most important video in this whole series. So, you've got your chords, you can switch between them. Now, we add the thing that turns those chords into actual music, [music] strumming and rhythm. So, here's the plan. First, I'll fix your strumming mechanics so you know how to hold the pick and move your wrist so it sounds smooth instead of stiff. Then I'll teach you rhythm in the simplest way you've ever heard it. And by the end, you'll have the exact strumming pattern for our song, [music] and you'll have built it yourself. And here's my promise. By the end of this video, you won't need to memorize a single strumming pattern ever again. Because once you understand what I'm about to show you, every pattern just falls out of it. So stick with me. This is the part that changes [music] everything. So before rhythm, we have to get the mechanics right. And it all

19:59 starts with how you hold the pick. But don't worry, after this I'll show you how to strum with just your fingers if you prefer that way. So, the number one thing is to hold the pick loose. Almost everyone holds the pick way too [music] tight in the beginning because it feels like it's going to fly out of your hand. But here's the thing. If it feels like it's about to slip out of your hand, that's exactly right. Why? Because a loose pick lets the pick glide across the strings. Right? That clean, smooth sound you're chasing [music] comes from the pick gliding, not snapping. So, if you're hearing a super harsh twang on your strums, that's your answer, right? You're gripping that pick way too [music] tight. So, loosen it up and the twang will disappear. Now, maybe you don't have a pick or you just prefer strumming with your fingers. [music] That's totally fine. Plenty of players

20:45 strum without one, and I even did myself for a while before [music] I started using picks. But everything in this series works exactly the same whether you're using a pick or you're using your finger. The simplest way to strum with your finger is just to take your index finger and strum [music] down with the nail and then strum up with like that fleshy part of your fingertip. So it's [music] down, up, down, up. You can also use your thumb to support your finger if you want. But one thing I'll say is if you are using your finger, you might want to have a bit of a longer nail just so you're not doing too much damage to your fingertip. But again, you want that finger to be coming down nice and loose, gliding across those strings, [music] not again like making super sharp contact. So whether you've got a pick or you're using your fingers, the mechanics

21:31 are identical. It's all about that loose gliding motion, pick or no pick. The second piece is the wrist. And most people think that strumming [music] comes from like the whole arm moving, which it does to some degree, but that natural sound comes from the rotation of your wrist with just a little bit of help from the elbow. And here's the easiest way to find that motion for yourself. Let your strumming hand just kind of sit limp, almost like it's asleep. And then just flick it back and forth like you're trying to flick a piece of food off it, loose and floppy. That's it. That's the motion. And now you can just take that same motion and apply [music] it to the strings with a pick or just with your finger. That's the motion, right? All you got to do is this. And then you can apply it to the strings, right? That's all we're going for. Loose

22:16 and floppy is better than stiff and rigid. [music] So, loose pick or finger and loose wrist. That's the entire foundation. Okay. Now, the big one, rhythm. Here's where almost everyone goes wrong. And it's not their fault. Most people learn strumming patterns. You know, [music] first it's down, down, up, down, up, and they memorize these directions before understanding rhythm. [music] And it's what makes their playing sound stiff and robotic. They're so busy thinking, is it down, down, [music] or or up down? and they stop hearing the actual rhythm that's underneath. So, let me reframe the whole thing. Your strumming hand has one job, to keep time. Think of it like a drummer's arm or a metronome. It's not just there to hit strings. It's there to keep a steady beat going no matter what.

23:02 And here's the key idea, the one thing that I want you to walk away with. Every strumming pattern lives inside one constant motion of down, up, down, up, [music] down, up, down, up, down, up, and it never stops. Watch my hand closely. I'm gonna play three different strumming patterns all using the exact same motion. So, we can start with to get a or [music] maybe you get the idea. A strumming pattern isn't a new thing you learn. It's just this motion where you remove your pick from the strings on certain beats. But that hand keeps moving the whole time. You're not adding strums, you're

23:48 subtracting them. This section may be the most important in the whole series. So, it's worth re-watching if you didn't catch it all. So, let's build the actual pattern for our song. And we're going to build it by subtraction the way I just described. So, let's first start with the motion. Let's just set our metronome to 60 BPM for now. And we're not going to do any strumming yet. All we're going to do is just focus on that motion. So try to hit down on the clicks and then up in between. So down, down, down. Just follow that for a little while. Just lock in that internal clock. Down, down, down, down. Just try to get it right on time. So once you got that motion going, just let your finger or your pick make contact with the strings. So we have down, up, down, up, [music] down, up.

24:36 You shouldn't be plucking the strings yet, just gliding. [music] So this is your foundation and once it's set, we're going to build the pattern by subtraction. Okay. So let's split this pattern into two halves. So let's first focus on the first half. So let's just start by making a G chord for example. Uh whatever chord is easiest for you to hold. Maybe it's the E minor C. I'm just going to use the G chord. So all we're going to do is do that down up down up motion. So down up [music] down up. And since we're splitting that pattern in half, we're going to focus on just those four. down, up, down, [music] up. So for the first half of this strumming pattern, all we're going to do is remove contact from that first up. So we have [snorts] down, miss, down, [music] up, down miss down up down miss down

25:22 up. But the motion doesn't stop. So for the second half, all we're going to do is miss that first downstrum to get a miss, up, down, [music] up, miss, up, down, up, up, down, up. Now, if we put the whole strumming pattern together, we're going to get a down, miss, [music] down up miss up down up down miss, [music] down, up, miss, up, down, up. Now, if you want to use my visual for this one, just press the premium strumming drills here, and you'll get the first half, the second half, and the full pattern, which is so helpful for playing along. So, if we press here, you can select a chord at the top if you want. I just put the anchored ones by default, but let's just use a G chord. Get that motion locked in. Down, down,

