![]() It’s a hard one to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you’re set for life. Using your strumming hand, press gently onto the strings, carefully finding the balance between not touching the strings, and muting them. Palm muting is a really helpful technique to get the hang of, as it can make pretty much anything sound cleaner and more mature. Give it a shot when your fingerstyle technique and arpeggios start to sound good though. The way Cohen uses a fingerstyle technique to produce the arpeggiation is very quick, and the addition of a bassline makes this even harder to replicate. You’ll probably be able to understand why this one is tricky from the first few seconds. Also, the most important thing in this accompaniment is the chromatic descent, so really make sure you accent those bass notes! One of the tips I’d give when learning this song is to build up the barre strength when playing those first few chords, as there’s nothing worse than hitting dud notes during your arpeggios. This is another track you’ll definitely be familiar with as a beginner guitarist, and those opening arpeggios are a staple, but they’re really helpful in building up your strength in the technique. We’ll start with something easy that I’ll walk you through, then you can try a harder one by yourself afterwards. ![]() Brush up on the technique if you need to.Īrpeggios often create quite a soft sound, so much of their usage is in acoustic music. This is a pretty easy concept to get your head around ( simply outline the chords you’re playing by playing them one note at a time rather than all together) but it’s a lot harder to pull off convincingly. One of my favourite ways to play chord is using arpeggiation. ![]() Listen out for where they thicken the texture in this track, which sounds complicated due to the rhythmic changes and dissonance, but is actually pretty simple to get the hang of. Robert Fripp loved using power chords in his compositions. As soon as you’ve perfected the power chord pattern, you’ll get used to this one quickly. We’ve even covered it before in the How To Play Chords guide… it’s that helpful! The best way to approach the fast power chord changes in this one is to have your 2 nd finger already flattened over the 3 rd fret so that changing strings will be easy, and prepare to move your other fingers around quickly to reach those changes. This is a nice example, because, much like the strumming in ‘Wonderwall’ above, the guitar starts out on its own and you can hear exactly what is going on. If you’re feeling confident, then have a go at teaching yourself the second one. The first example is easy enough to get the hang of, so I’ll show you it now. Rock music is always the first port of call when you’re looking for power chord examples. A power chord is a simple shape that covers the root, 5 th and octave of a chord and can be shifted up and down the neck, but if you need a bit more detail then take another look at How To Play Chords. It may take a while to get used to, but this one shouldn’t take too long to get used to!Ī power chord is pretty much the simplest way to approach chordal playing, especially when the distorted ringing of overdriven guitars won’t let open chords sound all that pleasant. Take a listen from about 0:17 and you’ll see what I mean. This is a difficult one, because the chord shapes you’ll be strumming are quite irregular, and the strumming pattern is very quick. The main pattern in this track is Em7-G-Dsus4-A7sus4, and my key pointers to give a convincing sound is to start with downward strums on the opening Em7, add a few upward strums when changing chords, and then make the A7sus4 mostly using upward strums. The important thing to remember when strumming a guitar, is that it’ll probably sound better if you make up your own pattern based around the original, rather than attempt to replicate it exactly. ![]() It has a distinctive strumming pattern that is particularly easy to follow, especially as it opens with the guitar on its own. I’m sure you’ve heard of this one, and you might have attempted it already as it’s a great beginner piece. Take a minute to let me take you through the first easy example, and then maybe stretch yourself an attempt the second one on your own! For a little more detail take a look at How To Play Chords.Īnyway, the two examples below are great examples of chord strumming in music. In short, it’s the technique of moving your pick/finger/hand across the strings while (typically) your fretting hand plays a chord shape. You’ll find strumming of some kind in pretty much any song with a guitar in it.
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