Rocking Out Guitar Lesson

Chapter 1: (00:25) Performance Please enjoy a short performance from Mark Lincoln. Chapter 2: (08:20) Review and Introduction

Review
- Warm-up the hands.
- Stretch the wrists.
- Play the major and minor open chords.
- Warm up your strumming muscles by relaxing the wrists and letting the pick flow over the strings.
- Play the E major chord in the new way and play the type 1 barre chords.
- Play the A major chord in the new way and play the type 2 barre chords.
- Practice the slanting A technique.
- Practice the type 1 minor barre chords.
- Practice the type 2 minor barre Chords.
- Play all of the type 1 mini-barre chords.
- Play all of the type 2 mini-barre chords.
- Review and practice quantitative and qualitative techniques.
- Review last week's exercises.

Ready?

Alright so we've spent numerous lessons and countless hours playing and strumming on the acoustic guitar. We've covered an amazing amount of ground in a relatively short period of time, right? But what about rockin' out a little more, huh? How can we pick up the energy a little bit and get some more sound and, well, umph out of the guitar? Well, one way to do this is through strum technique. Simply put, increasing tempo and add intensity. Today we'll talk about some cool new strums and revisit some techniques that we covered briefly earlier in the series.

Let's take a look at a couple of chords that I'm sure you're quite familiar with by now: Dsus2 and Cadd9.

Dsus2
E_0_
B_3_
G_2_
D_0_
A_x_
E_x_

Cadd9
E_0_
B_3_
G_0_
D_2_
A_3_
E_x_

Re-familiarize yourself with these fingerings:

For the Dsus2 chord, place your first finger on the G-string, second fret and your third finger on the B-string, third fret (yes, like you've been playing it!).

For the Cadd9 chord, place your first finger on the D-string, second fret, your middle finger on the A-string, third fret and your third finger on the B-string, third fret. For those of you who are saying "yeah, yeah, Mark we know how to play those chords," I'm sorry to be so redundant. When you begin to strum these chords together with a more difficult rhythm than usual, I want to make sure that we're all on the same page, okay?!

Alright, so our strum for the day is or "up-down, up-down, up-down," and the final down-stroke that is in bold-faced type is on the second chord. Once you are on the second chord (Cadd9 in this case), strum
or "up-down, down." You will be transitioning to the next chord in mid-strum and hammering onto the notes that are changing. Let me explain further! You have, I'm sure, by now noticed that you can "pin" your third finger and leave it on the B-string, third fret when changing chords. This is an important fact because you will be, in essence, using that finger as a pivot to go back and forth between these two chords. While changing from the D to the C, leave your third finger on the B-string and hammer your first and second fingers onto the A and D strings when changing to the C chord. Hammer your fingers onto the strings. Make sure that you push with some force so that you make good contact with the strings and produce a nice clean sound.

Your rhythm will look like this: D to C and then C to D. What I mean is that you will be playing the strum pattern as above, but then reversed so that you will be strumming on the Cadd9 chord and on the D. You will be hammering onto the G string, second fret as well with your first finger when returning to the Dsus2 chord. Watch me in the video for more on this as it really is simpler than it sounds. Remember to relax your wrist and let the pick flow gently over the strings. Chapter 3: (03:56) Changing Dynamics Dynamics
As I mentioned in the intro, we're gonna rock out a little more today. One key way to do this is by speeding the whole exercise up just a bit (or a lot if you desire). First, get a good handle on the rhythm at half speed. Then, get ready to speed it up!

Exercise 1
Play the chords explained above in the manner delineated. Now, speed up the progression slightly. Remember to hammer-on the appropriate strings as I've indicated. Now speed it up a little more, now a little more, etc. Can you think of a good place to insert a transition strum into the rhythm? Are you remembering to keep your third finger pinned on the B-string? Make sure that you are not moving too fast and sacrificing the sound quality of your chords. If your chords do not sound perfectly clean, slow down and work your way back up.

Hand Positioning
The rhythm that we're using today begins with an upstroke, which is different than most of the strums that we've used up to this point. An important facet of playing a strum like this is hand placement. Beginning with an upstroke requires your strumming hand to be near the high E and B-strings. By placing your wrist closer to these strings, you will be able to play a quicker and more natural strum than if your wrist was placed in the center of the strings. Of course, you will need to change your hand positioning once you switch to the C chord, especially since you are hammering on strings within the D chord. Nevertheless, your start point will change depending upon whether you are beginning with an upstroke or a down stroke. Chapter 4: (05:29) Exercises 2 - 5 Exercise 2
Play the rhythm explained above, but this time, emphasize the second chord in the series. In other words, if you begin with the D, then emphasize the C chord. If you begin on the C, then emphasize the D chord. How do you emphasize you ask? Just play a little louder! Strumming a little harder can be a simple and effective tool to increase the volume and subsequently the power of your playing. Be careful though! Strumming too hard can break strings and picks, so monitor how hard you're rocking out! Do you notice a change in the emotion that these chords produce? What, if any, is the effect of changing the volume of one chord in this series?

Okay, so you might be saying "Mark, what the ? I thought we were gonna rock our more this time!?" Alright, alright, I just thought we would do a little warm-up to get us rolling, okay? So here are the chords for the next series of exercises: A, Cadd9, G and Dadd9/F#. Here are the "new" chords:

A
E_0_
B_2_
G_2_
D_2_
A_0_
E_0_

G
E_3_
B_0_
G_0_
D_0_
A_2_
E_3_

Dadd9/F#
E_0_
B_3_
G_2_
D_0_
A_0_
E_2_

The Dadd9/F# chord is best played (especially when transitioning from the G chord) by placing your first finger on the low E-string, second fret, your middle finger on the G-string, second fret, and your pinky on the B-string, third fret.

Exercise 3
Play through the four chords in this order: A, C add9, G, and Dadd9 using the strum or "down, down-up, down-up" remembering to play the hyphenated strums as snap strums. Play the rhythm "briskly," which means at a moderate tempo. As we've discussed previously, break down the individual changes between chords if certain changes that are giving you more trouble than others. One of these might be the change between G and Gadd9. Take your time and play the changes at half speed at first. Then, speed up gradually.

Exercise 4
Play the exercise explained above, but this time, speed up the tempo. Make sure that you keep time and that you are nailing the chord changes. Again, what effect does a tempo increase have on the overall feel of the progression? Do you feel as if you are "rocking out" harder or simply speeding up the tempo?

Subjectivity
As usual, there is an element of subjectivity when it comes to the feel and interpretation of music. What one person hears as a hard rocking song, another may hear as noise. Henceforth, it is up to the player to decide whether an increase in tempo is actually increasing the intensity of the song, or rather just increasing the speed at which one plays. You make the call!

Exercise 5
Once again it is your responsibility to come up with four chords that you will apply to the exercises in this lesson. Find your four chords and get completely comfortable with them. Then go through all of the exercises in this lesson, including the first sections with the hammer-ons. Find notes that will be easy to hammer onto as you make your chord changes and use the strums that I have given to you for the day. Be creative and listen to what you are playing carefully. Have you chosen chords that work together? Are you nailing your chords and producing a clean sound?

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