Performance notes below…

Riff 1:

* Dsus2

Riff 2:

* Asus2

Song:

* undelined D/F#

See performance notes…

Performance Notes:

On the first part of the song the ‘*‘ indicate a Dsus4.

The ‘*‘ underlined in red indicates a Dsus2.

On the second part of the song the ‘*‘ indicates an Asus2.

See performance notes below…

Or play with you own strum

Performance Notes:

This is the verse section it’s tempo has a fast count

1   2   3   4   1   2   3   +  4  +

as you can see each chord stretches over 2 bars…

Give it a bouncy feel getting louder toward the end of the strum on the 3+4+

The Chorus section that follows uses the same strum…

See performance notes or play with your own strum…

Strum: 1  2 + 3  4   1  2 + 3 + 4 +

D underlined in red can be replaced with D/F#

Please read performance notes below…

or play with your own strum ideas.

Performance Notes:

Verse:

Strum: 1  2 + 3  4   1  2 + 3 + 4 +

* indicates an ‘Asus2′

Chorus:

Strum: 1  2 + 3  4   1  2 + 3 + 4 +

* indicates an ‘Asus4′

Check notes below…

As you can see on the up strums an * this indicates an ‘Asus2′ chord should be played.

The following is the structure of the song from which the riff is taken.

You should see the word ‘Riff’ written in six bars this is because the riff is 2 bars long.

The ‘Riff’ is repeated 3 times before it goes to the Em

Songwriting is not a science. Let’s get that straight.

Neither is there a formula for writing a ‘hit’ song.

But there are exercises in writing that can tune your ears.

Noodling around with chords until you find something that sits right with your tastes is more valuable than any amount of formal training.

So let’s start with the I, IV, V principle.

Chords In The Key Of C

Take the I, IV and V chords.

This gives us:

C, F, G

Ok now let’s make our chord progression and add a simple strum.

If you’ve read the previous articles on ‘Basic Strumming’ you should now be confident enough to try a more interesting strum.

So let’s try it out, using the chords you feel most comfortable with try the following strum pattern.

If your not getting it try counting ‘1 2 3 4′ before you start.

A good tip is to clap the beats first.

Start with ‘1 2 3 4′ , try and maintain the beat,

Click play to hear beat.

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now try ‘1 2+ 3 4′

Click play to hear beat.

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Now try it using chords you are comfortable with.

Or try the following example:

A D A E - 1 2 + 3 4

Please read Basics of Strumming Part 1 first.

Once you are confident to count a beat and keep it regular  the next step is to introduce the half beat.

If 4/4 has 4 beats to the bar then there are 8 half beats to a bar.

The pattern below  is 2 bars long and so has 16 half beats in  total:

As you can see in the picture above the ‘+’ is played using an’up’ strum.

Where the strum featured in Part 1 is counted ‘1 2 3 4′

This strum is counted ‘1+2+3+4+’, the strumming should be regular as before.

Try it using chords you are comfortable with changing.

It can sound a bit messy but it is good practice for the ‘up’ strum.