Essentials Part 3

New Chords

It's time to take another step up in difficulty by learning the last open chords we'll need for now. The new minor chords should be easy to pick up, but F major can be very tricky. We have provided you with two versions of the chord just in case you find the barred version a bit tough for now.

Changing Chords

As always, we will begin to practice by changing between these new chords to a beat. The chord chart is as shown below, and you should try to apply the "universal strumming pattern" to the changes as soon as you feel confident in doing so.

Swung Rhythms

Everything we have played up to this point has been "straight", rhythmically speaking. You could compare a straight rhythm to the sound of an army marching! 1-2-3-4! Perfectly uniform and consistent beats; the sound of an army marching is totally straight, just like everything we have played until now.

"Swung" rhythms, however, are somewhat like the sound of horses walking! This more uneven rhythmical sound is known as swing. If that's difficult to understand, don't worry! It's a difficult concept to describe in text alone, so let's simplify things by taking the universal pattern we're already familiar with and changing it to make it swung!

Changing Chords With Swing

Let's take a simple chord chart and the universal strumming pattern, and use it to compare straight and swung beats. Listen to the audio tracks below to hear the difference. Both tracks use the same chords and the same strumming pattern but sound different to each other. The chord chart and strumming pattern are as follows:

This concept can be really hard at first, as you train your ear to recognise the difference between the two rhythms. One of the best things to do to get used to the difference is simply to listen to well-known music that is either straight or swung. For example, blues music is almost always swung. Try a modern classic like "Sweet Home Chicago" by Robert Johnson to get a feel for that swung sound. On the other hand, most indie bands will play straight rhythms. For example, "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" by Arctic Monkeys. Take your time with this as the next tune we'll cover is going to be swung!

"Can't Hold Me Back"

This cool new tune is all about mastering swing! The song features a few new chord shapes and some tricky changes, but the rhythm is consistent throughout to help you perfect the swung sound. As with all the songs we cover on the course, there are a lot of possible distractions (vocals, keyboards, other guitars, etc...) but you need to learn to focus only on your part at these early stages, so this is great practice! Listen to the full song and then move on to the next lesson!

Intro & Verse

The first thing we will do is look at the intro and the verse. We will be playing the following four chords shown below in the chord chart, which can be found in the Chord Boxes Section as well.

Chord Chart & Rhythm

Handily, the intro and verse follow exactly the same chord progression! The only difference between the two is that the verse has vocals, but the intro doesn't. The rhythm is the good old universal strumming pattern!

Chorus

In the chorus, we are using some quite tricky chords and still moving at the same brisk pace, so it will be a challenge. The good news is that we're still following the universal pattern, which hopefully should be feeling very comfortable by now. So, the full chord chart, including the chorus part, can be found in the fretboard diagrams. Be sure to focus on the chords in the chart below before tackling the whole song!