Alabama Shakes: You Ain't Alone

Free guitar lesson

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This soulful track from Alabama Shakes is a great 6/8 style piece that borrows a lot from soul records across the years but adds a unique and very dynamic touch. It's great fun to learn!

Chords: The Main Chord Shapes

This is a great song to practice your barre chord shapes (whether you play them as full bars or even Hendrix style thumb over chords). The main chords in the song are pictured here.

The rhythm 6/8 groove!

The rhythm pattern is a classic slow blues or soul groove. You simply hit the first beat and the 4th beat. To be more specific though, you strum the first beat, let it ring out and then 'chop' the 4th beat (making the sound stop straight away). Here is that rhythm pattern. We also use arpeggios a lot during the rhythm, which is a classic way to pick in soul music. Franco guides you through that clearly in the video.

Bridge: Chromatic chords

We have a really cool section of the song, which we can call the bridge. We literally take the F major barre chord, and gradually move it up the neck until you get to C. Again, great practice for your barre chords. Check out the neck diagram below and hover over each chord shape to see it!



    Keep Learning: CAGED Chords

    Many thanks for watching this video and visiting the website. If some of these chord ideas and where they came from went straight over your head, or you want to understand them a little better, you're in luck! We have a course that is, as with all our course, 100% free and ready for you to use, including interactive tab! See the course here: CAGED Chord Guitar Course.

All done?

Congratulations

You've now completed Song Jukebox: Alabama Shakes and taken a huge step forwards in your guitar playing journey.

Feel free to bask in glory for a while, or go ahead and try another course if you're hungry for more.