Ex 5-4 Advice Wanted

MikeS

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
You seem to be adding extra strums. I think I noticed it when you switched to the C chord.
Are you playing along with Griff?
 
Paleo

Paleo

Student Of The Blues
Griff is stressing "pushing the beat", i.e. the chord change happens on an "and" upstroke.

You started out fine, then held that first G chord through the "and" so when you went to C you were on the beat with a downstroke.

From then on it sounds like a "normal" C-Am-Dm-G progression.

Demo to follow.
 
LeftyJohn

LeftyJohn

West Wiltshire/Exeter, UK
Hi Mike,

MikeS said:
You seem to be adding extra strums. I think I noticed it when you switched to the C chord.
Are you playing along with Griff?
Click to expand...

I don't think I'm adding any extra strums - am I missing something?

I'm not playing along with Griff on this one, I'll do that some more and try to slow down! :)

Regards, John
 
LeftyJohn

LeftyJohn

West Wiltshire/Exeter, UK
Hi Paleo,

Paleo said:
Griff is stressing "pushing the beat", i.e. the chord change happens on an "and" upstroke.

You started out fine, then held that first G chord through the "and" so when you went to C you were on the beat with a downstroke.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I follow, as I understand it the G is played on the "and" of beat 4 (held across the 1) and the "and" of beat 1. Then the percussive strum is on beat 2 with a C on the "and" of beat 2 and played on beat 3.

Do you mean I should change to the C on the "and" of beat two, rather than before doing the percussive downstroke?

Many thanks, John
 
Paleo

Paleo

Student Of The Blues
LeftyJohn said:
Do you mean I should change to the C on the "and" of beat two, rather than before doing the percussive downstroke?
Click to expand...


Yes, you change to C on the "and" of two (with an upstroke), but that follows the percussive downstroke on the rest of beat two


First I would suggest forgetting all about the rests and the percussions and simply get used to changing chords on the "and", i.e. upstroke rather than downstroke.

I would also suggest slowing down and counting out loud and emphasizing the "and" as you switch chords on the upstroke.

You started out fine, but then started playing on the beat with the C chord. This gave you an "extra" stroke as you then started each new chord on a downstroke.

This may or not help, but I'm stressing switching on the upstroke, i.e. pushing the beat.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/ieojhdogxn2xmcq/Lesson 5-4.mp4?dl=0
 
Last edited:
LeftyJohn

LeftyJohn

West Wiltshire/Exeter, UK
Hi Paleo,

Thanks that really helps, especially the video.

I'll work on that for a few days and hopefully come back later this week with some improvement.

Once again many thanks, it's very much appreciated.

Regards, John
 
R

Rick23

Blues Junior
Hi John, may be a little late with this but I struggled with this one too. I ended up writing out the count on the tab for this and playing and counting really slow, and just doing a rest without the percussive scratch until I was able to make sure my downs were down and ups were up. Then still slow, I added the scratch til it was comfortable, and finally increased the speed gradually. And for me, as soon as I stopped counting, I lost it, until I really had it down. This lesson took some time, but it sure comes in handy as you move on.
Rick
 
LeftyJohn

LeftyJohn

West Wiltshire/Exeter, UK
Thanks for the feedback everyone, I've worked on it some more, including counting without the percussive and focusing on the pushing the beat - thanks Paleo.

Here's an update on progress: https://youtu.be/X7TN5QxpCG0

I still need to slow down! Hopefully I'll get chance to practice during the day over the weekend (when I don't have to worry about disturbing kids bedtimes) and can play along with Griff's recording to work on that.

Regards, John
 
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