26:08 up up down up down down up up down, up, down, [music] down, up, up, down, up. And like always, you can increase the speed with this little slider below. And that's just the best way to do it. Using this tool should help a ton with your strumming to get it right on time. So, let's set our metronome to 60 and work through it one more time, starting with the motion with the full pattern. Let's try it. Down, down up [music] up down up down down up up [music] down, up, down, down, up, up, down up. You hear that? That is a real strumming pattern, and you just built it yourself. You didn't memorize a thing. You just took the constant motion and remove

26:53 contact in the right spots. So, stop for a second and just realize what happened. You're holding chords. You're strumming a real rhythm. and you understand why it works, which means you can build any pattern from here, not just this one. This is a massive win. And most people really never get to this point because they got stuck memorizing the patterns. All right, so your homework is simple. Just practice this pattern. Just get the motion constant and play it until it feels automatic. Once your strumming hand knows what to do, you can start switching chords while strumming. And that's exactly what we'll start in the next episode right before we play a full song. So, in the next video, we'll put everything together and play the full song start to finish, and I'll reveal what song we've been working towards this whole time. I'll see you guys there. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the series so far. Um, I put a lot of work into this, so I'd appreciate it so

27:40 much if you could hit that like and subscribe button. And if you enjoy this style of learning, I have a whole community where I use classic songs to break down concepts that turn you into a fluent guitar player. And since you already have the basics down, you can just jump right in, choose a song from my list, press play, and follow the chords, the strumming at whatever speed you're ready for. And there's tons more inside, but if you want to check it out, it's the pinned comment or the first link in the description. All right, let's jump into episode 4. All right, so this is it, the final episode. By the end, you're going to be playing a full song start to finish. So, I'm going to reveal the song and I'm going to show you the one progression that unlocks it. And then we'll build it piece by piece until you can play the whole thing. And here's the crazy part. This song uses one progression that repeats the entire way through. Four chords, 1 2 3 4

28:28 repeat. So the second you can play it, you've unlocked the whole song. Not most of it, all of it. That's how close you are right now. So the song that we've been building toward is Stand by Me. One of the most recognizable songs ever written. And the entire thing is built on our four chords and one simple repeating pattern. You learn this one progression and you've got the whole song down. And when you play it for someone, they'll know it instantly. All right. So, the one chord progression that repeats the entire way through, start to finish, is G to E [music] minor, E minor to C [music] to D, back to G, and then it repeats. And that's it. It's the four chords that we learned on a

29:14 loop. So, that's what you're going to be able to play by the end of this series. So, now let's break it down piece by piece and quick setup because this method is going to make the whole thing click. We're going to be using a metronome at 60 BPM. And if that feels too fast, just drop it down to like 40 or 50. There's no ego here. Slower means cleaner, and clean is what we want. So, here's how we'll attack each piece. Start on the first chord and get your metronome going. Then, we're going to start that strumming pattern that we learned in the last episode, just on that one chord. No switching yet. Now the first two chords are G to E minor. So we're going to start by placing our fingers on the G chord and then we'll start the metronome. Let's first get that motion constant. So downstrums on that click. Down. Then we're going to start our strumming pattern. So we have down up

30:03 down up down up [music] down up. So once you get comfortable with just one chord, at the end of the down down up up down down up, you're going to switch to the next chord, which is the E [music] minor. And the trick here and the challenge is to keep that hand going while you're making that switch. So really focus on just getting that one strumming pattern down on one chord and make it automatic because once you start thinking about chord switching and strumming, your brain can't do both. So you have to get that strumming automatic on just that first chord. Once you're there, you can move to the next chord. So, let's try it from G to E minor. Down, up, up, down, [music] up, down, down, up, up, down, up. E minor, down,

30:50 up, up, down, up. [music] And if you're using the anchored chords, you're going to be going G to E minor, G to E [music] minor. G [music] to E minor. All right. So now I'm going to go through the full progression starting with the open chords and then after the anchored chords. So if you want to follow along with the app, you can. That's what I'll be following along with here. So starting with the open chords, we're starting on the G. Let's lock in that motion. So we have G up down [music] up G

31:37 up down up E minor [music] up down C up down up D up down up back to G up down up and That's it. That's the whole song start to finish. Just repeating that same loop. Now, let's practice the anchored version. Down, down, [music] up, up, down, up, G. Down, up, up to [music] E minor. up down up G to C,

32:23 [music] D to G, G, and that's it. All right, now that you got the full progression, let's jump into the full song play through. And for this playth through, we're going to pop our capo on the second fret. That just basically moves up the end of the neck two frets, which [music] increases the pitch slightly, but the shapes stay exactly the same. So, we still get G, E minor, [music] C, D. And if you don't have a cable right now, you can still play along. It'll just sound slightly off pitch. All right, so let's put it all together and play Standby Me start to finish. And before you start, I'd recommend using

33:08 that little gear icon down there to increase the speed. If you press it and then press playback speed, it'll give you a menu where you can select the speed. I recommend 0.75. That's 75% of the actual speed. Maybe even 0.5 if you want to start really slow and then increase it as you get more comfortable. That goes for all the playthroughs. Makes it a lot easier to just start wherever you're comfortable and then work your way up. All right, so let's jump into the open chords play through. But don't worry, after I'm going to do a full playthrough for the anchored chords. Heat. [music]

33:55 Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. [music]

34:48 >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. [music]

35:40 [music] Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. Heat.

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37:25 >> Heat. >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Hey,

38:10 hey hey. [music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music]

39:02 >> Heat. [music] [music] Heat.

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